Image Credit:Lina Kivaka
Reading aloud is important to parents and teachers. Reading aloud builds many essential skills like introducing vocabulary and literacy, providing fluency, reading with expressions and voice modulation showing their happiness in reading. Reading is love in action.
At the Oberoi International School, JVLR, we encourage students to read independently or in pairs. This helps to strengthen their reading skills and listening skills. It also helps to develop creativity and imagination as well. Telling stories from different points of view allows students to understand a larger scenario and the entire spectrum. It may not be easily perceived when looked at from a single perspective. The readers can then illustrate and display the meaning hidden in the text through different means and strategies.
Reading alouds helps children to reduce stress levels and is highly effective and motivational. Teachers in classrooms and libraries encourage D.E.A.R, where students stop what they are doing and only read. It is a method that helps build a learner’s literacy skills. Reading aloud is the best way to build rapport with students as we engage and interact with them in a group. Reading also strengthens the brain and improves memory.
At the Hive, we usually read to students and use strategies like making connections, making predictions, asking questions and using visual thinking routines to engage students. This helps students make text-to-text connections and real-life connections. We as teachers also consider the suggestions the children make regarding reading a particular book or wanting to read a specific book that day. We also ensure that the book a child chooses to read is appropriate for them to read and follow. Reading aloud stories and sharing experiences of the stories encourages social-emotional learning, empathy, and conversation skills. We do see this happening in the classroom as well as in the library. Reading aloud to students also helps build their confidence since it reassures them about the sounds of the words they’re reading, which is important for thriving in a school environment. From heightened involvement in classroom discussions, reading aloud to your little ones will undoubtedly prepare them with the skills they’ll need to do well in school.
Reading aloud helps you assess students’ comprehension. One of the skills we practice is comprehending information and text. It includes more than the reader understanding the words. We do practice this in our school.
There are three types of read-aloud:
- Instructional Interactive Read Aloud.
- Instructional Reading.
- Independent Reading.
We, as library teachers, focus more on the first two types of reading. However, Independent reading is continuously happening in the classrooms.
In conclusion, reading aloud is important and should be practiced in every setting, whether the library or classroom. ”
Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read,” says Marilyn Jager Adams
By Anjini Mehra, Librarian
