You're Never Too Old for Read Alouds!

Enjoy reading aloud to your child or to a class? There are so many benefits to doing so: connection around a great story, development of understandings about how text works, and the snuggles! However, we often think that, as children get older and develop their ability to read independently, there is no longer a need for that time together.

Even a child who is old enough to read to themself benefits from read alouds. Plus, there is a good chance that they'll still enjoy it. According to Ledger and Merga (2018), out of 220 children ages 6-12, only 23.8% didn’t enjoy being read to. When being read to, many of them said that they felt relaxed and happy (Ledger & Merga, 2018).

Another benefit of reading aloud is that it can help children with their language development. Reading, in general, develops children's language through exposure to new words and ideas. When children think and reason about complex texts and concepts that are not right in front of them, their language development increases (Cochran-Smith, 1984). For older children who might still be working on decoding the words on the pages, engaging in these deep conversations might be difficult to do with independent reading.

Here are a few tips to get the most out of reading aloud:

Try to pick a text that is challenging for your child. When you are reading aloud, you have the opportunity to choose books that push children to think about new ideas and concepts (Beck & McKeown, 2001). With many words, although a child might have issues decoding words when reading independently, they will be able to understand them when they hear them read aloud.

Read the book ahead of time so you can think of questions that might help push your child’s thinking (Parents, we know you might not do this - Lord of the Rings is LOOOONG) (Beck & McKeown, 2001). Sometimes it is difficult to come up with questions on the fly, even if you are an experienced teacher! Reviewing ahead of time can give you a chance to think the topic over so questions come more naturally when you go to read the book together.

If you are reading a picture book, look at how the words relate (or don’t relate) to the illustrations and consider the details in the pictures to help generate conversation that extends children’s thinking (Beck & McKeown, 2001). There is so much that can be learned from the illustrations in children’s books; take advantage of them!

Also, many children’s books have complex words! Whether you are a family member at home or a teacher at school, you can take opportunities to create games with new words or just talk about new words in general (Beck & McKeown, 2001). Although this might seem like work, many children that reported they enjoyed being read to also talked about how they got to learn, spell, and read new words in books (Ledger & Merga, 2018).

So there you have it! When is the last time that you read aloud to your child or your classroom?


Beck, I., & Mckeown, M. (2001). Text Talk: Capturing the Benefits of Read-Aloud Experiences for Young Children. The Reading Teacher, 55(1), 10–20. 

Cochran-Smith, M. (1984). The Making of a Reader. Language and Learning for Human Service Professions Monograph Series (pp. 1–277). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/63291434/ 

Ledger, S., & Merga, M. (2018). Reading Aloud: Children’s Attitudes toward being Read to at Home and at School. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 43(3), 124–139. https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2018v43n3.8