The Importance of Reading Aloud Part 1

I've talked about this before in blogposts, but I just read a new spin on it, and it greatly enhances my thoughts. So...here's some ramblings of my thoughts:

Jim Trelease in his book The Read Aloud Handbook advocates reading aloud, mostly at young ages, as a way of introducing reading and as a way to learn to read. He gives a lot of statistical proof about why reading is important and will make you a better student/person in general. I found his book to be extremely interesting, as I had never thought about reading aloud having that kind of effect, only learning to read well.

I also read Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt. I know that her book took more of a Christian perspective, but I can't remember her exact focus. I do remember it being a good book, and that she took a completely different, non-statistical perspective than Jim Trelease.

I've come across a chapter in A Survivor's Guide to Home Schooling by Luanne Shackelford and Susan White that deals with reading aloud. I really am excited about this chapter, because I've been trudging through this book with little to no interest. However...this is good stuff. They talk about reading aloud as a way to introduce reading comprehension. Maybe it's just the way they said it, or perhaps this is just the first time I've understood it because of where Sydney is in the reading process. Here is some of what they have to say:

"Often a child with reading problems had his first extended encounter with books and stories when he was learning to read. He was then faced not only with the task of decoding the words, but also with making sense out of bunches of words put together. The latter skill is not learned by rote and takes more time to acquire. It really is a new skill, since we don't use words quite the same way when we write as we do when we converse. Because of this, the new reader has a problem not only with the words, but with the story (comprehension) as well.

It is a different situation with the child that has been read to. Think for a moment about what happens inside a child's head when he is listening to someone read a story. The words are received through his ears and converted to mental images. He is not processing individual words in this way, but the groups of words that come in a continual flow as the story is read. The reader's inflection and tone of voice help bring out the sense of the words. The imagination creates an unfolding picture, using whatever information the child already has about the things described in the story. The imagination also fills in a myriad of details which could not possibly be covered by the author's narrative. (p. 44)"

So interesting! Even though Sydney is learning to read bunches of words together in Henry and Mudge books, sometimes we have questioned if she knows what is going on in the story. They do their best to make the plots as simple as possible and repeat information numerous times so that by the time the child reads it, they have had several opportunities to understand. However, when we read a story to her, especially chapter books that have very few pictures, it seems that she does grasp the storyline sooner (although sometimes we summarize anyway to make sure that she has understood). Even though she is often following along with her eyes, she doesn't have to use so much concentration to figure out the bunches of words and put them together.

More thoughts to come (but I thought I should break it up so as not to get too long-winded)...