*(Okay, I want to clear the air about the title of this post real quick—I need you to know that I don’t do hyperbole. I have little patience for it and I know we’re all getting desensitized to over-the-top headlines. Homeschoolsherpa does not do clickbait, and you will never see more than one exclamation point in one of my posts, I promise. I really mean it when I say that reading aloud makes a big difference for your family—bigger than you probably expect. Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about why reading aloud should be one of the foundations of your child’s development.)
Most homeschooling parents I know have at least two things in common: they’re willing to act intentionally for their kids, and they want their family to thrive, not just survive. We can’t do everything right, but we can probably get a few of the high-leverage things right if we spend our limited time and willpower wisely. And that’s where reading aloud comes in. This post is going to set out the benefits of reading aloud with your kids (and if you’re like me it’s going to feel like a list of all the things you want most), and then a few simple tips to set you up for success. So let’s get into it:
Benefits of Reading Aloud
For the pleasure of it
Read with your kids for the sheer pleasure of it! It’s funny how inept we can be at bringing the things that make us happy into our daily lives. The kind of pleasure you get from reading with your kids isn’t hedonistic like the pleasure you get from eating an entire pint of ice cream in one sitting, it’s the meat and potatoes of a happy relationship. You will enjoy it, it will connect you with your kids, give you a growing pool of shared experiences, and fill everyone’s emotional buckets.
Connection time
If your parents read to you when you were younger, it is probably one of your more fond memories—I know it’s one of mine. So if you want your children to have lots of fond memories with you… you see where I’m going with this, right? Reading with them is kind of a freebie. At the really young ages, reading means they get to be close and connected with you, sharing attention on something silly or sweet or otherwise engaging. And that wish for connection doesn’t really go away as kids get older, it just gets harder for our increasingly independent kids to ask for it.
Flow
Reading with our kids creates more time for flow. Flow is a mental state we get into when all the background noise goes away and we are engaging a deeper part of our mind, and if we aren’t experiencing it often enough, we really aren’t thriving. Artists and athletes know about flow—that’s part of what makes sports and creativity so appealing—and readers get it, too. In fact, how often you get into a flow state is one measure for how much you’re thriving in life. We want that for our kids, and if we can participate in that flow with them, how much better does it get?
Adventure
Kids—humans, really—love adventure, and we mostly can’t get enough of it. It’s the underlying desire that fuels imaginative play, daydreaming, literature, movies, and video games. Books contain many of the best adventures—adventures that engage the imagination in ways that screen-based entertainment can’t. And these imaginative adventures aren’t just fun for fun’s sake—you can’t share an adventure with someone without forming connections with them. You experience highs and lows and memorable bits together, you put your guard down, and you gain a shared vocabulary of words, phrases, and inside jokes. Then, while everyday life is happening, you can reach into that shared vocabulary and instantly connect or defuse tension with a special phrase and a shared look that brings a bit of that adventure into the present moment.
Repetition
Kids—especially younger kids—thrive on a certain amount of predictability. In a world where they’re so often powerless, little (and big) kids get comfort and confidence from knowing what’s coming next. That’s part of why they might want to read the same book every night, or even several times in a row! The story may contain a twist, but they know it’s coming and often can’t wait to hear (or even step in and say) the punchline. Often, kids love to pour over illustrations and find all the little details you might not catch on a first read through. Then, each time you crack that book open with them again, they enter a comfortable space where everything, even the little things that might not demand attention, is in its predictable place.
Cultivating Character
Books let us prime our kids for some of life’s challenges before the real thing happens. We know our kids will face tricky situations they’ve never encountered before, and reading books gives them a chance to think it through ahead of time. They get a chance to watch someone else respond to a harsh teacher, for example, or peer pressure, and see what tends to work and what doesn’t.
There’s more to it than just feeling prepared for new situations, though. We all want our kids to be resilient. We know we can’t always be there to deflect the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune away from them. So our ultimate goal can only be to help them become resilient enough for the challenges that come with living. Books run simulations of hardships and show us how certain characters respond, and how that plays out for them. That can be as simple as the Little Engine that Could or Horton the Elephant, all the way up through Bilbo Baggins and Jane Eyre and Hamlet. When we see people hold up against adversity (or not hold up against adversity), we get a chance to train those resilience muscles in our own mind and heart. Then, when the inevitable happens, we’re not just prepared for it, we’re strong enough for it.
