Reading aloud is considered one of the most important things parents and teachers can do with children. But did you know that reading aloud can also be helpful in middle school?
March is considered as the "National Read Aloud" month. And as literacy experts celebrate the importance of reading to learning, this article will also tackle its benefits in a classroom setting, especially in middle school classrooms.
Why Reading Aloud is Important?
Reading aloud is important because it helps build vocabulary. It also helps ensure that children are equipped with language skills they need when they start school.
In addition, reading aloud also build many vital foundational skills. It also provides a model of fluent, expressive reading as well as helps children recognize what "reading for pleasure" is all about, Reading Rocket noted.
How Reading Aloud can be Linked to Learning Success?
The connection between reading aloud and learning success has long been established in science and research. As a matter of fact, a child who comes to school with a large vocabulary does better compared to those who comes to school with little familiarity with words.
So, how does a child develop a large vocabulary? Children with the largest vocabularies are those who are spoken to and read to most often. And though engaging them in a conversation can be helpful, reading aloud is much better because language in books is very rich, sophisticated and is expressed in complete sentences.
Reading aloud also increases a child's attention span. According to Great! Kids, awareness has to come before desire, so when a parent or a teacher reads aloud, they're stimulating a child's appetite for reading.
Why Reading Aloud is Helpful in Middle School?
In the early years of learning, most if not all instruction is oral. But reading aloud is not only for kids in kindergarten through third grades.
According to Jim Trelease, a Boston-based journalist and author of "The Read-Aloud Handbook," reading aloud to older children even up to age 14 can be both academically and emotionally beneficial. Trelease also added middle school children can understand books that are too hard to decipher if they are read aloud.
"The first reason to read aloud to older kids is to consider the fact that a child's reading level doesn't catch up to his listening level until about the eighth grade," Trelease said, as per Mind/Shift. "You have to hear it before you can speak it, and you have to speak it before you can read it. Reading at this level happens through the ear."
Moreover, Trelease said that the "power of shared words" is another major reason to keep on reading aloud to kids of all ages. Trelease's words were also echoed by Dr. Jessica Voigts of Wandering Eductators.
"Shared words have power, an energy that you can't get from TV, radio, or online," Voigts said.
As for Timothy Dolan of Education Week Teacher, reading aloud in middle school classrooms is also a "way to differentiate." Dolan wrote that the common texts enable students to "share a foundation from which they can build upon with their own experience and ideas."
"Reading aloud gives them the opportunity to hear complex texts without the onus being on placed on their shoulders," Dolan wrote.
Do you think teachers should be reading aloud to kids even in middle and high schools?
