How to Read Aloud

This chapter is the most important one in the book. This is where we share ideas about how to read aloud to children. We begin by discussing how to prepare for reading aloud. Next, we turn to how to do the reading and what other things we can do while reading aloud. Then, we suggest a few activities that we might want to do with children after the reading aloud. Please bear in mind that just as we vary the books we read aloud according to children’s age, so too will we vary the way that we read aloud according to children’s age. Thus, this chapter’s final two sections deal with how to read aloud to babies and how to read aloud to children in upper primary school and older.

Preparing to Read Aloud

Where books are kept

One aspect of preparation for reading involves having the books in a place the children can easily find and reach them. Therefore, books should be kept where children can get to them easily, unless a book is fragile and children are likely to be rough with the books. Only very special books should be locked away behind glass cabinet doors or in cupboards.

For young children, books can be stored on a low bookcase shelf. A special place in children’s bedrooms is ideal. Being able to get to books encourages children to take a role in choosing which books to read and to read the books on their own, even if this ‘reading’ is nothing more than turning the pages and looking at the pictures.

Library books should be kept in a separate place. This makes it easier to find them so that they get back to the library by their due date. Also, special attention must be paid to proper care of library books in order that they are returned in good condition to be enjoyed by many future readers.

Selecting books for read aloud sessions

In the chapter on How to Choose Books, we looked at various ideas about which books to use for reading aloud. Now that we have bought, borrowed, swapped, been given or otherwise obtained a variety of books for reading aloud, we need to decide which book or books to select for a particular read aloud session.

Children should be involved in this decision, although we should have a vote as well. Getting the children involved encourages them to develop their own tastes in reading and to pursue those tastes.

Books can be selected based on something that happened during the day or something that is coming up in the children’s lives. For instance, reading a book about kindergarten before children go for the first time prepares children for the new experience and may overcome their fears.

Sometimes, children will want to read the same book again and again. As we will discuss later in this chapter, rereading books offers many benefits. However, there can be too much of a good thing. One way to help children move away from always reading the same book is to select a combination of books. For instance, one can be the favourite book that the child cannot seem to get enough of, another can be a book we have read to the child before and a third book can be a new one. In this way, we have the best of both worlds: the value that comes from repeated readings and the exposure that comes from new books.

In situations when we are going to read to more than one child and the children are of different ages, we may not be able to find a book that will be right for all of them. In this case, the best solution may be to first read to one child and then to the other.

Preparing ourselves

Remember that our goal in reading aloud to children is to convince them to love reading. Just like sellers need to know their products well and believe in their value in order to convince customers to buy them, we need to know the books we will read well and believe in their value in order to convince children of the joys of reading. Thus, we need to prepare ourselves before reading aloud a book.

The first thing we need to do when preparing to read aloud is to read the book to ourselves silently. While reading, here are some things to think about:

a.       where in the book we should use different voices, such as when different characters speak

b.      where we should speak softer or louder, such as when someone is whispering or shouting

c.       where we can add sound effects, such as when cows moo or bells ring

d.      whether we should skip any sections or pages, such as a long description that may be uninteresting

e.       which words we should emphasise, such as words with important meaning

f.       whether we should change any difficult words or spend time to explain them

g.      where we can stop and ask a question or make a connection to children’s lives

h.      what sort of rhythm we should use, especially when reading poetry.

After previewing the book silently, we may want to practice reading the book aloud. Please don’t think this means that only professional actors can read aloud. We just do the best we can. The children will enjoy our reading even if we are not ready for the stage.

If being able to read well in the language of the book is a serious concern, we can look for recordings of books, such as on CD. After we hear the story read aloud by a professional a couple times, we can take over.

Another type of preparation we can do involves finding out about the authors of the books we are going to read aloud. Knowing about authors gives children and us insight into the book and helps us connect to that book and to others by the same author. Libraries and the Internet can be a source of this information.

While preparation is useful, reading aloud does not always have to be planned in advance. Especially with older children, we may be reading a newspaper or magazine and come upon an article that catches our attention and say to ourselves, “This may of interest. Maybe I’ll read it aloud.”

A place to read aloud

Turn off the tv. In addition to preparing ourselves for reading aloud, before we start to read, we should make the place we will be using as conducive as possible for successful reading. Beware distractions. The number one distraction is the television. Everyone has seen children spend endless hours glued to the tv, their mouths open. Everyone has heard children scream and holler when they don’t get to watch their favourite show or, worse, are told the tv must be turned off.

Yes, watching television does have some benefits, but even the alleged benefits of television are probably exaggerations. Studies commissioned by the producers of Sesame Street found very little positive effect on children’s literacy or numeracy (the ability to use numbers) from watching hundreds of hours of the show.

But probably the worst thing about tv is how it kills communication. Too many families eat dinner in front of the tv, rather than talking to one another. The one good thing about tv advertisements used to be that they gave people a chance to talk, except that now with remote controls, people are too busy channel surfing to talk. In contrast, reading aloud is made for communication. First of all, we are talking to children as we read aloud to them. Even more, when we pause in our reading for questions and discussion, we open up a broad avenue for talking about everything and anything.