Empathy
Books also show us what a character is thinking in a way that other media can’t. When we see some one else’s thought processes, be it TD Fitzgerald, Emma, Huck Finn, Scout Finch, or Bertram Wooster, we learn that other people have different perspectives on what happens, and we start the important work of learning empathy and developing emotional intelligence.
Vocabulary and Pronunciation
Your child’s vocabulary is a toolbox for communicating well. A lot of the disagreements in life from age 3 to 103 arise from miscommunication—from an inability to say precisely what we mean. We end up saying more than what we mean, so the person we’re speaking with gets offended and tries to communicate their confusion and hurt to us and offends us, and then down the spiral we all go. A large slice of the miscommunication pie is inadequate vocabulary. That’s exponentially truer the smaller our vocabulary gets, which can partly explain why a seemingly simple conversation between two young siblings can become a shouting match of “No I didn’t!” “Yes you did!”
Vocab isn’t just about avoiding miscommunication. Being passingly familiar with a broad range of words and concepts also lowers the barrier to entry for almost anything your child might need to learn in the future. When starting to learn about history, for example, kids encounter a lot of uncommon words. That can be discouraging and make it hard for kids to get their initial bearings. But if, instead of encountering five unfamiliar words, your child sees two unfamiliar words and three words that they recognize but don’t usually use, learning about the Roman Empire (or whatever it is) becomes intriguing instead of confusing.
Reading to your child is one of the strongest ways to lift them up the vocab chart. Books will introduce words that are fairly common or useful, but that might not come up in daily life in your home. Many books deliberately work in a handful of words for this purpose. These fresh words liven up the story and give tangible evidence that taking the time to read with your child is fueling their cognitive development.
Not only does your child get exposure to the word, they also hear it pronounced. I do love it when my kids mispronounce a word because it means they’ve only encountered it through their own reading, but I also am happy that I get to share the correct pronunciation. When I read aloud, I know they’re not just learning the word, they’re getting exposed to its proper pronunciation and use.
Tips for Reading Aloud Well
Now: what about those of us that have some interest in reading aloud to our kids more, but don’t feel equipped to succeed at it? The following are some tips on how to read aloud, how to make it work, and how to make it special. Think about it: when you listen to an audiobook, in the credits before the book, it will include the name of the person who performs the book, not reads the book. When you read to your kids, you can perform it, too.
Do voices:
No, I don’t expect you to learn ten different accents (although that could open up some fun experiences). But giving a teensy bit of attention to the voices of each character gives the reading experience more depth and creates some great memories. And if you don’t initially feel excited to be reading, it can make the experience more fun for you, too. Here are some simple examples:
- Let giants have booming voices. That’s a favorite in our household.
- Let the elderly people sound old—there are a dozen different ways to sound old, find one of your own!
- Wise mentors will annunciate a bit more and speak more measuredly than an excitable young protagonist.
- Some people can have a more nasal voice. Some are more monotone.
- Some talk fast, some slow, some high pitched, some low.
- There’s also no crime against adding an extra “um” or a little stammering into a character’s line when it fits.
Pause:
If the book says there’s a pause, add a pause. Make yourself stop for a full second or longer. Embrace the pause. Once you’ve felt the difference it makes, you’ll want to add a few of your own when the mood suits. It will open your eyes to how much more you can immerse your audience in the story by adding more pauses, or slowing down at appropriate times. It gives the tension a chance to grow. The most vivid memory my kids have from reading together, I believe, is in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory when Charlie at last finds a golden ticket. It was one of the first times that it occurred to me to pause at a tense moment, at the cusp of a discovery—and that pause did more than any voice I’ve ever done to create a memorable moment. Read the passage below, and force yourself to pause at every period and ellipse as the suspense builds. Maybe make yourself count to 3 at each pause—see how long you can make yourself hold the suspense (it could get quite long before it starts to detract from the moment rather than add). Then speed back up when the shopkeeper chimes in to match the excitement and chaos of everyone realizing what has happened.
“Charlie picked it up and tore off the wrapper . . . and suddenly…from underneath the wrapper…there came a brilliant flash of gold.
Charlie’s heart stood still.
“It’s a Golden Ticket!” screamed the shopkeeper, leaping about a foot in the air. “You’ve got a Golden Ticket! Hey, what do you know! Come and look at this, everybody! The kid’s found Wonka’s last ticket! There it is! It’s right there in his hands!”
Fluctuate Volume:
Now revisit the above passage from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and add in volume changes to match the speed changes. Start at nearly a whisper, and then raise it to (the appropriate equivalent of) a shout for the shopkeeper’s line. Most pages of a book won’t have the same dramatic changes, but a 20% volume change works magic to add life to scenes.
