Reading aloud to your child daily is one of the most powerful tools you can use for building critical thinking, cognitive skills and self-confidence. As a result, it is the single most important habit you can create that will help ward off the summer slump – that seemingly inevitable loss of academic recall and comprehension between school years. After all, if a child isn’t a critical thinker, he may memorize facts and algorithms but will struggle to become a strong problem solver – the main ingredient needed to be successful in any subject.
The Science Behind Reading Aloud
The amount of research supporting the emphasis on reading aloud to children is vast. Consider the following discovery as it relates to critical thinking from a study led by Dr. John Hutton, a pediatrician and clinical researcher, and director of the Reading Literacy Discovery Center. When studying brain scans of preschool aged children who were regularly read aloud to versus children who were not, Dr Hutton’s work showed something noteworthy. Children who were read to showed increased activity in the left posterior hemisphere of the brain (the part of our brains where visual and auditory processing occur) — even when they were read a book without any pictures.
What does this mean? It suggests that children who are read to regularly show a greater capacity to create meaning from words using their imagination. And imagination is a foundational piece of critical thinking. Solving problems we’ve never been faced with before requires innovation and out-of-the-box thinking.
It seems too easy to think that reading a story can have such a profound impact on a child. Yet 20 years in education has shown me the following:
BIG BOOK OF EDUCATION ISSUE 2023
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The Practice of Reading Aloud
Whether you’re just getting started, or you’ve been reading to your child since the womb, here are a few reminders.
Picture books: Picture books are great because kids can use the illustrations to help determine meaning. While reading, take the time to make connections from what the story is saying to what the pictures are showing. By doing so, you’re modeling a comprehension strategy kids can adopt as their own.
Repetition: If your child wants to read the same book over and over again — that’s great! The repetition is helping his comprehension. After a few times, invite him to read you the story. While a preschool-aged child may not be able to “read” the story to you, thanks to the repetition and the ability to use the pictures to create meaning, he’ll confidently retell you the story with pretty good accuracy, nonetheless. By doing this, you’re building his self-confidence as a reader.
Modeling: Don’t worry if a book is too easy or too hard. Part of what you’re doing in reading aloud is modeling that taking time out of a day to read is important. A bonus is creating time when you read your own book while your child is also reading. With this habit, you’re showing your child reading is worth spending time doing. Remember to talk about your books afterwards. Tell your child what you enjoy about your book and invite her to do the same.
Chapter Books: By the time they are full term, a baby’s hearing is on par with ours as adults. That means their capacity for auditory comprehension is years ahead of their reading comprehension. Don’t be afraid to read aloud a book that is “too hard” for your child to read on her own. By doing so, you’re exposing her to new vocabulary, modeling fluency and tonal inflection, and exposing her to more complex story plots (i.e. building her critical thinking).
Listening: If your personal home library isn’t that big, consider listening to a book on audio. (Sites like www.audible.com are a good resource for this.) Your public library has a vast selection of audible books and it’s free to listen to them. The key here is to listen to the story with your child. Part of the magic is creating a shared experience — now you have a story you can talk about together.
The Practice of Building Meaning
If time is on your side, take the time to retell the story you read by drawing your own renditions of it. Many people are visual learners, so even if a child copies the pictures in the book, the act of re-telling the story by drawing is enhancing comprehension. It also stimulates imagination, so you may get a different version of the story as the child’s mind considers other possibilities. Take turns with questions such as:
It is possible to ward off the summer slump! Not through workbooks or with tutors, but by creating a daily habit of reading aloud with meaningful ways to talk about what’s happening in the book. Reading provides a fun outlet for exercising the brain for children who enjoy it. For children not naturally drawn to stories, reading aloud still gives the brain exercise but scaffolds the learning by taking the fluency part off their plate. The added benefit for all kids is the time it gives them time with you. So, what are you waiting for? Take a field trip to the library and start choosing books!
By Mary Ostrowski