Over 173 countries celebrate World Read Aloud Day, where participants are challenged to find an audience, a book, and read aloud. When parents read aloud with their kids, they help create a love for reading, develop key understanding and build fundamental foundational skills.
What Is A Read Aloud
Read-Aloud is an enjoyable and instructional method where parents and teachers read aloud to kids. The change in tone, pitch, volume, and dramatic pauses engages the reader and eye contact, and class discussion promises an engaging and pleasant delivery.
According to Resenblatt (1987), reading is a transactional process where the reader transacts with the text for meaning to occur. Listeners draw on interacting knowledge sources to make meaning. These sources include prior knowledge, making connections, answering open-ended questions, generating questions, and presenting an alternative perspective.
What Is The Purpose Of Read-Alouds?
A read-aloud encourages students to read by showing them the positive effects of reading. Read-aloud gives all the children access to the content while developing active listening skills. It helps students pronounce unfamiliar words and presents a model of fluent reading.
Benefits Of The Read-Aloud Process
Read-alouds are the foundation for literacy development. Children hear the words and phonemes of words before they can read the written word. According to the 1985 Becoming a Nation of Readers report (p.23), reading aloud to young kids was the “single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading.”
Students Listening Level
Listening skills include the abilities of students to be patient, concentrate, and pay attention when hearing the read-aloud text. These skills help develop independent reading levels and comprehension skills, leading to deeper thinking and reflection development.
Fun Experience
Children experience the fun of engaging with the text with fluent, expressive reading. Read-aloud effective practices inspire them to want to learn to read themselves.
Background Knowledge
Reading aloud to students increases their background knowledge which helps with reading comprehension. When classroom teachers read aloud to students, they introduce new information on various topics to the class. Students use this prior knowledge to help them understand the meaning of the new text when they read independently.
Comprehension Growth
Metacognition is one of the key components of reading comprehension development. When students learn and understand their thought processes and text is read aloud to them, they can focus on understanding texts without struggling with words they don’t understand.
This type of comprehension activity provides a less stressful environment to apply background knowledge, connect ideas, and discover new words.
Vocabulary Development
Reading aloud offers a beneficial context for students to learn new vocabulary. They hear new words in context, a foundational step in learning a language and speaking the language. Students reading independently at their reading level aren’t exposed to as many new words as when teachers use read-aloud above the students’ current reading level.
Active Conversation
Accomplished teachers use read-aloud methods to engage students in conversations and discussions. Read-aloud inspires active conversation about the topic read. For example, suppose the text is about vegetables. In that case, they invite the whole class to a conversation about vegetables, likewise with animals, math, the craft of writing, or whatever topic the current lesson is about.
Communication Skills
Read-aloud builds a community of learners who share literary knowledge; this inclusivity provides a platform for students to develop their communication skills. Teachers offer a conversation prompt or common question that starts a conversation.
Word Pronunciation
The hearing text read by proficient readers help students listen to the correct pronunciation of unfamiliar words, especially ELL students (English Language Learner).
Benefits Of Reading Aloud To Older Students
Read aloud techniques are generally used in elementary school, where kids learn to read. Reading aloud enhances understanding and the desire to read independently. In middle school, reading skills catch up with listening level. Students who struggle with reading become more evident in middle school.
However, research supports the implementation of reading aloud to older students. Reading aloud to middle schoolers offers an opportunity for active participation and learning of the reading process.
Instead of reading textbook passages and answering questions, teachers can show students the joy of reading with read-aloud techniques.
Read-Alouds Teaching Strategies
Opportunities for literacy learning are abundant in the classroom, but when teachers teach read-aloud strategies to students, students work on a target learning goal.
How To Read Aloud
Select The Read-Aloud Text
Find an engaging story that will hold students’ attention. When children choose the book to read, it is more likely to grab and hold their attention because it’s a topic that interests them.
Access To Read-Aloud Text
When a child has a copy of the book or text, they can follow along. Alternatively, the teacher can hold up the book for the students to follow the reading.
Comments About The Text
Read a paragraph or a few lines and pause to give students the opportunity to comment, predict the outcome, and clarify misconceptions.
Emphasize Sections Of Read-Aloud Text
When kids reread a paragraph or section, they find other words and ideas. The teacher can emphasize text sections by asking students to reread the text aloud or silently.
Interactive Read-Aloud Method
Interactive read-alouds allow teachers to share text with the class and students to engage in thoughtful conversations related to the text. It is a listening comprehension strategy. The learning goal is to model to students what active thinking is while reading the text.
Introduces The Book
The teacher introduces the book by showing the students the book cover, the illustrator, and the author. Active student involvement initiates by activating and using the background knowledge students acquired to engage their interest in the book.
Read-Alouds
Teachers model thinking aloud to students during the interactive read-aloud lesson. The interactive read-aloud experience provides an opportunity for students to listen, focus, make connections and identify key elements in the story.
Discussion Pointers
During the interactive read-aloud lesson, many teachers pause, giving students time for guided reading practice to discuss and rehearse the discussion pointers modeled by the teacher.
Alphaboxes Strategy
Alphaboxes is a prereading or post-reading activity that motivates collaborative discussions. Teachers can combine the active reading of informational storybooks with Alphaboxes strategy. The strategy will encourage students to move beyond simple recall of text information.
Discussion Web Activity For First Graders
A discussion web sheet is a graphic organizer enabling kids to examine both sides before agreeing on a conclusion. Students share, discuss, and resolve their individual ideas with a partner based on their text knowledge. A conversational discussion with another pair leads to understanding texts and agreeing on the conclusions.
The discussion web strategy supports collaborative learning approaches, enhancing critical thinking skills. It is an effective learning method for forms of own writing like debates, discussion pointers, and persuasive arguments.
Read-Aloud Books For Children
Using a picture book in read-alouds helps children experience new words; they hear the word and see the picture. Reading chapter books with students stir the imagination when students hear the text.
Recommended book lists assist teachers in choosing books that help with engagement strategies. Bilingual books introduce children to bilingual texts with new words in non-native languages. A collection of books in the classroom library give all the students access to books on various topics. Electronic books are another way of introducing book recommendations to kids.