I want to start with my punchline: I believe all children, of all ages, should be read to. By their teachers. And by their parents. Even after they can read by themselves. Because reading aloud to children is a win-win: it makes them better readers, and just as importantly, it offers an unparalleled opportunity for connection and conversation.
The best compliment I ever received was from one of my first grade students. I had overslept and was late to class. As I rushed into the room, Omar Flores looked at me wisely, shook his head slowly and said “You were up late reading again, miss, weren’t you?”
Being a reader has always been a part of my identity. I love to exchange book recommendations with friends, and I am a happier person when I have an active reading life. It was always my deep wish that my children would love reading as much as I. While I know that academics tend to be easier and test scores tend to be higher for readers, I really wanted them to experience the feelings of being swept up into a story so that when they finished a book, they would sigh and hold the book close to their chest, awash in whatever feelings the book evoked.
There is ample research that seeing a parent reading correlates with a child’s reading interest, so I had hoped that by simply seeing me read, my children would, by osmosis, also become readers. But I learned that while a parent’s reading for pleasure is a powerful indicator of a child’s reading interest, an even more important indicator is reading aloud to a child. An international assessment of 150,000 fourth graders in 2001, for example, showed an average 35 point advantage for students who were read to more often by parents. The PISA exam, another international assessment for teenagers, showed that the more children were read to, the higher their scores at age 15, sometimes by as much as half a grade level. And the landmark study Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children showed the long term educational impact of the “word gap” found between low income children and their more economically advantaged peers, almost all of which was rooted in being read aloud to by parents from ages 0-5.
Reading aloud to children is also a practice rooted in Judaism. Every week in shul we listen and follow along as the Parsha is read aloud. And we are about to enter the holiday of Pesach, in which the central ritual is reading the story of our exodus from Egypt. We continue reading the Hagaddah aloud - “v’higadita l’vincha, and you shall tell your child'' - long after they can read by themselves. There are many reasons that reading books aloud should not end just because a child can read to themselves:
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Reading together creates opportunities for parents and children to discuss topics that might not come up otherwise. I love discussing with my children the idea that sometimes the right things to do are the hard things to do (Harry Potter), what it means to be brave (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH), the value of friendship (Charlotte’s Web), or how to be kind even when we are uncomfortable (Wonder). These conversations give me a chance to share my values and perspectives while hearing how my kids think about the world. I am not sure if these topics would have been part of our conversations if we hadn’t had the books as opportunities.
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Reading to a child - especially after they can read themselves - exposes children to vocabulary they are not able to independently decode. Many TV shows, for example, are written at a 4th-6th grade reading level; most first graders could not independently read those scripts but they can listen and understand the show. By reading to children at their listening level rather than their reading level, we can expand both children’s vocabulary as well as their background knowledge of the world.
- And reading to a child demonstrates the pleasure of reading. I mostly choose books that both my child and I enjoy; it means we are both looking forward to bedtime and to our book, it means the conversations about the books are authentically enthusiastic, and it models a specific attitude towards reading that is of value to me.
While I would argue that reading aloud is always important to children, it feels especially important right now. Reading aloud to children helps with sitzfleisch (the ability to sit and attend to a task) and helps young children learn concepts of print, grows vocabulary and grammar skills. But beyond these academic skills, reading with our kids deepens the relationships children have with their parents. Our kids - whether they’re two or fourteen - need our presence and our insights more than ever, and there is something unique about the opportunity to snuggle together, a book held between you, while we look our children in the eyes and ask, “so what do you think about that?” – even if it means the reading and the conversation takes us late into the night.
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For parents who want additional resources, I am a big fan of Jim Trelease’s book The Read Aloud Handbook. In addition to offering information on the power of reading aloud and tips for a good read aloud, he offers a “Treasury of Read Alouds,” lists of books and recommended age levels, in the second half of the book. You can also access resources on his website – while they look dated, these great brochures have a plethora of helpful information. Happy reading!