It is not a good idea to try to read with the television on. We often will lose the battle if we try to compete against the allure of the tv. Turn it off. This may cause howls of dismay, but if we start in right away with our reading, the howling usually stops soon after.

Other distractions. Many other distractions can make reading aloud more difficult, and sometimes we cannot avoid them. These distractions include other children playing nearby and computer games. If we cannot eliminate these distractions, we just have to try our best to ignore them by getting ourselves and the children so wrapped up in the story that nothing else exists for us.

One way to lessen distractions is to have a regular place for reading aloud, a place away from most distractions. This special place should be comfortable for us and for the children you read to. We and the children can also go to this place when we want to read silently either alone or together with each person having their own book.

Questions to ask about this special place include:

¨      Is there room for everyone to sit comfortably?

¨      Is there sufficient light?

¨      Is the temperature sufficiently cool or warm?

A time for reading aloud

Having a regularly scheduled time for reading aloud can be a useful way of eliminating distractions. Children know that at that time other things stop - for instance, the television is turned off - and reading aloud begins. Having a regular read aloud time also makes it less likely that a day will go by without any reading, because children will remind us.

The correct time for reading aloud depends on our schedule and the children’s schedule. This will differ from person to person and from year to year, but for many people the best reading aloud time is just before children go to sleep. At that time, children tend to be a bit less energetic and more willing to sit still and listen.

Of course, we can also read at unscheduled times. That is why having a book or two handy is always a good idea. For instance, we may take a child for a 10:00am doctor’s appointment but end of waiting until 11:00 before we get to see the doctor. In such cases, we’ll be very glad that we brought some books along. When choosing a moment for an unscheduled read aloud, we should pick times when children are likely to be in the mood for a book, for example, right after a tv show has ended or when they have just taken a bath.

When children are ill, reading aloud can be a welcome activity to do by their bedside. Books keep children’s minds away from the discomfort they may be experiencing and make what would ordinarily be lost time laying in bed into productive time spent learning and enjoying via books.

The best reason for an unscheduled read aloud session is that children have requested one. We will not always be able to immediately comply with their request, but it is great to see their eagerness for books and that they are taking an active role in their own reading. So, if we are not free at that moment, we should suggest the soonest possible alternative time.

Being read to should be voluntary for children. We should not force them. If children aren’t interested in reading at a particular time, we can try to entice them. For instance, we can show them the cover or a particularly colourful drawing inside the book, or you can talk about something appealing in the story. However, we shouldn’t push too hard. We can wait for another opportunity. One of the benefits of a regular read aloud time is that it makes it less difficult to tempt children.

Many adults report having the opposite problem, that is children who seem to have an unquenchable thirst for reading aloud. That’s great, but it can be tiring for us. As Lee Tzu Pheng advises, it may be better to stop reading before children run out of interest. We can promise (and keep our promise) that we will read aloud to them again tomorrow.

Seating

Getting comfortably seated is the final step before beginning to read aloud. How we and the children are seated for reading aloud depends on the children’s age. Infants can be held in our arms as we read to them, or they can be laying down. For toddlers and older, our laps are favourite places until the children get too large to fit or feel awkward sitting there.

Side by side is also a nice seating arrangement, especially if we are reading to more than one child at a time. If we have more than a couple children in our audience, it may be best for them to face us. When the book we are reading has illustrations, we should be sure that the children can see the illustrations. If several children are participating, some will not be able to see the illustrations as we read. So, we need to pause occasionally in our reading and move the book so that they can see the illustrations.

With older children, we will often be reading books without pictures, so these children do not need to be sitting too close to us. Also, children can have a say in how we sit for reading aloud. This is another way of encouraging them to take control of their own reading.

While Reading Aloud

Setting the mood

Many simple things can be done to set the mood for a book. In education, they call this anticipatory set. For instance, if the story is a mango, before reading, we can bring out a mango and eat it with the children. Before reading a story about kites, we can talk to the children about their experiences flying kites or seeing them flown. Or, if the story is about an animal the children might not know, such as an ox, we can show the children pictures of oxen on the cover of the book or on an inside page.

We do not always need to set the mood, especially if children are already keen to read a particular book. Nevertheless, by just taking a minute to talk about the topic of the book, we may be able to increase children’s interest in the book and also build their knowledge of the book’s context.

Getting started

Instead of jumping right into the first page of the book, we should start by reading the title. Titles may give children a useful preview or hint about what is in store for them as they listen to the book. Also, if children know the book’s title, it is easier for them to talk about the book and to ask for it again.

We also want to highlight the authors of books. If we can find some interesting information on authors, we should share that too. By showing authors (and illustrators) as people, we give children the idea that books don’t grow on trees; they are written by people, and maybe the children can be writers too, as we discuss later in this chapter.

