What do a three year old and a ten year old have in common?
They both still love to listen to a book read aloud. Teachers in all of our
classrooms read aloud to their students nearly every day. There are great benefits to reading aloud to children. One of the most powerful tools for expanding a child’s vocabulary is listening to books that have interesting words in them. Picture books are meant to be read aloud and often contain sophisticated words. If a child is already reading, then listening to a book of interest written at one or two grade levels above their current grade level will also promote vocabulary growth. When encountering a word new for a child, prompt the child to use the context clues from the story and the sentence to guess the meaning. Then, explain the word and have the child quickly relay the meaning of the word back to the story.
Reading aloud promotes a strong model for children. When
listening to stories at home, the child sees that the family member reading
aloud is engaged in reading and that this is an important activity in the home.
At school, students have an opportunity to listen to a range of books read
aloud for a variety of purposes.
At both home and at school, the attention span of the child is increased
as they listen to stories for longer periods of time and as the complexity of
the stories increase.
Reading level and listening level are different. As the
child begins to read, shared reading with easy books will contribute to
feelings of success for the child. Reading more advanced books to the child
will instill a love of books and motivation. The books pictured in this entry
are selections that are being read aloud at school in the various grades. Links below
will lead to book lists that can be used to select books to read to your child
at home. Of course reading favorite books from your own childhood is a
wonderful experience to share with your children as well.
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