Read Them a Book!

1. Read Them a Book! ETAI Winter Conference 2009 “Sharing Ideas” Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva Michele Ben (mggben-at-gmail-dot-com)

2. The benefits of reading aloud • “Reading aloud is the foundation for literacy development. It is the single most important activity for reading success (Bredekamp, Copple, & Neuman, 2000). It provides children with a demonstration of phrased, fluent reading (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996). It reveals the rewards of reading, and develops the listener's interest in books and desire to be a reader (Mooney, 1990).” • Judith Gold and Akimi Gibson (2001)http://www.readingrockets.org/article/343?theme=print

3. Reading out loud contributes to: • Vocabulary acquisition • Familiarity with vocabulary patterns • Internalizing language patterns • Understanding the structure of a story

4. When pupils listen to the teacher reading a book they - • Learn about the relationship between the printed word and meaning - children understand that print tells a story or conveys information • Are exposed to language and stories on a higher level than what they can read

5. When a teacher reads a book out loud she: • Models reading – prosody and fluency • Can engage all the pupils in the class • Reinforces or introduces topics Reinforces or introduces vocabulary and language structures • Motivates and interests pupils in reading and books

6. Things to think about • Is it a good story? • Is the book worthy of a reader's and listener's time? • Does the story sound good to the ear when read aloud? • Will it appeal to your audience? • Is the story memorable? • Will children want to hear the story again?

7. What to look for: • Repetition of vocabulary or language structure • Not too much text on each page • Attractive pictures • Humour • Familiar themes and topics • A book known to the pupils in its Hebrew translation

8. Ideas for things to do • Predict based on the picture or story structure • Take turns reading • Use the book as a model for writing • Allow a pupil to choose a book to take home, practice and read to the class

9. PEER: Dialogic reading, reading in an interactive manner • Prompt with a question to focus and engage: Point to something and ask, “What is that?” – “A balloon.” • Evaluate the response: “That’s right!” • Expand on what was said: “The balloon is red.” • Repeat the prompt and encourage the child to use the new information. “That’s a red balloon. Say, ‘The balloon is red’.” • Dialogic reading works. Children read to in a dialogic way have better oral language skills, and are more likely to be exposed to new words. • From: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/33854

10. To sum up: • “Researchers have validated that reading aloud affects vocabulary development (Robbins & Ehri, 1994; Whitehurst et al., 1999), acquisition of literary syntax and vocabulary (Purcell-Gates, McIntyre, & Freppon, 1995), story recall (Morrow & Smith, 1990), and sensitivity to the linguistic and organizational structures of narrative and informational text (Duke & Kays, 1998). Studies have shown that children make gains in expressive language even when the duration of story reading interventions are short (e.g., Hargrave & Sénéchal, 2000)” • http://www.readingrockets.org/article/16287