How to read

Jim Trelease, author of the excellent Read Aloud Handbook, says that the most frequent mistake that adults make when reading aloud to children is to read too fast. Some adults read one page after another, and before you know it, the book is finished. Many books for young children have only 16 pages or less with one sentence a page. If we are trying to get into the Guinness Books of World Records for most books read in 10 minutes, we can easily knock off 20 such books in that time.

The key point to remember is that reading aloud is a journey, not a race. The longer it takes to get to the end of the book, the better. When reading aloud, our main focus is not on the book; the book is merely a tool for engaging children in a discussion about life and, to a lesser extent, about language. Much of the rest of this chapter provides ideas on how reading aloud can be a long, enjoyable, productive journey.

Part of reading at the right speed is reading slowly, pronouncing words clearly but naturally. If we make the opposite error and read too slowly, we provide a bad model of pronunciation and may actually make it harder for children to understand the book.

Making mistakes

Speaking of pronunciation, even if we prepare carefully for our reading aloud, even if we read slowly and even if we have read the book before, we are sure to sometimes make mistakes. Mistakes are no big deal. Many mistakes do not affect the meaning of the story or children’s enjoyment. Further, nobody’s perfect; we all make mistakes.

In fact, by letting children know that we have made a mistake, we are telling them that mistakes are not disasters, that it’s okay to make them sometimes. This realistic approach to mistakes helps ease children’s worries about reading and encourages them to take chances when doing their own reading and in other activities related to reading, such as discussing books.

When we discuss books with children, children will also make errors, such as errors in grammar or pronunciation. Sometimes, we may want to tell them that they are wrong, but more often we should ignore the error entirely or use a soft kind of correction by correctly using the grammatical structure or correctly pronouncing the word without mentioning that the children have made a mistake. For example, if a child says, “Yesterday, I eat some papaya” we can respond, “Oh, you ate a papaya yesterday. Was it nice?”

Voice variety

We can make the book come alive by varying the way we speak, for example, by:

1.      using different voices for different characters

2.      varying how loudly we read

3.      adding sound effects, such as the sound of the wind or the bzzzz of bees

4.      highlighting important words.

Voice variety adds drama and fun to reading aloud. For some books, a serious tone may be appropriate, but for many books we should relax and be creative in our reading. The children will enjoy it more and we will get a lot of fun out of our time “on the stage.”

Getting the whole body involved

It is not only our voices that can get into the act when we are reading aloud. The rest of our bodies can also animate the experience. For example, our facial expression can show emotion, such as raised eyebrows to express surprise. A finger can point to relevant parts of the book or to something nearby related to the story. Gestures can explain vocabulary. A hand can pat children on the shoulder to encourage them to contribute their ideas. We can walk like a chicken or gallop like a horse.

This way, reading aloud becomes like theatre, and children will seldom be able to resist joining in the fun. Yes, there is also a place for just sitting down and calmly reading aloud a book. The above ideas, as with the rest of those in this chapter, are just suggestions. Whether you adopt them depends on the book you are reading, the children you are reading to, your own personality and the children’s mood and your own at the particular time you are reading.

Changing the book

Sometimes we start reading aloud a book to children and see that the book just isn’t working, at least not today. We thought it would, but we were wrong. No need to finish that book. We can just pick up another book and go with that one. Maybe we can try that first book another time. Also, some books start slowly and take a while to get interesting.  Before giving up on a book, we should consider if perhaps it is one of these slow starters.

Another approach to take when a book does not seem to be working is to change the book. We do not need to read every word or even every page in a book. In fact, we can even change the words. The key is the way we approach books. The view used to be that reading was a one-way transmission of information from the page to our minds. Now, we realise that each reader – including each child listening as we read aloud – changes the book by adding their own interpretation based on their own experiences, expectations and beliefs. These changes take place whether or not we read the book as it was written.

Here are some ways we can change books.

¨      Skip or summarise parts that may be uninteresting to particular children

¨      Replace difficult words with easier ones

¨      Just talk about the pictures without reading the words

¨      Insert the children’s names, the names of people they know and the names of places they know instead of the book’s characters and settings

¨      Change the book’s ending if you and/or the children do not like the original ending

Questions, questions and more questions

Children will often enjoy imitating us as we use our voices and bodies to add our own spices to a book. The general principle here is as Betty Ansin Smallwood notes in her very useful book The literature connection: A read-aloud guide for multi-cultural classrooms, a book should be used “as a springboard, not a chain” (p. 40).

In other words, we start with a book, but the book is just a tool for launching all sorts of other activities. One of the best ways of using books as springboards is via questions, both the ones we ask and the ones children ask. These questions can come before, during and after reading. We want to use a wide variety of questions.

Types of questions. One way to distinguish different questions is to label them as thin or fat. Thin questions have very sparse answers. For instance, a yes/no question for the book Tiger Woman by Laurence Yep, such as “Did the old woman give the old man any bean curd?” is a thin question, because the answer might only be one word, yes or no. Examples of fat questions for the same book might be, “Why didn’t the old woman give the old man any bean curd?” or “What was a time that someone wouldn’t share with you?” These fat questions are likely to lead to longer answers. Remember that our key goal in reading aloud is not to finish the book by reading it page by page, but instead to use the book as a tool to generate discussion.

