Read Alouds

Adults have a huge impact on children, especially in regards to reading. As noted in the Teale and Sulzby article, children can learn by adults demonstrating. One of these is read alouds including rereadings of the same book. "Repeated readings encourage indepth exploration of books, and promote children's independent, emergent readings of those books." When a teacher does a read aloud, s/he can ask questions to the students. They can draw inferences, link information in books to real life experiences and make predictions among other things. Ivey agrees by saying, "Engaging students in these processes with you as you read to them not only helps them think about the text but also tips them off to how they can read more thoughtfully on their own." My master teacher makes sure that when she does read alouds, she stops and asks them to make predictions and pay attention to see if their predictions are right. This concept is one of many on a list of "What good readers do." (This is part of the reading curriculum. There is a list of things good readers do on the reading board.)

Teale and Sulzby continue to talk about the effect rereads have on children. "After children have heard a book several times, they are more likely to read it themselves." Ivey makes the same point: "...some students reported that hearing a teacher read a book made them want to read that same book on their own."

I think it is great for students to want to read a book that a teacher has just read aloud. The issue that I am having a problem with is that most of the books that are read aloud are higher than the reading levels of my 3rd grade class. The school that I am in really stresses reading a "just right book". If it is too hard, you'll get frustrated. If it is too easy, you aren't challenging yourself. For read alouds, you can read a higher level reading book (and students will still understand), but do you really want your students to read books that aren't at their level? That said, is choosing a book the teacher has already read just aimed at Pre-K and K or is this true for all grades?