Why Read 20 Minutes a Day

The Read-Aloud Handbook (1995), by noted speaker and author Jim Trelease, is an outstanding book for parents to check out from our LMC. The answers to common questions below are paraphrased from The Read-Aloud Handbook. The book has excellent ideas for parents about ways to read with children at home.

Why read aloud at home? A child's listening vocabulary is higher than a child's reading vocabulary. Children understand spoken words long before being able to read those same words. Reading aloud provides a listening vocabulary that the child can then use as background when reading. If a child has heard the word before, it will be easier to read it and understand it than if he or she has never heard the word.

How does reading aloud enrich language? Written words are more structured and generally more complicated than spoken English. Children who are read to learn two languages, the standard English of books and spoken daily language through conversations. When written work is revised, authors go through the process of choosing the best words to convey their meaning. This rich language is not always used in our speaking vocabularies, but reading aloud provides a solid vocabulary foundation.

Why should my child read at home? The more children read, the better they get at reading. The better they get at reading, the more they will enjoy it, and the more they enjoy it, the more they will do it. Reading also improves fluency (The amount of text a child can read and comprehend quickly.) The more children can read and comprehend quickly, the more they will learn as they switch from the primary grades (K-2) where they mainly read what they already know in their speaking vocabulary to intermediate grades of 3rd-5th grade where they begin to read to learn new information