by Kathy Myers

Created on: September 19, 2009

While working on my masters degree in education I was required to take a class in educational research. I chose to research the effectiveness of reading aloud to children at the preschool level.

While I was aware that reading aloud had a substantial impact on the child, I was not fully aware of the implications. I had been teaching about four years and I had witnessed first hand the importance of reading practice with my first graders. Reading aloud is the first introduction of reading practice to a child. Reading is the key to reading.

When you read bedtime stories you are creating a love for reading immediately. Your enthusiasm will spill over onto your child. However, if it is drudgery to you, your child will also sense that feeling as well. That could actually do legitimate harm to their perception of reading. Reading aloud should be a time of fun and excitement.

Kids also learn vital skills as they watch and listen to you read. They listen to the inflection of your voice go up and down as you read. It teaches them to know how to read with expression. Nothing is worse than someone reading to you with a monotone delivery. The more you spice up the read aloud time, the more kids will enjoy it. Kids mimic what they see and hear, so using expression is vital to becoming a good reader.

Children become familiar with the basics of reading during read aloud. As you read aloud your child is learning that we read from left to right. Following the sentence with your finger at first is a good thing; this is a visual cue to move from left to right. Also, it teaches starting at the top and progressing to the bottom of the page.

Another benefit of reading aloud is that as you read, the child is looking at the illustrations and making connections in their mind. Illustrations help the comprehension phase of reading. As you read the child may point to, "the big red dog" which shows they are connecting the words to the illustrations.

Giving praise to your child when reading aloud is very important. Giving positive feedback to your child when they accurately select the right illustration creates a sense of accomplishment. Self confidence empowers the child as a reader.

Reading aloud also introduces kids to sound symbol relationships, in other words, they pick up on the relationship that letters make specific sounds. That is the opportune time to say the letter name and make the sound. Your child will most likely start pointing at letters and verbalizing the letter name in no time.

Kids love to read the same book over and over and that's fine. The repetition helps kids begin to predict events, recognize vocabulary, and understand the beginning, middle and ending of a story. They will usually let you know what they want to read, and be sure you emphasize that they are reading too.

If we stress the importance to more parents about the absolutely crucial benefits of reading aloud to their child, hopefully more parents will make the time to read to their kids. When we do this we will see a dramatic shift reading.

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