Another way to classify questions is as retrieval questions or thinking questions. For retrieval questions, the answer is right there on the page. All children need to do is to go find it. In contrast, with thinking questions, children use what is on the page, but need to go beyond that. An example of a retrieval question for Tiger Woman would be “What animal did the old woman turn into after she had turned into a tiger?” An example of a thinking question would be “What is another animal that the woman could have turned into?”

While fat questions are often thinking questions, and thin questions are often retrieval questions, this is not always the case. All types of questions have their place, but too often adults’ questions are thin, retrieval questions. We need to introduce a greater variety of questions. Other examples of fat, thinking questions are:

¨      What is your opinion?

¨      What would you do in this situation?

¨      How are you similar to or different from ______ (a character in the book)?

¨      What did you learn from this book?

¨      What else would you like to read on this same topic? (for non-fiction)

The easy way to turn a thin question into a nice juicy fat one is to add “Why?” This question word is a great device for adding thinking to almost any question. Other thinking questions that we can ask with many books include:

¨      Has anything like that ever happened to you?

¨      Have you ever seen something like that?

¨      What does this remind you of?

¨      How did you feel when we read about _________ (a particular event or piece of information in the book)?

¨      What do you think about this character?

¨      Did you enjoy the book?

¨      Who might like to read this book?

Please note how these questions and the previous list of questions connect children with the book by bringing in children’s opinions, feelings and experiences.

While we should pay attention to the questions we ask, we need to bear in mind that the kind of question we ask does not guarantee the kind of answer we receive. Thus, we can ask a thin question and get a fat answer or vice versa. For instance, the question “Do you agree?” could receive a one word answer - ‘yes’ or ‘no’ - or a very long answer if children explain why they agree or disagree.

Children’s questions. The key with question is the atmosphere that exists between us and the children. We hope to create an atmosphere that encourages detailed answers and lots of discussion. Crucial to this atmosphere is that children ask many questions of their own. Their questions provide a great opportunity to dialogue with them and to add to their knowledge of the world and our knowledge of their world. Children’s questions tell us a good deal about what they know and how they view the world. Hopefully, children will follow our lead by asking a wide variety of questions. Actually, it is interesting to note that children are unlikely to ask many retrieval questions, because teachers or people acting like teachers are usually the only ones who ask such questions.

Of course, we will not always be able to answer children’s questions. No worries. It is fine to admit that we do not know. This provides us an opportunity to talk about how to find out. For instance, we can say that we should go to the library to look for answers in encyclopedias or in other books, or we can look at online resources together with children. In this way, children’s questions become great motivators for additional reading and teach information search skills.

Prediction. One great type of question to ask is a prediction question. Here, we ask children what do they think will happen next in the book. What will a particular character do? What will the effect of an action be? How will the book end?

Prediction questions develop children’s logical thinking skills. To help develop these skills, we should not only ask for a prediction, we should also ask for the reasoning behind the prediction. The principle we must bear in mind is: the quality of a prediction is determined not by what actually happens next in the book but by the quality of the reasoning behind the prediction.

After all, books are just creations of authors’ imaginations. There is no right or wrong way for a story to proceed. Clues that children can use as a basis for their predictions include:

¨      The title of the book. If the book’s title is Tiger Woman, it would be logical to guess that at some point the main character turns into a tiger.

¨      The author. Certain authors have different styles. For instance, if we have read other books by an author and all those books were fantasies with all sorts of out-of-this-world events, our predictions can include actions that could not take place in the real world. In contrast, if another author’s other books contain only realistic actions, predictions of fantastic events would be less reasonable.

¨      The type of story. As with the previous clue based on our knowledge of the author, we know that certain types of stories follow certain patterns. In mysteries, the detectives collect clues and then usually solve the mystery at the end of the book.

¨      Knowledge of similar books. Children can recognise similarities between different books. For example, Malaysia has many stories about the mousedeer, a small creature who outwits its larger adversaries. Thus, if children have already been exposed to one or two other mousedeer stories, when they see one that begins with a mousedeer being hunted by a crocodile, they might surmise that the mousedeer will find some way to outthink the crocodile.

¨      Real world knowledge. This is often the best source of clues. In a book about elephants, children can use their knowledge about these animals to make reasonable predictions.

¨      Previous parts of the book. Children need to use information from early parts of a story to predict what will happen in later parts. Many children’s books, known as predictable books, make this easier by repeating certain patterns many times.

Please note that children who have been exposed to many books are able to use more of these clues, such as clues based on knowledge of the author and of similar books.

In addition to developing children’s skills at logical thinking, prediction has other advantages. First, it encourages children to listen carefully as we read so that they can make good predictions. Second, prediction heightens children’s interest in the book, because after making their prediction, they are keen to find out what the authors decided to have happen next in their book.

