While some of us enjoy curling up with a good book, others prefer watching a series or playing videogames. But from the perspective of neuroscience, reading is much more than just entertainment.

This is especially true for children and teenagers. In the young brain, reading stimulates specific cognitive processes that can make a major difference in adult life.

Reading is important during adolescence because it is a stage where the brain is still developing. Throughout this stage, there is an intense reorganisation of the neural networks that strengthen reasoning, planning and behavioural control.

One of the key brain structures in this process is the prefrontal cortex, a region associated with what are known as executive functions, which are responsible for sustaining attention, inhibiting distractions and controlling information processing. Certain experiences during this stage can catalyse cognitive development, and help to consolidate these abilities.

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Understanding a long text activates many of the mental processes that the adolescent brain is still constructing: sustaining attention over a prolonged period, recalling prior information, making connections between ideas, forming predictions, spotting inconsistencies and actively constructing the meaning of the story. Far from being a........

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