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Read Aloud and Reap the Benefits

May 25, 2023

Have you considered incorporating a read aloud routine into your plans?


No student is too old or too young to enjoy reading along with a close family member or friend, and the benefits are immense. Research supports that reading aloud to someone directly helps that person build the knowledge required for success in reading. Those who are read to on a regular basis gain language and literacy skills earlier and more quickly than those who are not. When a caring person reads to another, vocabulary, decoding, and comprehension skills improve. Most importantly, reading becomes associated with love, which helps foster a lifelong love of reading.


Read aloud time is also a great opportunity to help your child develop reading stamina. By taking turns reading, your child gets to exercise their reading abilities while benefiting from your feedback and support. Over time, you can gradually extend the number of pages or duration your child spends reading.


Readaloud.org is a wonderful resource devoted to this important practice. The Book Selections page includes suggestions for every age group through the age of 8. For additional book suggestions, check out our free book lists!


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"Fluency is not an instructional target. It is the result of decoding instruction that leads to automatic word recognition." "If a child can decode accurately and automatically, they do not need fluency practice." "Fluency is an outcome of good decoding not a process to go through." "Fluency is a byproduct of solid word recognition skills and not its own distinct subskill." Have you ever heard someone say that reading fluency is just a natural byproduct of learning phonics? This idea has been a point of conversation lately in many literacy spaces, and surprisingly, it's not sparking much debate. Is reading fluency just a natural byproduct of decoding development? If only it were that simple! Fluency is one of the five essential components of reading because it’s a distinct part of skilled reading. Of course, the five components don’t exist in separate vacuums; they overlap and influence each other. Naturally, this can cause some confusion. Let’s discuss the relationship between phonics , fluency , and comprehension . There’s no doubt that automatic word recognition is a key reason why text fluency is so highly correlated with comprehension. When children can automatically read words, their cognitive load is freed up for meaning-making. Children must first develop their decoding skills in order to eventually become automatic decoders. But is an automatic decoder the same as a fluent reader? Consider this reading sample:
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