Importance of Reading Aloud

Reading aloud to kids has long been acclaimed has the proven method for language and cognitive skills development.

Needless to say that infants and toddlers learn their mother tongue by what they hear and speak out loudly while reading their ‘ My First words ‘

It enhances speech and stimulates learning.

But reading aloud is as essential for kids of age group 5-10 years of age and beyond as well.

image courtesy : mysightwords

Get here Top 6 reasons on the importance of reading aloud :

1. Enjoyment :

When children read out stories or plays , they are transported into new worlds—ones that they create in their own minds, ones born of words, and ones charged with emotive energy.  Because children will not become good at something they don't enjoy doing, we must offer them literature-based experiences that are positive, engaging, and enjoyable. 

They experience a feeling of inclusion in the story and therefore improve imaginative skills alongside. They are able to practice role plays , get into the characters and feel like being the hero or the magical queen.

 Who knows, we are seeing the next big theatre artist !

2. Development of qualities of an orator :

Politicians might be criticized at all the points, but one place that you will agree is that they are amazing orators. They capture the eyes , minds and attention of thousands whom they lead by the power of their words. 

Without being politically biased, I must mention our prime minister Mr.Narendra Modi who is an exceptional orator same as his mentor Mr. Atal Bihari Bajpayee. Legacies have changed , such is the power of their speeches which can be true for young kids too if they learn to read aloud and practice for their morning school prayers or speeches.

3. Prepared of debate competitions :

When children read with expressive skills, they will also develop more confidence in themselves as readers. No longer limited either to rapid word-calling or to stumbling over print, children will discover that, with practice and guidance, they can become more fluent, purposeful, and effective readers without fearing words or audience. With repeated success, their confidence levels will rise.

When they listen to themselves they understand if they are sounding right and if it all makes sense what they are speaking. So they are able to monitor themselves.

4. Become a narrator :

Children , while reading aloud , tend to put their emotions into it. Rather you can help them with this by reading along with them .This will help them gain control over their diction and hence seek an opportunity to become a narrator at the school function and later in college feat. 

 When children prepare to read expressively, they will develop competence in grammar, memory, attention, sequencing, and understanding cause. 

Reading with command takes time, focus, and attention; and if children are going to read aloud well, they can prepare a text for oral reading. they will gain a greater understanding of how grammatical and rhetorical structures (sentences, stanzas, and paragraphs) work and how the sequencing of words and ideas plays an important role in the delivery of meaning.

image courtesy : storiesandchildren

5. Enhance fluency and comprehension :

 Fluency is an essential part of successful reading. Fluency is based on automaticity (a reader's ability to recognize words automatically).

 If children are to become both automatic and fluent readers, they need practice. Preparing to read a text aloud expressively provides children with the time and means to recognize words automatically and to read a text with a high percentage of accuracy

When children use techniques for expressive oral reading, their comprehension of what they are reading dramatically increases. 

Since fluency is closely tied to comprehension, when children become smoother and more accurate readers they will also become more knowledgeable ones. By practicing a text, children will become more familiar with its words, sentence patterns, and organizational structure. 

Once children become familiar and comfortable with a text, they are then in a position to make discoveries about the different kinds of meanings (both denotative and connotative) that may emerge from their interaction with the text .

6.Develop stronger vocabularies and language structures :

 If children are to become successful, independent readers, they will need to have a large, active, mental storehouse of words and language structures (sentences, paragraphs, poems, stories, etc.). When they are regularly exposed to words and language patterns that are outside their normal way of speaking, children develop a stronger awareness of language and its aesthetic and communicative possibilities. 

Entwined with this stronger awareness is a natural desire to put to use these new words and patterns. This new linguistic awareness will make itself known in the way children speak and write—and in their ability to read and understand increasingly sophisticated texts. They will become aware of a variety of writing generes and get familiar with them. 

Reading aloud also counter affects the passivity that excessive TV viewing has. Rather that accentuating speed and quick cuts, as does TV, literature read aloud promotes a slow unfolding of events, images, and ideas—items that must take fully embodied shape in the minds of the listeners.

                                                       

So you see , reading aloud is as important for older kids too. Well it might sound a bit odd but you should even consider reading out to them still.

Picture this : You simply try to command your child, "I don't want you to hang out with so and so,"

But that's a lecture that will probably go in one ear and out the other.

 But if you read a book about a kid who gets in trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd, your child is going to experience that directly, and she's going to experience it with you at her side, and you can talk about it together. A discussion may flow out.

You can ask questions like: "Do you think the boy made the right choice?" "Do you think that girl was really her friend?" When you talk about a book together, it's not a lecture, it's more like a coach looking at a film with his players, going over the plays to find out what went right and what went wrong.

Happy Reading then!