Reading aloud to older children

I thought that perhaps reading aloud to tweens/teens was too juvenile a practice, but a little research revealed the opposite.

Jim Trelease is an educator and author who stresses reading aloud to children to instil in them the love for literature.

Per him, reading aloud to your child is like an advertisement for reading. When you read aloud, you are creating a child’s interest in reading. A child who has been read to, will want to learn to read herself. She will want to do what she sees her parent doing. But if a child never sees anyone pick up a book, she is not going to have that desire.

Reading aloud to older children-even up to age 14, who can comfortably read to themselves- has benefits both academic and emotional, says Jim Trelease.

People often say,” My child is in fourth grade and she already knows how to read, why should I read to her?”

The reply is, “Your child may be reading on a fourth-grade level, but what level is she listening at?”

Per Jim, a fourth grader can enjoy a more complicated plot than she can read herself, and reading aloud is going to hook her. Children have no problem with comprehension when they are using their listening skills.

Children must read for school but that is not for pleasure reading. Most of the material they read in school, no one would read for pleasure. And if all their reading is tied to work, they become less positive towards reading and the motivation to read decreases with age, so by the time they graduate they can’t wait to stop reading. They become a school-time reader, not a life-time reader. Of course, students must do reading that is tied to school academics, but you do not want them to forget that there are books out there to make them laugh, make them cry and move the soul.

At high school, reading good books outside the school curriculum is extremely important. But in the present time, there is so much pressure on students that few take the time to read for pleasure. And that is a real loss. School exams are not very helpful in life situations and with the challenges grownups encounter in everyday life. When there is a crisis in our life, or we encounter someone who needs help, how we react has a lot to do with our sense of empathy and compassion-experience with multiple-choice test questions is not going to help at all.

And it is books that allow us to develop awareness of people outside our experience and develop a sense of empathy. The wider our world, the more we understand and the more we can empathise.

Another advantage of reading aloud: if you were not a reader yourself growing up, reading to your children gives you the chance to read the books you never read. Jim Trelease says, he hears from people all the time, especially fathers, who say, “Wow! I never read The Secret Garden as a child, and I had no idea what I was missing!”

One of the key challenges for parents is to ensure reading with children does not become another chore, another to do in a busy day. I suggest, consider it like a leisure walk in the garden with no specific aim. Simply, cherish sharing a story with your child today in the here and now.

“Shared words have power, an energy that you cannot get from TV or online”

Happy reading!