Children’s Comments

In keeping with the idea of using books as springboards, we should keep in mind that the talk that accompanies a book – either before, during or after reading aloud – is actually more important than the book itself. Questions are one means of provoking this talk. By using questions, we encourage children to talk back to books. In this way, reading becomes an interactive event.

In the same spirit, we should welcome children’s comments about books. Sometimes, these comments seem, at least to us, completely unrelated to the book. This shows once again that every reader reacts differently to the same book. Children’s reactions provide us a wonderful window onto their minds.

When children make comments, whether or not they seem to us to be related to the book we are reading, we may want to put the book aside for a bit and journey down this new path where the children have pointed. Then, we can get back to the book with phrases such as:

a.       Let’s see what happens next

b.      On the next page,

c.       Now …

d.      Getting back to the story,

e.       OK, let’s continue

We can also use gestures, such as putting a finger across our lips and looking down at the book

K-W-L

One very nice springboard to use when reading non-fiction is K-W-L (Ogle, 1986). K-W-L stands for Know-Want to know-Learned. Here is how we do it.

1.      We start by discussing what children already Know (K) on the topic of the book. For instance, if the book is about butterflies, we begin by asking children about their current knowledge of butterflies.

¨      We can divide this knowledge into categories, such as where butterflies live, their life cycle, different kinds of butterflies, and the body parts of butterflies. This helps children understand how knowledge can be categorized.

¨      Sometimes, children may have little knowledge about the specific topic of the book. For instance, if we are going to read a book about carp, children may know little about that type of fish. In that case, we can do the K step about fish in general.

¨      When children tell us what they know about the topic of the book, we can ask them how they came to know that information. For example, did they see a butterfly in a park, read about butterflies in a book, view a site on the Internet, hear from a friend, or watch a tv show? This kind of discussion helps children learn about information sources.

The K step focuses children on the topic of the book and helps them recall and build their knowledge related to the topic.

2.      Next, we come to the W step in K-W-L. This stands for what the children Want to know about the topic.

¨      We ask children for questions they have about the topic of the book. One way to generate questions is to use the categories that we formed during the K step.

¨      We can add questions of our own to show that we, too, are interested in the topic.

The W step arouses children’s interest in reading the book. Indeed, the W step is just like real-life reading, because in real life, we read to answer our questions. For instance, maybe we want to know how to grow plants that will attract butterflies or why in some places the number of butterflies is declining.

3.      Once we have our questions, we are ready to read the book aloud. While reading and after we have finished reading, we can refer to our questions to see which, if any, of them get answered. This is the L step in which we see what we have Learned from the book.

¨      We can look back over the book and review where the book has answered the questions that we and the children generated.

¨      Probably, we will learn things that we did not include in our questions. This information also belongs in the L step.

Most likely, the book will not answer all the questions we asked. This is actually good, not bad. Just like in real life, one book seldom meets all our needs. We will need to continue reading to find out the answers to our unanswered questions, not to mention the new questions that arose while we were reading and discussing. This is perfect; we have a great reason for another trip to the library, bookstore, encyclopedia, Internet, etc. to get some more reading material.

Language learning activities

Orientation

Our orientation when reading aloud is that our main goal is for the child to enjoy reading. If we can achieve that goal, language learning and reading skills will normally take care of themselves with little or no extra help. Reading aloud provides a powerful means of helping children learn language. This large-scale learning takes place without worksheets, exercises, quizzes, drills or other types of activities normally associated with classrooms. Nonetheless, we can supplement reading aloud with small amounts of teaching about specific language features. The point to bear in mind is: The focus remains on the ideas in the book. Talk about the language used in the book is only a supplement.

The key principle in teaching language via reading is: Whole-Part-Whole. In other words, we start with the whole book. As children hear and understand the book, we can spend a bit of time looking at one of its parts, such as vocabulary. We always look at the parts in the context of the whole. Thus, we focus on the meaning of the book. As part of that focus, we look at the language elements, such as spelling, grammar and vocabulary, that help us form meaning. We always remember to relate these language features back to meaning. Further, we talk mostly about the meaning of the book, for example, how the book connects to children’s lives. The language focus can be there too, but it is secondary.

We do not want to turn reading aloud into a school lesson with all the pressure that many children feel in school. As Lee Tzu Pheng points out, we should bring the spirit of play to reading aloud. To do this, we need to include books in our definition of toys and language activities in our definition of games.

Reading readiness skills

As we read aloud, children will pick up many of the skills they need to be ready to learn to read. These skills are often learned by imitation without us doing any teaching. These reading readiness skills include:

¨      Holding a book

¨      Turning a book’s pages

¨      Using illustrations to help understand reading material

¨      Understanding the direction in which we read print on a page. In English, we read from left to right and from top to bottom

¨      Recognising letters and being familiar with some of the sounds letters and letter combinations, such as br, make

¨      Recognising words. This is actually the way that people read. We do not read by looking at individual letters and then putting them together, unless we come to words that we cannot recognise.

