It's the bedtime ritual every parent dreads - being asked to read the same book for the umpteenth time.

But while the constant repetition might be mind-numbing for mum or dad, it is the best way for toddlers to learn new words, according to research.

The findings suggest parents are wasting money by spending a fortune on huge book collections in the hope they will inspire their little ones.

Instead, a small selection of favourites such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar or The Gruffalo will achieve far more.

Dr Jessica Horst, of the University of Sussex’s WORD Lab devised an experiment to check how quickly three-year-olds could recognise and recall six new words.

The children were visited three times in a week at their homes.

One group heard the same story three times back-to-back each time and another was read three different stories. All had the same amount of new words which appeared the same number of times.

When researchers returned a week later, they found the children who heard the same story over and over had typically learned 3.6 of the new words.

Those that were exposed to a variety of stories remembered only 2.6.

The also noted the ‘repetition’ group learned at a faster rate than those in the ‘variety’ group.

Dr Horst said: ‘We are showing that less is more, to a point. Obviously, the more times you read to a child and the more books you have will help them. But you don’t need to go crazy and buy every single Thomas the Tank Engine book. Reading the same books over and over again helps.’

Previous studies have found parents spend just 49 minutes doing things with their children each day. One in three don’t read to their children before putting them to bed at night. Yet 30 minutes of one-on-one literacy sessions can improve reading age by nearly two years in less than five months.

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(Source: Dailymail)