Why You Should Keep Reading Aloud to Your Child

Aug 5, 2011
Sara McGrath

I Love to Read T-Shirt - stallio

Don't stop reading aloud just because your child can read. There's more to shared reading than you might think.

At a town festival the other night, I attended a musical performance in which a father sung about reading the Harry Potter series to his daughter over the course of eight years. He traveled a lot when she was young and she's away at college now. Making time for that shared reading experience brought them together and created a lasting memory for father and daughter both.

"Almost as big a mistake as not reading to children at all is stopping too soon," said Jim Trelease in The Read-Aloud Handbook (Penguin, 2006).

Reading together goes beyond learning to read or passing on the appreciation of a good story. Shared reading provides shared experiences and language that can strengthen family relationships.

Read Together to Build Shared Experiences

Does your family have a favorite story series? Harry Potter, Theodosia, Warriors, and The Guardians of Ga'Hoole are some of my family's favorites. From those stories, we have shared

references,
analogies,
catchphrases, and
inside jokes.

These story experiences strengthen our family relationships. They give us more experiences in common, more to draw on at relevant times, and more to bring us together.

Keep Reading to Older Children

In March 2010, The New York Times did a story about a father and daughter who'd read together every night for nine years, from 4th grade until the girl left for college. "The Streak" as they called it spanned 700 books' worth of reading and a shared language with references from Seuss to Shakespeare.

In How to Tutor Your Own Child (Ten Speed Press, 2011), Marina Ruben recommended two books for ideas on books to read aloud to your child.

What to Read When: The Books and Stories to Read with Your Child--and All the Best Times to Read Them by Pam Allyn (Avery Trade, 2009)
1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up by Julia Eccleshare (Universe, 2009)

Did your parents read to you when you were very young, in junior high, in high school? If you feel strange reading to a child who can read perfectly well to him or herself, you might ask the older child to read to you and younger siblings at least some of the time. That way, you, too, will get to experience the joy of hearing a story read aloud.

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Source: Ruben, Marina. How to Tutor Your Own Child. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2011.