Imagine for a moment a picturesque little circle of children gathered together on a braided rug near the fire, listening with rapt attention as their mother reads aloud to them from a lovely hardback volume with gilded lettering.
Sounds like something straight out of the 19th century. Pretty hokey, right?
Our read alouds don’t generally look like that. For one, we don’t have a fireplace. Or a braided rug. And I’m reading our current book of choice from my Kindle app rather than from a beautiful hardback. (Though I will choose a hardback over a digital book any day of the week. Sometimes those out-of-print books are hard to come by, however…)
Often my kids are scattered about as I read, drawing or painting at the table or sprawled in the floor playing with Legos.
And mine aren’t cute little tow-headed children. At least, not anymore. The youngest of my four will turn 11 this year, and all of my kids are perfectly capable of reading for themselves. In fact, I make them do it daily.
And yet I read aloud to them anyway. My oldest even joined us for read aloud throughout her senior year of high school, and would join in even now if she could! (Instead she snatches my books and reads ahead in them when I’m not looking. What a troublemaker, right?)
So why do I do it? Why do I read to kids who can obviously read for themselves? Here are just a few reasons.
Reading out loud to my kids develops listening skills, encourages better comprehension, and enriches vocabulary.
No matter how old they are, kids (and adults!) can benefit from listening to good books. I don’t waste our time reading drivel, and so my kids are hearing rich language and learning important lessons from stories with good, complicated plots.
Reading out loud to my kids encourages personal reading.
Get a kid, even a teenager, all wrapped up in a good story, and they will appreciate the wonders of reading on their own! When I read a good book to my kids, it makes them all the more aware that those big, imposing-looking volumes on the shelf can sometimes hold great treasures. They just have to start reading on their own to find them!
It is a wonderful way to share more books, especially heavy, lengthy classics, with my dyslexic.
My daughter loves books, and yet reading can quickly become overwhelming for her, especially on top of other schoolwork. Sometimes I think she feels cheated because her siblings can read books in half the time it takes her to do so, and without a dyslexia-induced headache! She reads and we take advantage of audio books often, but I love that I can introduce her to even more books by reading aloud.
And let me just say that when I read aloud, my dyslexic misses nothing! She somehow remembers and can retell every last detail. Her reading skill may be challenged because of a learning disability, but I find it fascinating that her listening skills are far superior to her siblings’!
Reading aloud makes for some amazing family time.
I’d say most people would agree reading a book as a family is a better use of time than watching TV, and yet I don’t know that many families even watch TV together anymore! In most families, if everybody is even home together at the same time, each member goes their own direction: Every room has its own TV and people go watch their own show or play their own video game or spend time on their own digital device, and there is little interaction and certainly no sharing of a good story.
But I have loved sharing stories with my kids, especially those that were new to me, too, so that we could experience together the beauty of the English language and the twists and turns of a good plot!
I suppose the concept of reading aloud in your family is old-fashioned. Maybe even a little hokey.
But there is nothing like folding together the pages of a book and hearing groans from your children, even your teenagers.
“Oh, don’t stop, Mom! Just one more chapter! Please…”
