When is the last time you read a book aloud to your child, or when was the last time a child read aloud to you? Today is World Read Aloud Day. Not only does World Read Aloud Day emphasize the importance of reading aloud, but the day, as mentioned on the website, brings attention to “literacy as a human right that belongs to all people.”
Parents, it’s never too early to start reading to your children. I started reading to my twin boys when I was still pregnant with them. I would pull out a book and read it aloud. After they were born and they were still babies, I continued reading aloud to them. Reading aloud became the norm for my family.
It was easy for me to make reading aloud the norm because that was the norm for me as a child. My parents were readers, and I saw them reading all the time. My mother would read magazines and the Bible. My father would read books and magazines. He also read the newspaper daily…and he still does today.
One way to help a child gain a love of reading and become a rockstar reader is by seeing their parents read, and reading books aloud to your children is one way to grow their love for reading. The more opportunities your child has to read, the more opportunities your child will have to improve his or her literacy skills which include: reading fluency, decoding unknown words, comprehending text, and engaging in meaningful conversations about what was read.
Since World Read Aloud Day takes place during Black History Month, I think it is also important to acknowledge using books as a medium to explore perspectives and experiences about people other than yourself or as a way to build up confidence, knowledge, and pride by reading books featuring characters that look like you or written by authors that look like you.
Let’s not forget that reading a story aloud is a great way to spend quality time with your children. The way of the world is go, go, go It is nice to shut out the world and read a book aloud together. One of my favorite parts of the week is listening to my sons read aloud before bedtime. If reading is not part of your life, let World Read Aloud Day be the first day of many days of you and your children reading books aloud together.