"The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children." -- Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, &  Wilkinson, Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading, 1985.
 
Fewer than half of American adults read for pleasure in 2002--fiction, magazines, or newspapers.  And 17-year-olds fared only a bit better: fewer than half read for pleasure more than once a month. These percentages have fallen since 1985, making reading aloud more important than ever if we want to create the "Nation of Readers" the Commission on Reading envisioned.    

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Why Read Aloud? The primary benefit of reading aloud to children is the simplest: it gives children a chance to experience the joys of reading--how it can take them far away, to other lands and inside others' heads and hearts. Reading aloud associates reading in children's minds with pleasure and fun.  If something is fun and pleasant, we want to do it more--and the more a child reads, the better reader he or she becomes.
 
Making Connections and More. Because children can listen at a much higher level than they can read, they are free while listening to make connections: between what is happening in the books and their own experiences, and between this book and other stories they have heard. When the adult reader expressly helps them make connections by "think-alouds" as the story is read, children progress further down the road to becoming good readers themselves. (See the article "Reading Aloud to Build Comprehension," below, for a good discussion of think-alouds.) Children also hear new vocabulary in context, become familiar with book features like chapters, and have a model of fluent, expressive reading. 
 
Choosing Books. To be a good read-aloud, a book has to be interesting and engaging in itself, not just have the moral or theme the teacher wants to illustrate. Good illustrations help too. The articles and book lists below offer a variety of excellent books from different genres, cultures, and topics, and for different age groups, to fire young readers' imaginations and help them grow to love reading.

Follow up a read-aloud book and help children develop comprehension skills with this Story Strip lesson plan and reproducible graphic organizer. (Source: Graphic Organizers: Building Comprehension binder and CD).

Did you know that Primary Concepts now offers an entire library of read-alouds? As with all our book sets, we have hand-selected each title so you receive the best-reviewed, highest-interest books for your class. Our complete library includes some of everything: from legends and tall tales in our Tomie de Paola collection, to the variety of science topics in the Let's Read and Find Out and Gail Gibbons collections. Or purchase by the individual set:

Stories to Go                                                                 
Whose? Animal Series
Ann Morris Around the World Collection
Leo Lionni Collection
Tomie dePaola Collection
Let's Read and Find Out Stage One
Gail Gibbons Collection
Ramona Collection
Let's Read and Find Out Stage Two

August specials, online only!

The most popular product pages on PrimaryConcepts.com this month:                 

A new study shows that children who enter school with solid early math skills are more likely to achieve success in reading. Interestingly, the converse is not true: children with early reading skills are not more likely to be successful in math. Next month, we'll explore developmental approaches to teaching those important early math skills, complete with downloadable activities and product specials.

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