Reading to children is a great habit for many reasons. It's a shared activity that provides a good bonding experience, it promotes interest in books and helps raise readers. Add to it, it is educational and improves the child's linguistic, literacy and cognitive development.These days even children's literature has evolved far beyond the page and not only are there e-books but interactive books and storytelling apps. A study was conducted by the University of Michigan where researchers tried to compare how readings went on different mediums. There were 37 parent-child groups where the parent would read to their children from a print book, a tablet book and an interactive tablet book. The children were all about 2-3 years old.Researchers observed when parents who read from digital books, the reading didn't go as well. Children were much more likely to interrupt the session, obstruct the tablet from the parent's view so they could read it, grab the tablet or close the e-book app.Due to such behavior, parents would often have to try to control their children from tapping at the tablet or at the very least angle their body away from their child. According to researchers this could impede a toddlers' willingness to listen or to cooperate with their parents.The study seems to portray reading on a tablet as a small battle rather than a fun shared activity. Tablets and their apps are designed to draw attention and distract from other activities so for young active minds, they're probably not the best to read together on. Maybe a storytelling app can substitute a parent if needed but can't be enjoyed with one.So if you are reading to a toddler, get a print picture book to read and use the tablet for some other shared activity like gaming or watching a video.