Benefits of Reading to Children

Why read aloud? The benefits of reading to children are many, and both parents and educators need to know the importance of reading to children.

Teachers know that the amount of time spent on reading to children - especially by parents - is a great indicator of how well that child will perform in the classroom.

Teachers know the joy that comes with reading aloud to a child. We see the rich vocabulary show up in their writing, hear them using higher-level vocabulary in their daily interactions, and see children reading books more on their own.

But is there evidence that that supports the benefits of reading to children?

7 Key Benefits of Reading to Children

This is number one of all the benefits of reading to children.

There are only two ways you can get more words into a child's head: ears and eyes. If the child comes from an environment where little printed material is available, they rarely hear lots of different vocabulary being used (such as is the case with children from poverty-stricken homes), then you have to get it into them.

Reading to children will get them hearing enriched vocabulary, and when they revisit the story again and again during their reading time, they are working on their fluency skills. Through reading to children, you have made the text accessible by introducing unknown words.

2. Promotes comprehension and critical thinking skills.

Through your discussion, questioning and scaffolding of background knowledge, you can tailor a read aloud towards any specific reading skill. If you use reciprocal teaching consistently when reading to children, you will see a dramatic growth in their comprehension skills. Critical thinking is promoted when you question why a character acted in a certain manner, how could the ending be changed, what if the protagonist was a different character (for you upper grades!)

Allow the students to re-read the text many times after you have read it aloud. Even if the student cannot "read" all of the words on his or her own, remember that you have already made the text accessible by reading it aloud. The child can tell the story to a buddy from the pictures, which is working on summarizing (a key comprehension skill.

Reading to children is a bonding experience that should be pleasurable for both students and teachers (or moms and dads).

On the Children Reading page, I discussed how this plays into the benefits of reading to children. If you miss this important fact, you have lost a golden opportunity that is so easy to implement.

4. Allows the teacher to demonstrate excellent oral reading fluency and techniques.

You cannot expect your students have wonderful oral reading techniques if you never demonstrate it. That's not fair to them. If you don't feel comfortable reading aloud to children, then you need to work on it. Practice each book before your read it, decide how you want the voices to sound, be aware of how your voice goes up on a question, try different facial expressions, look for dramatic pauses...it won't be long before it becomes second nature to you to do this every time you read.

5. It makes quality literature accessible for all students.

Refer back to numbers 1 and 2. You will have many students whose homes do not have much literature in them. You need to fill that void through exposure, and make it fun for them. You have to get them on board with you, because students from poverty stricken homes do not count reading as their number one priority.

They are concerned with where they will sleep tonight, if mom or dad is ever coming home, if they will have dinner and breakfast tomorrow, if someone will be there when they get home...that's your competition when you ask them to focus on reading, writing, math...anything. So make authentic literature accessible for these kids through read alouds.

Think about how we converse with each other. Our spoken language is much different than the language used in books (and be sure to tell your students that!). This is one of the benefits of reading to children that you can't get with just talking to them!

Your students will encounter a richer, more expanded vocabulary through reading than they will any other way. If you teach them how to clarify the meaning (a reciprocal teaching strategy) of unknown words and phrases through read alouds, you are providing them with a lifelong tool they will use when they are ready to step out more onto their own.

7. It introduces a variety of genres that students might never be exposed to.

Reading aloud to children is not only confined to a fictional picture book. There are so many options today for reading aloud. Just within the category of picture books you can find mysteries, historical non-fiction, poetry, biographies, fantasy, narratives, science fiction, science non-fiction, and more.

One of the benefits of reading to children is the opportunity to read from many different genres - you never know what might spark a particular interest for a student.

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