¨      Knowing about different types of books, such as non-fiction and fantasy. This doesn’t mean that children know these terms; it just means that they are familiar with the characteristics of different types of books and can tell one type from another. As we talked about when discussing prediction cues, this familiarity with books helps children understand and interpret the words on the page.

¨      Connecting what is on the page to prior knowledge and experiences

¨      Being curious about the world, both the real world and the world of imagination.

¨      Feeling confident to do tasks involving books, such as responding to questions and asking their own questions. We build this confidence as we interact with children while reading aloud.

¨      Being able to concentrate. Particularly in this tv world, concentration seems to be like a muscle that many children exercise very little.

¨      Listening better. As children listen to us read aloud and converse with us about what is being read, their listening improves.

¨      Speaking better. Because the key to reading aloud is not the book itself, but the dialogue that springs forth from the book, children have many opportunities for speaking to an interested listener.

¨      Growing a love for reading. Last, but certainly not least, perhaps the key aspect of reading readiness is the love for books. This passion for the page provides the motivation that will keep children trying until they do learn to read.

Be patient

Many adults worry needlessly if children do not learn to read at an early age. These anxieties are often passed on to the children. Instead of getting everyone worried if children are not reading by age 4, we should concentrate on having a good time reading aloud to children for all the wide variety of benefits it brings, as discussed in the Why Read Aloud chapter of this book.

One of George’s professors was an expert in reading and advocated this low stress approach. He told the story of his own son who didn’t learn to read until he was seven but went on to become an engineer. Teaching with the Brain in Mind, a book published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a leading the international organisation of educationists, states that:

There is no absolute timetable for learning to read. Differences of three years are normal (emphasis in original). Some children will be ready to read at 4 years; others, just as normal, will be ready at 7 or even 10 years.

Children progress toward reading in a natural, self-directed way, rather than as a result of drills or specific exercises. We supply the raw data, the hours of reading we do with the children, and their brains do the rest. This is much the same way that children learn to speak. The difference is that there are very few children who do not receive the raw data for their brains to figure out how to speak. In contrast, it is much more common that children do not receive the raw data they need to learn to read.

This is why primary school teachers can tell which children have been read to in the years before primary school. Even if these children are not yet reading, reading comes much more easily to them than to their peers who did not have the benefit of being read to. Further, when reading aloud continues after children begin primary school, they continue to receive advantages, such as bigger vocabularies and more knowledge of the world and of stories.

An example of how reading comes naturally occurred one day when George was reading aloud to his three-year-old niece Crystal. On her own Crystal pointed out the one-letter words ‘a’ and ‘I’. Taking advantage of this, George continued reading aloud using a finger to help Crystal follow the words he was reading. Whenever he came to one of either ‘a’ or ‘I’, he would stop and Crystal would read that one word. When they finished the book, Crystal proudly and a bit over-confidently exclaimed, “I can read. I’m a big girl now!” Certainly a red-letter day in her young life.

Teachable moments

This story is an example of what educationists call a ‘teachable moment.’ A teachable moment occurs when children have a felt need to learn something. Teachable moments arise in the context of other activities, such as reading a book or discussing something that happened earlier in the day. In contrast, most classroom lessons are planned ahead of time. However, just because teachable moments seem to arrive spontaneously does not mean that we cannot lay the groundwork for them. By helping children develop a wide range of interests and a lively awareness of language, we make it likely that there will be many teachable moments.

When teachable moments arise, we put aside the story, at least temporarily, and focus on the point that has arisen. It might be something about language, such as Crystal’s discovery of how to read the words ‘a’ and ‘I’ or what a particular word, such as ‘chrysalis’, means as children look at pictures of that stage in the life cycle of butterflies. Or, a teachable moment could have to do with something about life, for example, once when reading a book about babies, George took the opportunity to talk to Crystal about the imminent birth of her little brother and what that would mean for her.

A few activities

There are many ways to help children focus temporarily on the language features of a book. Children themselves will think of some of their own. Here are a few.

¨      Listen for It – Children list for a particular word or a word that starts or end with a certain sound or that rhymes with another word.

¨      Look for It – Children who are recognising print can hunt for such things as the same word on different pages or words that start with the same letter.

¨      Spell It – Children can spell particular words.

¨      Define It – Children can give the meaning of a word. This can be done in a variety of ways – a definition, an example, miming and drawing.

More language learning activities are discussed later in this chapter in the section After Reading. Let’s remember that reading aloud should not be one continuous quiz. Rather, try to make it into a game. For instance, make pronouncing a long word like ‘gigantic’ fun by accompanying it with sweeping gestures suggesting a gigantic size. Try to ‘play to success’. In other words, if children seem reluctant to answer questions, make the questions easier or give clues so that children will be able to get the right answer and, thus, build their confidence.

Reading along

Reading aloud can also be reading along. There are many ways for children to read along with us, just like Crystal enjoyed reading the one-letter words. Reading along builds children’s confidence that they can learn to read.

¨      Children may recognise certain words and can join us in reading these.

¨      Illustrations provide clues about the words that appear on the page. Children can use these clues to say the word.

