Returning to a subject I touched on in this post. I love books.I love reading. I read to my own children, a lot! I realize not everyone loves reading (sad face). Nonetheless, as a parent and/or teacher, it is highly important to read to children.

Reach Out & Read reports that reading aloud “[b]uilds motivation, curiosity and memory,” larger vocabularies (correlated to later academic success), and “[h]elps children cope during times of stress or anxiety.” In spite of these and a number of other benefits, only half of parents read to their children daily, and only ten percent read to their children from infancy.

Not surprisingly, children in poverty are read to less often than children not living in poverty. Regardless of the socio-economic environments our students come from, we need to read aloud to our students. As Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook (one of my favorite resources) says, “[r]eading to children costs nothing! No matter how poor the community, it costs nothing for a teacher to read to a class. They take their library card, borrow a book, and then read to the class. Money has nothing to do with it.”

My last conscious memory of being read aloud to was in fourth grade. After lunch and recess. It was hands-down the best part of my school day. I delight in paying it forward.