Children's Reading Threatened by TV

According to the BBC, UK Children's Secretary Ed Balls thinks children should spend less time playing video games and watching TV and more time reading. In fact, 15% of children in the UK are never read to by their parents. That is a crime! Speaking of crime, Balls touted the benefits of reading:

It's probably one of the best anti-poverty, anti-deprivation, anti-crime, anti-vandalism policies you can think of....All parents have to strike the right balance. TV is great - children learn from TV.

Children may learn from TV, but parents need to be cautioned about such "edutainment". Time magazine states,

…with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos. These products had the strongest detrimental effect on babies 8 to 16 months old, the age at which language skills are starting to form.

Don't forget about these staggering statistics on reading aloud to your young child. Children of all ages benefit from being read to aloud!