¨      Children can use their knowledge of characters or other information from earlier in the book and, perhaps, combine this with their developing language knowledge to guess what a word is and then read that word along with us.

¨      Many books have predictable patterns that repeat on many or all of the book’s pages. Children can learn these patterns, a bit like the refrain of a song, and join in with us on that part.

¨      Children may begin to memorise well-loved stories. This can be encouraged and children can recite these stories along with us or to us.

¨      Songs and poems are easy to memorise and fun for singing/reading along.

Not again! Rereading the same book

Some adults complain that children seem to want the same book read to them again, and again and again. That’s fine. Books become good friends to children; they become safety blankets. Children enjoy seeing their good friends every day, and they feel secure having their safety blanket near.

Actually, there is a lot of educational value in rereading the same book. Children see different things each time the book is read to them, and we can point out different things about the world, about the story, about language. Also, with each repeated reading, children can play a greater role in the reading. Another reason for repeated readings of the same book is to encourage children to pick up the book to read or (if they can’t yet read) to look at on their own.

We can vary the purpose the different times we read. For instance, the first time through a book we might want to just look at the pictures. Subsequently, we can read and discuss the story. After children become more familiar with the story and understand it better, we can stop at various points in a reading for children to predict or recall what will happen next. Thus, our goals can vary at different readings.

A side benefit of rereading is that we become better readers as we practice reading aloud. For instance, we get more ideas about which words to emphasise, where to change our voice, where to pause for questions and otherwise involve the children we are reading to. Another advantage of the fact that children often like to reread books is that we do not need such a large supply of books.

After Reading Aloud

Because the benefits of reading aloud increase when children interact with the book, we may want to do any of a wide variety of activities after a read aloud, but this is certainly not necessary. Instead, perhaps the time would be better spent reading aloud another book.

A few activities

Here are some possible activities for when we have finished reading a book.

¨      Acting out of all or part of the book. If we have a video camera, we can tape these performances.

¨      Puppet shows are another way to dramatise a book. Children can make puppets from gloves. Another easy way to make puppets is for children to draw pictures of characters in a story. Then, they cut out their drawings and glue, tape or staple them to a stick, a piece of cardboard or just a rolled up piece of paper. Puppets offer more timid children an opportunity to speak out more by taking on someone else’s role.

¨      Paintings, drawings or collages can be done of characters, places or events in the book.

¨      Bookmarks are an easy way for children to highlight one aspect of the book and to personalise their relationship with the book.

¨      Similarly, book covers often include drawings along with the title of the book and the names of the author and illustrator.

We will want to have plenty of rough paper around when we read. Rough paper is paper that has already been used. This includes paper used on one side only and used envelopes. By using rough paper for drawing, writing, etc., we teach children ways to be environmentally friendly.

Record keeping

Children may enjoy keeping a record of what books we have read aloud together. These records can be displayed. The record can include the title and author of the book, a drawing, how many times we have read the book and information about what happens in the book.

If children cannot write yet, we can do the record keeping for them. Records can be kept on a piece of paper. They can also be kept using computer spreadsheet programmes, thus providing a way to introduce children to computers. The record becomes a source of pride for children, and the record itself becomes something to read. As we and the children read the record we have compiled, we

¨      remember and discuss old ‘friends’

¨      get ideas for books that we want to reread

¨      get ideas for other books to read on the same topic, in the same series, or by the same author.

Writing

Read and writing go together, and writing does not have to wait until children learn to read. In fact, writing can help reading, but that is a topic for another book. Briefly, here are some writing activities that can accompany reading. When doing these activities, if children are not yet writing themselves, we can be their scribe and write down (perhaps with some changes) the children’s ideas.

¨      Self-created dictionaries help children remember key vocabulary, allow them to see some of what they have learned and encourage children to use published dictionaries.

¨      Dictionaries can include the sentences in the book in which the word appears.

¨      For young children, dictionaries will tend to be made up of concrete words, such as nouns (tiger, rice) or action verbs (jump, eat), that children can see.

¨      Children can do drawings to accompany each dictionary entry.

¨      Make sure that the words put in the children’s dictionary are ones that they are likely to encounter often or else try to arrange for them to encounter the word, for example, by reading books on similar topics or by rereading the same book. Words not encountered often are much more difficult to learn.

¨      To help with spelling, the dictionary can be alphabetised. This is most easily done if the dictionary is compiled on a computer.

¨      Remember that for long-term learning to occur, children need to encounter the same word in different contexts rather than only repeating the word as it occurs in their dictionary.

¨      Copying the same story but adding children’s own drawings provides lots of reinforcement in the language used in the story.

¨      Adding a new ending to the same story.

¨      Children can create stories of their own. These can use a story they have read as an example, and can follow the example as closely or as loosely as they wish. For instance, many children enjoy putting themselves or someone they know into stories they create, or the same story could be written but in a different place, such as moving it to the place where the children live.

When children write their own books, it makes for a complete circle of

(1)   reading someone else’s book,

(2)   using the other author’s book for inspiration to write their own book and,

(3)   finally, children reading their own book.

