12 reasons to read aloud to your kids NOW (tips from a teacher)

This post contains affiliate links to books that we love.

When given the opportunity to read aloud to your children, TAKE IT!   Reading aloud to your kids and teaching your kids to read offers so many benefits!   Don’t wait until bedtime.   Take every opportunity.

TODAY, we are welcoming Pamela Hall, from Literate for Life, to Your Modern Family.   She is an award winning teacher receiving 2 national awards and 1 district award.  Pamela is going to explain to us how reading to them NOW will impact them later in life, as teenagers and beyond.   It is so nice to have the advice and wisdom of a parent that has been through it already… to come back & share what they have learned with us.

Bedtime is a great way to introduce this and to squeeze in an extra book.  I love snuggling up together and reading to them…. even reading the same book for the twentieth time. (Did you know that when your child wants you to read the same book to them, it is called imprinting? Sure enough. There is a developmental reason for that. Your child has the need to learn language by repetition.)

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift. —Kate DiCamillo

“Studies show that when you read aloud to your kids, it is the single most important thing you can do to help prepare them for reading and learning.   It goes so far beyond that, too.

Reading to your kids, even through their teen years, has such a benefit!  This special time developed a strong bond with my children and a love of literacy.

Guess what? Reading aloud to my kids worked. Now, my children are in their late teens, and they read without me coercing them. One is an avid reader. One is in college reading more than ever and not particularly liking the amount of materials that he has to read, but is navigating well because of the foundation I built by reading aloud to him.

Why reading aloud to your child is the most important thing you do and what happens when you read aloud to your kids:

• Bonding
  This relationship with your kids is the most important relationship.  Do you remember reading with your parents?   Do you think that your kids are going to remember reading with you?   I do.

• Creates Security
  That bond that we just talked about, in turn, creates security. This positive emotion builds your child’s brain synapses which makes them smarter.

• Promotes brain stimulation
  You want your kids to be actively thinking and analyzing.  Reading to them allows them the chance to do this.

• Develops a love of reading and literacy
  Reading aloud to your kids makes them associate love and security with books which creates a love of reading and literacy.
  

• Builds Vocabulary
  Vocabulary is an essential skill for reading comprehension. I’ve tutored many children in reading that didn’t know the meaning of what I thought were simple words like “rustling leaves”. When you read aloud to your kids, you build their vocabulary in the context of literature which sets them up for success in reading comprehension.

• Gives them the ability to make connections in the world
  When you read a story like Leo The Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus, a book about a little tiger who develops in his own time, kids can relate to Leo and others like Leo. When you read a story about a boy who finally overcame his fear of monsters under the bed, kids relate that story to their own world.

• Fosters Further Learning
  I read stories about cooking and recipes. Then, we went into the kitchen and made one of the items from the book. My children loved learning beyond the books we read aloud.

• Builds Memories
  To this day, I have friends fondly tell me about how their mom or dad read to them when they were growing up. Naturally, my own children also tell me that they loved it when I read aloud to them.

• Creates literacy skills needed for success in school
• Gives your child the ability to have empathy
• Exposes them to a wide variety of books and genres.
• Your kids enjoy spending time with you (yay!)
• Reading aloud to your kids is a factor that predicts that they will be frequent readers when they are ages 12-17.   You can be successful at reading aloud to your kids. 

• Remember that according to Scholastic, 73% of children get book ideas from their parents on which books they should read for fun.

Tip:
Build it into your family schedule and have books handy.  Go to the library often, check out new books at least once a week, keep books out for your kids.   As Lynne Jonel said: “The library was like my very own treasure chest, and I could dig in it as I liked.”

The following are some read aloud book lists to get you started:

2-6 YEAR OLDS
– BROWN BEAR
– CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM
–Here are a few more

7-12 YEAR OLDS:
– Magic Tree House
– Holes
– The Doll People
– Unique Monique 
– A few more

13-17 YEAR OLDS:
– Harry Potter Series
– The Underland Chronicles
– Land of Stories
– A few more

PS- IF YOU HAVE favorite books, share them in the comments!ON 

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Thanks to Pamela Hall for this post today.  Check out these two great posts: Gardening your Reader & Dumbing down your words- do or don’t. 
Pamela is a Wife, mom, teacher and writer. Education & literacy consultant. Lover of God, cappuccino, and chocolate. Leader. Ordinary with an extraordinary desire to make a positive difference in the lives of others particularly children. Pamela is the founder of Literate For Life, a foundation offering programs to parents and teachers that educate, encourage, and empower people, particularly children, to be literate for life. Find her on Facebook, twitter & Pinterest