Choose Books You Actually Like Reading:
I could write a whole post about customizing your bookshelf. For your kids, reading with you is an experience. They can sense how much you do or don’t enjoy a story. So don’t let just any book onto your bookshelf—make it earn its place. If you personally dislike reading a particular book, your family will be better served by getting rid of it. Seriously. You have my permission.
And what if you just don’t have many books that you enjoy reading? If that’s the case then I have fantastic news for you, and I deeply envy you: you have a truly pleasurable adventure in book discovery ahead of you. You have a few sources you can turn to for book recommendations:
- Consider the book reviews (for parents) and book lists on this website.
- Ask other parents. People you enjoy spending time with may have similar sensibilities to you, and be able to point out some of the best. Plus, they might be able to lend you a copy so you know before you go and buy it yourself.
- The internet. Sarah Mackenzie of Read Aloud Revival keeps an excellent list of great books for each reading level. We purchased The Read-Aloud Family and recommend it to people often. Other internet bookworms keep similar lists. A list like this is going to catch a lot of the very best classics and up-and-comers, often giving detail about what their criteria and values are so you know where they’re coming from.
- The library. Go check it out! Ask a librarian for recommendations. Fill a bag with books that might fit your criteria, and give them a test drive. While you’re doing that, let the kids browse the shelves themselves and pick a few. Kids tend to love the experience, and you’ll find some gems that might slip past other sources.
- Award winners. They won an award for a reason. To be clear, plenty of my favorite books did not win any awards, and I personally still think they’re the best. I also have read award winners that weren’t for me. But if a lot of the top literary critics love a book, you might love it, too.
Accommodate mixed ages and preferences:
Parents of multiple kids know the struggle: “how do I get everyone to agree on (fill in the blank, in this case a book to read)?” Sometimes my oldest doesn’t want to re-read a given book, or my youngest worries that a book won’t interest her as much as her older siblings, or have scary parts. There may not always be a slam dunk answer for this one, but you do have a few options.
One: lure the less-inclined child with the siren song of your reading voice. Gather together at reading time in a prominent place in the house with whoever is on board, and start reading. Often, in our case, the resistant family member will end up joining in once their ears have started following along.
Two: divide and conquer—read one book with the interested listeners, and then something else with the odd one out. This option, admittedly, takes more of your time. When we do it, I get to bed later than usual. But it has resulted in more one-on-one time with the kid that needed it. It has also allowed me to get into some of the “when you’re a bit older” types of books sooner with my oldest and allowed us to connect on those. This may not be an every night option at busier times of life, but we have found it to pay dividends when we make it work.
Three: compromise. One chapter of each instead of two of either. If the kids can agree to this, it encourages them to learn compromise and makes all the benefits of reading stretch further, and may be a way of getting certain kids to listen to certain books they might not otherwise agree to.
Feel free to censor:
We humans form our vocabulary (and our way of interpreting the world around us) from the words that we hear frequently. So when I read aloud to my kids, I soften the language of some books to match our standards at home. Words like “stupid” become “silly” or get skipped over entirely, and references to violence generally get softened, for example.
You don’t need to hide the ball on this, either. My kids know that I do it. And when my oldest started reading some of our old favorites on her own, and found for herself some parts that I had softened, it started a nice conversation about being mindful of the words we use.
If language in books turns you off from reading with your kids, know that when you’re the one reading aloud, you have control over how much of it gets through.
Chime in:
Great books often create scenarios that show us new ways of thinking or feeling, or challenge us, or stir up the best within us. Bilbo faced discouragement and fatigue on the way to achieving great things. The BFG presents new ways of seeing the world that can challenge our assumptions. Tiffany Aching learns to face problems assertively, to be the one who does the right thing. And any character worth reading about makes mistakes. You can chime in—without derailing your children’s flow states—to point these things out, or discuss them at the end of a chapter. When else is the whole family calm, content, and thinking about the same thing?
Conclusion
I want to finish this blog post by being transparent here. When I prioritized what articles to write for this website first–which ones would be the most helpful for prospective homeschoolers–we came up with a list that is probably close to what you would imagine. You know, the practical tips, the answers to common questions, the sharing of wisdom, all the bright, shiny solutions that new and prospective homeschoolers are looking for. But then, I went and wrote nearly 3000 words about… reading aloud? Is that really a fundamental part of successful homeschooling?
Yes.
It really is. And if you give it a whirl, you’ll reap the benefits yourself.
Tell us your favorite read alouds! What has worked well for your family?
