The Power of Read Aloud Part 1

This blog post is designed to give you the arguments for why Read Aloud should be a priority in your classroom. I will try to address some of the issues identified above and more. [N.B. This post will be followed by another post which will focus on the ‘How’ of Read Aloud.]

We teach children how to read so that they will want to read – for information and for leisure.

“This is a topic that has fascinated me since I first began teaching. As a young beginning teacher, I was amazed how reading good books out loud could sometimes calm my students – and at other times provoke their curiosity. I noticed how some children – who were quite easily distracted at other times of the day – would quickly become enthralled – if I chose the books well.  I noticed that some books had the magic and others did not.  I discovered that the advice of a good librarian was worth gold and – I learnt – the hard way- that I should always read a book before reading it to a class. I discovered that to judge a book by its cover was not wise. I also learnt that I needed to train my students to listen to books.

Throughout my career I have continued to Read Aloud to all ages from babies to adults – But I am concerned that The Power of Read Aloud is underestimated in some classrooms in the current era. I hope that my blog post might inspire you to introduce or reinvigorate this powerful teaching strategy in your school or classroom.”

“When someone reads aloud, they raise you to the level of the book. They give you reading, as a gift”
 (Pennac, 2006, p. 96). 

While one of our most important jobs as teachers, is to teach students how to read, we also need to inspire them to want to read.  Read Aloud can show them that the effort is worthwhile.

Why has Read Aloud disappeared from so many classrooms?

Sometimes teachers tell me they know that Read Aloud is important but follow that up with statements like –

‘we just don’t have time’. . . 

‘it is no longer a priority at our school’. . .

‘we have such a crowded curriculum already’. . .

‘I wouldn’t know what books to read to upper primary students’ etc.

I have even had teachers tell me that they aren’t good at Reading Aloud.

Do your students think you like reading?

“In some research conducted in 2016, that examined children’s perceptions of their teachers as readers, the researchers found that some primary-aged students viewed reading as something done purely for testing, due to the way it was positioned by teachers within the classroom, influencing their valuing of the activity, as well as their overall understanding of its universal purpose” (Merga & Ledger, 2019).

The Swiss Army Knife of effective reading and writing pedagogy

Brian Cambourne, described Read Aloud as the Swiss Army Knife of effective reading and writing pedagogy in Stephen Layne’s book – ‘In Defence of Read Aloud’. Cambourne started by referring to a Google search based on the question ‘Why should teachers read aloud to their students? In the slide below you will see some of the many, responses. I tried this same google search, and while I haven’t done the count that Cambourne did, there were many hundreds of responses.

Making reading visible

e.g. “As I was turning the page I was expecting the next word to be ‘islands’ but it was actually ‘archipelago’ – I asked –

1. Does anyone know what an archipelago is?

Yes, archipelago is a group or chain of islands. That might be a new word for some of you.

I was thinking about what would make sense as I turned the page and my prediction was correct in terms of the meaning – ‘islands’ – but ‘archipelago’ was the actual word.

OR I could have said

2. I had been expecting to see ‘islands’ as I turned the page – but the word was actually ‘archipelago’

Can someone take responsibility for looking up the word archipelago and report back to us before we go to recess?

Modelling the reading process allow students to experience the intricacies of reading that they might not otherwise observe.   

Read Aloud and Vocabulary

Research suggests that the process of reading aloud to children supports incidental learning of new vocabulary introduced in books. The more often children are read to, the more substantial the vocabulary gains. (Merga & Ledger, 2019).

Enriched language exposure

Oral language patterns are different to written language patterns.

Through good Read Aloud experiences students are introduced to words in ways that may be outside their personal experiences – and current reading capacity. Words are used differently in written text forms and unless children are read to a lot at home, they may not hear words they need for their learning – as they progress through school.

. . . reading aloud allows for enriched language exposure, helping young people to acquire essential emergent literacy skills that support further development in reading, including phonological awareness and word recognition. While it can be contended that “active listening by the student can promote reading comprehension” (NRP, 2000, p. 296).

Reading aloud:

• helps students learn how to use language to make sense of the world

• improves their information processing skills, vocabulary, and comprehension.
• targets the skills of audio learners.

Fostering a positive attitude towards reading

Reading aloud to children can foster positive attitudes toward reading. Recent research found that when teachers read aloud to their children with expression and emotional connection, they are perceived by their students to be reading models (Merga, 2016), and young people typically continue to enjoy being read to into the middle school (Albright & Ariail, 2005; Clark & Andreasen, 2014) and beyond, though reading aloud is often curtailed beyond the early years of schooling (Merga, 2015; Merga, 2017a). (Merga & Ledger, 2019).

• Teachers who read aloud motivate students to read.
• Books that are read aloud to older students can instil a love of literature and a better understanding of universal concepts.
• One good book, read well, can turn a child who reads for pleasure, or information – not just because they are told they should read.

Listening Skills and concentration

Hearing a text read out loud gives students the opportunity to improve their listening skills.  The regular practice of active listening requires patience and attention, two skills that are necessary for becoming strong independent readers.  Listening to a text will also give students a chance to develop sustained concentration, which may lead to deeper thinking and reflection. 

Listening Comprehension 

Read aloud develops concentration and listening comprehension.  Listening Comprehension is the ability to make sense of the words we hear and reading comprehension is the ability to make sense of the words we read. Listening comprehension is the precursor to reading comprehension, so it is a critical skill for children to develop.

When students hear a story read aloud, good listening comprehension skills enable them to understand the story, remember it, discuss it, and even retell it in their own words. Listening Comprehension therefore helps to build reading comprehension.

Reading Aloud as an equity issue

• When we read aloud to students, they are all equal – we give them the gift of reading and show them why learning to read is worth the effort.
• We want students who want to read – not students who know how to read – but choose not to read. 
• This is particularly important in Upper Primary where the reading development may vary a great deal. You may have students who cannot read books that are actually of great interest to them – topics and concepts that they can engage in discussion with – if you do the decoding – by reading the text aloud.
• Students lucky enough to be in a classroom with a teacher who reads quality books out loud daily, will have their literacy learning supported in many ways, including phonemic awareness, and the development of an ear for the patterns and rhythms of written language.

The Read Aloud Guest Chair

One of the best strategies I introduced into a Prep/Kindergarten classroom was the Read Aloud Guest Chair. I had a roster of volunteers who came to read aloud to between 2 and 3 children at a time – while the rest of us just got on with our day. In 30 minutes, they might read to two groups of students. While the photo below shows my mother reading to my granddaughter, it is this experience I was trying to replicate.

The volunteers included parents, Grandparents, uni students, year 6 students and even a school cleaner. In fact, the school cleaner was my most reliable volunteer. She was wonderful. I had an old chair in the corner of the room and children took it in turns to go to the reading chair (usually 2 at a time). They just sat with the Read Aloud Guest for a book or two and then went back to their normal class routines. It was as close to home story time as I could make it. It became very popular with both volunteers and children.

Drawing, writing and retelling

• Reading good books to children also creates opportunities for retelling and ideas for drawing and writing.

• Favourite books can become mentor texts for writing instruction.

References

• Lane, S. L. (2016). In defence of read-aloud. Hawker Brownlow.
• Merga, M. K., & Ledger, S. (2019). Teachers’ attitudes toward and frequency of engagement in reading aloud in the primary classroom. Literacy (Oxford, England), 53(3), 134-142. https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12162
• Pennac, D. (2006). The rights of the reader. Walker Books.

The next Read Aloud post will look at the ‘How’ of Read Aloud