Reading Aloud: Reinforcing the Most Basic Learning Skill

An out-of-school program may not always be the primary place where children learn to read, but it can be the place where kids develop a lifelong love of reading. It's also where you can provide the invaluable service of giving kids extra time and attention to developing their literacy skills in an environment in which you have the flexibility to address their individual learning styles.

The key is that you have to make it exciting and important because so many other voices say that reading is work or just for geeks. Kids will follow your inspiration and react to your enthusiasm if you display an honest love of reading yourself. Here are some tips that should help with kids of every age.

• Start each day by reading aloud from a book that fits thematically with your work for the day.

• Read aloud several times during the day, even if it's just a quick poem in the middle of a project. Each day, try to work in a short story, a poem and a chapter book to read aloud, and have a period of silent reading as well.

• Be sure to select age-appropriate materials, but don't be locked into the publisher's recommendations. You know your kids and what's right for their levels of achievement.

• Take into account the kids' prior knowledge. Choose materials with themes and language that fit with their cultural, educational and cognitive experiences.

• Speak clearly and slightly more slowly than you might in normal conversation, but don't artificially drag it out. The reason to try to speak just a little more slowly is that people often speed up unconsciously when they're reading or performing. Plus, the kids are trying to follow the story, a process that involves a little more conscious effort than simply holding a conversation.

• Excitement is more important than theatrics. You goal is to have the kids feel and respond to your emotional involvement and the joy you experience in reading, not to do a one-person play. Sure, you should try to reflect the tone or voice of speakers in books for older kids, and use a bit grander tone with simpler books for younger kids, but don't ham it up to the point that your acting overshadows the book.

• If possible, engage the kids actively in the material by asking questions as you read, for example, or by having them repeat the refrains from poems. A wonderful activity for reading aloud with younger kids might inspire some new ideas of your own. 

• Always ask about what you've read afterwards. Reading aloud isn't an exercise that's over when you close the back cover—it's a means to engage kids and encourage their imagination.