The Fairy Tale. Walther Firle, ca. 1859-1929.
If you have ever taken a small child to the pediatrician, chances are the doctor has told you to read aloud together at home. Public libraries sponsor programs to encourage parents to read aloud to their children a thousand books before Kindergarten. Toddler story times abound. But somewhere along the way, reading aloud falls by the wayside. It is the rare group of middle or high school students for whom hearing a story read aloud is a regular occurrence.
Once our students learn to read on their own, it is all too easy to view reading as an independent activity, a skill deployed to accomplish another task, a utilitarian means to an end, and one ideally done silently in one’s own head. In the midst of assessing comprehension and fluency or assigning textbook chapters to cover content we can’t get to in class or novels on which to base essays, time to read aloud to our students dwindles and is often lost altogether. We often feel that we don’t have room in our packed schedules for story time. But reading aloud is more than just story time or a pleasant way to fill that awkward 15 minutes in the schedule between recess and music class.
When we listen to a story read aloud, important work is happening. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, reading aloud trains a long list of skills. What teacher doesn’t yearn for a classroom full of students who have a highly developed habit of focused attention? Reading aloud trains this habit in the most effective and enjoyable way possible. It fosters integration and provides a basis for inquiry. It can’t be beaten as a means of building vocabulary. Hearing new words in the context of a story is far more effective than filling in blanks in vocabulary workbook sentences. Though it may seem slower than independent reading, reading aloud in fact dramatically expands the amount of good literature our students take in. Our reading level does not catch up to our listening level until about the 8th grade, which means that we can expose our students to a greater diversity of rich language and stories than we could ever hope for them to read on their own.
Neuroscientists would agree that reading aloud is transformational. Every time we hear a story read aloud, there are connections being made in the brain. MRI scans of children’s brains while they hear stories read aloud have shown increased activity in the parietal-temporal-occipital association cortex – the part that processes multisensory information and a key area for developing the imagination. Every time we read aloud to our students, their brains get just a little bit stronger. To read more about the myriad benefits of reading aloud, try Megan Cox Gurdon’s book The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud.
As if all of these benefits weren’t enough, there is a yet more important reason to recommend the practice. As teachers in the tradition of Catholic liberal education, our concern for our students does not end with their minds. We seek to form their hearts as well. We strive above all to cultivate wisdom and virtue in our students. Stories are the single best way to communicate abstract truths and to articulate virtue and vice. And the best way to experience stories? Read aloud, experienced together in community with other human beings who also seek to grow in wisdom and virtue. In fact, reading aloud exemplifies the third of Archbishop J. Michael Miller’s five marks of a Catholic school. Through shared stories that guide us to wisdom and virtue, our classrooms become animated by communion and community.
Looking for good read aloud options? Try some of these resources:
John Senior’s list of 1000 Good Books
The Read Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie provides not only an eloquent case for reading aloud to children of all ages and lists of great books for newborns through teens, but also some helpful practical tips.
Classics to Read Aloud to Your Children by William F. Russell provides excerpts of stories, each accompanied by a synopsis, pronunciation and vocabulary guide, and approximate reading times.
The Children’s Book of Virtues and The Children’s Book of Heroes by William J. Bennett are great resources for short but meaningful passages, many of which are ideal springboards for seminars in the younger grades.
Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian champions reading fairy tales to guide children in wrestling with the big questions of life and what it means to be human.