Few children learn to love books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way.
Orville Prescott

Literacy has been defined as ‘the capacity to read, understand and critically appreciate various forms of communication including spoken language, printed text, broadcast media, and digital media’ in the National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People 2011-2020.

There is a strong connection between literacy and language; it is a reciprocal relationship. A child must have a strong language base in order to become a good reader, in turn reading will enhance the child’s development of language.

Research has shown that reading out loud to children is the single most important thing a parent or educator can do to prepare a child for future academic success. We read to children for all the same reasons we talk with children: to reassure, to entertain, to bond; to inform or explain, to arouse curiosity, to inspire. But in reading aloud, we also condition the child’s brain to associate reading with pleasure, create background knowledge, build vocabulary and provide a reading role model, (Trelease 2006) 

The Importance of Reading Aloud

It is important that children are read to from the moment they are born so they can:

• associate reading and books with warm, pleasant feelings.

• hear sounds, rhythms, and words.

• use their senses—listening, seeing, touching.

• make sounds. They coo, gurgle, babble, and eventually, talk.

• point to pictures that the reader can name for them.

• begin to understand that pictures represent objects.

• have fun!

Mem Fox argues that it isn’t enough just to read aloud, we must read aloud well.

‘The more expressively we read, the more fantastic the experience will be. The more our children love books, the more they’ll pretend to read them, and the more they pretend to read, the more quickly they’ll learn to read.’

Tips for Reading Aloud to Children

Here are some reading aloud tips to ensure your child, or the children in your early year’s service get off to a good start:

• Read the book to yourself first so that you get a feel for the rhythm and tempo.

• Hold the book so that the child or children can see the pictures while you are reading.

• Choose books that you and the children enjoy being read aloud : Your children will hear the genuine excitement in your voice and that excitement is most often contagious!Choose age appropriate books that the  children will understand.

• Read with expression and animation – Reading with expression engages the children and invites them into the story as well as being far more enjoyable to listen to!

• Encourage children to participate in the story. Reading aloud with children has been shown to be particularly effective when it is highly interactive (Huebner et al., 2005). Find ways to make the story an ACTIVE rather than a passive experience by encouraging children to join in on the repetitive parts of some books, or by asking questions about the story or characters, asking children to predict what might happen next and so on.

• Play games with the things that you and the child can see on the page, such as letting children finish rhymes, and finding the letters that start the child’s name and yours, remembering that it’s never work, it’s always a fabulous game.

• Spend at least ten enjoyable minutes every single day reading aloud.

• Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book; sing songs,say nursery rhymes or do clapping games, and above all make sure it’s fun!

• Look for rhyme, rhythm or repetition in books for young children, and make sure the books are really short.

• Read at least three stories a day  – it might be the same story three times or three different ones. Once you find books that you enjoy reading aloud, it is likely that your children will want to hear them repeatedly.

• Spend some time looking at the cover and illustrations and talking about them. Tell the children the author and illustrator’s names.

• Read the stories that the children love, over and over and over again, and always read in the same ‘tune’ for each book: i.e. with the same intonations on each page, each time

• Make sure books are always accessible so that children can read whenever they feel the urge.Source books from libraries, swap with friends,encourage gifts of books or book tokens for birthdays and Christmas and visit second-hand bookshops or buy second hand books online.

• Never ever teach reading, or get tense around books.

Adapted from Mem Fox’s Ten Read Aloud Commandments

‘If parents understood the huge educational benefits and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent – and every adult caring for a child – read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation.’  Mem Fox