Another twist on writing our own book is to have the whole family write on a related topic and put all the stories together. Be sure to choose a topic children know a lot about. Reading is a good way to help children build their knowledge of topics prior to writing.

One other thing to do after reading is to refer to books in other contexts by telling children how something that happens or something we see reminds us of a book that we have read aloud to the child. For instance, if we are walking in a park and see a caterpillar, we can remind the children walking with us about a book we have read together about a caterpillar. So, the connection works both ways – while reading, we make connections from the book to the wider world, and after reading we make connections from the wider world back to the book.

Children doing the reading

While children will continue to enjoy being read to throughout their lives, we want to encourage them, at their own pace, to begin to also read on their own. We can provide this encouragement in several ways.

¨      As mentioned in a previous section of this chapter, we should encourage children to read along with us.

¨      Children benefit from time alone with books. This is one reason that, as suggested earlier in this chapter, children’s books should be kept in a place where children can get to them on their own. Even if they can’t read yet, they can look at pictures and remember the story from when we read aloud to them. Also, toddlers enjoy playing with books, for example, opening them, turning the pages and making sounds like they are reading. Such play contributes to reading readiness.

¨      Children can read aloud to us. Here are a few pointers to keep in mind when this takes place.

¨      It is difficult to read for comprehension while reading aloud. Children should only read aloud what they have first read for understanding, either by us reading the book to them or by them silently reading the book on their own.

¨      Just as we practice reading a book aloud first before reading it aloud to children, children should rehearse before reading aloud to us or others.

¨      It is probably better for children to read aloud books that are a bit too easy for them than one that are a bit too difficult.

¨      In fact, a nice way to start with reading aloud is for children to read aloud to younger children. These books will be easier for the older children to read, and the pleasure of a responsive audience fosters more reading.

¨      When listening to children read aloud, we must resist the temptation to try to correct every error. Normally, we will focus only on errors that alter the meaning of the book.

Reading aloud and reading silently go together. Please see the chapter on Silent Reading for more on this important topic.

Reading to babies

As discussed in the chapter Never Too Young, Never Too Old, we can begin reading to children as soon as they are born. Reading aloud to babies teaches them the sounds of the language, forms a pleasant association with books, stretches their attention span and offers us something fun to do with these cute little creatures.

This is some advice from Jim Trelease and others on how to read aloud to babies.

·         Hold children in our arms in way that shows support and affection but not imprisonment.

·         Children enjoy touching books. We should encourage this, but babies are often not very gentle with books. They may be more interesting in sucking on the pages or pulling on them than in looking at the pictures and listening to us read.  Fortunately, a whole range of durable books have been made from materials such as plastic and board. Nonetheless, we should be concerned about the possible health risks of babies putting books in their mouths.

·         Babies will enjoy participating. As they develop, they can turn pages, point at objects and make sounds.

·         Sometimes, babies need to settle down a bit before they are ready for reading. We should not give up if all they seem to want to do is turn five pages at a time. Instead, we should look for times when infants seem to be in the mood to be read to.

·         Wordless picture books are especially nice for babies and toddlers. Older children can use them as well, by joining us in making up words to go with the pictures.

·         If infants or toddlers aren’t paying much attention when we are reading to them, one tactic we can use is to change the story and put the children into the story by using their names, the names of family members and places they are familiar with.

·         Another way to calm inattentive babies and toddlers is to give them something to play with while they listen, such as giving a pen or a piece of rough paper.

·         Don’t always expect too much in the way of response from babies. Have faith that they are listening and absorbing, and that there will be benefits down the road.

Reading aloud to older kids

Everyone – we adults included – enjoy being read to. However, some older children may feel that we are treating them like little kids if we read aloud to them. One way to overcome this objection is with the choice of materials that we read. Older children will quickly recognise that the content is not baby-ish. An additional way to show that reading aloud is not just for young children is for another adult to join as a listener. In this way, children see that adults too take pleasure from being read to.

Reading aloud to older children can be a very different experience from reading to the younger ones. First, the reading material changes. Although there are books written especially for pre-teens and teenagers, we can also read aloud from material written mainly for adults, such as daily newspapers. Chapter books can also be read. We can seldom finish these in one sessions, so we will need to think of good places to stop, places that will generate the urge to read again tomorrow to find out what happens next.

A second change that takes place when reading aloud to older children involves the discussions that accompany the reading. These discussions are at a more mature level, and we can bring in more of our own experiences and talk to the children more like peers.

Third, older children can return the favour by reading aloud to us. This is a lot of fun and makes the children feel more adult. Also, older kids can take turns with us to read aloud to younger children. This gives the younger ones another reading role model and gives the older kids another lesson in the value of reading.

Fourth, instead of reading an entire book, as we do with younger children, we can just read one section. For instance, we can read a favourite section of a book, or we can read the beginning of a book as a way of encouraging children to pick the book to read on their own silently. With non-fiction, we can read aloud sections that contain particularly startling information or that answer a question that we have been wondering about.