Chapter 10: Reading Aloud

Reading Aloud to your students and even to your kids is a key to fostering the love of reading. Some of my fondest memories of family members who have since died are having them read out loud to me when I was a baby into early adolescence. One of the fondest memories I have is when I was younger my grandfather would pull me into his lap at breakfast and we would read the comic or funnies section of the newspapers on Sundays. This tradition continued as I grew up and soon I was visiting their house regularly on Sundays and eating with my grandparents and reading the funnies with my grandfather. While these were not the most adequate reading materials it still formed a very important bond between my grandfather and I that lasted for years up until his death in 2008. By reading aloud to your kids you form a special bond and might even form a tradition that is very important.

While this experience unfortunately is not always common it is very important to read something to your children. It might even have to be the newspaper but it forges a bond with your children and it is very important to their growth and development and their academic success. If children do not have the ability to receive this at home it is really important that teachers read aloud to their students. It might seem like a chore or counterproductive with older children but it is an experience that no child should miss out on. It gets their minds creative juices flowing and thinking more actively about what is going on while reading aloud than while reading to themselves. It also lets their imaginations run wild because you are creating a movie scene right before their eyes. You provide the voices for the characters and their minds create the action and scenes that the characters go through. Reading out loud to your students is a great way to keep their interest and put on a show for them at the same time. You are also teaching your students things that become more fun to learn when reading aloud.

It’s also a great time for the teacher to goof off as well. Making different voices for different characters and creating other personas for them according to how you hear them in your own mind, that is AWESOME. Okay so I might be the only total dork who does that anyways but it still allows teachers to use their acting chops and creates a great atmosphere in your classroom. It tells your students that we are here to have fun, because I know I am, and to learn at the same time. What could be greater than that? Nothing, at least I don’t think there is. It is also a great way for a newer teacher to get more comfortable with being in front of as many students as he or she might have. Acting like a complete kid and getting down on their level makes them more comfortable around you but also gives you some great insight to what kids do and don’t respond to.

By creating voices for the characters you help your students place voices within their own head to characters they know and love. By mimicking their attitudes in certain situations and bringing them to life you help show students how you interpreted their actions if they were really alive. This helps students relate and bring their characters to life in their own minds instead of reading their voices much like a friend of mine does to this day, as Ben Stein in Farris Bueller’s Day Off. No child should ever have to read a book and that is all they hear unless it is called for by the description of the characters tone or personality.

Reading aloud is a great thing and is very telling for your students. You also learn a lot about your students by reading to them. It tells you how you can and cannot engage them while teaching but it also gives you time with your kids on a much more personal level. You bring yourself down to their level by becoming multiple characters at once and sometimes make a complete fool of yourself but that is okay. You are having fun and so are your students but most importantly of all, they are learning in the process.