The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, suggests that three-year-olds who take a nap after having stories read to them perform better in word-learning tasks than those who stay awake.
As part of the research three-year-old nursery children were read either the same story three times, or three different stories, but were exposed to the same number of unfamiliar words. Half of them had an afternoon nap after the stories and half stayed awake.
The 48 British children that took part were tested individually in their normal nursery or pre-school settings.
When tested two- and- a-half hours, 24 hours and a week after hearing the stories, the children who had slept immediately afterwards performed better than those who had not.
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