Shared Reading In Kindergarten.  We all know that parents who read to their children help those children get ready to read.  Concepts of print like reading from left to right, capitalization and punctuation are naturally absorbed by children over the years. Shared reading in the school setting serves many of the same purposes, especially for children lacking parental preparation. Collaborative reading allows children to enjoy the pleasures of reading beyond their reading level, and to "read" in a relaxed environment. As Holdaway (1979) found, "from the child's point of view, the situation is among the happiest and most secure in his/her experience."  In the "big books" model developed by Holdaway, the reading takes place in several lessons over several days. Repeated readings focus on different aspects of the text: from rhythm and rhyme and repeated phrases, focusing on comprehension, and looking for specific letters, words, or punctuation. All the while, the teacher solicits responses from the children, making the reading a truly shared experience. Beyond Reading Readiness. What about shared reading after kindergarten? Used in later grades, shared reading provides scaffolding for not-yet-fluent readers, and exposes children to more interesting books and vocabulary than they could read on their own. Whether big books are used, or just "reading along," the interactive aspect continues, with children asked for their reactions and their predictions as the reading continues. Despite being a quiet activity, reading is not a passive one, and shared reading shows students how good readers think about and react to what they are reading. Perhaps most importantly, shared reading is low-risk. As Dr. Janet Allen notes, "For many students who have struggled in school, reading has come to represent failure, risk, embarrassment and struggle. Shared reading is a place where everyone can find success and those walls begin to crumble. Success breeds success, and these shared experiences set students up to want to read something else." 

For the Love of Reading. The best way to get students to read is to show how enjoyable reading can be. Teachers at higher grades and ESL teachers have found shared reading to be one of the best ways to do this. The last word is again Dr. Allen's: "We shouldn't abandon the opportunity to share words in interesting ways just because children get older. The shared approach provides access to words, to knowledge, to information that will change a life."