How The Read-Aloud Handbook Works for Us, Part 1

 Jim Trelease's book The Read-Aloud Handbook was given to us when our first son was born five years ago. It seems to have only gotten more popular since then, even though it was first published over thirty years ago! We have the 5th edition, published in 2001.

It is chock-full of information about why, how, when, and where to read aloud, and the interaction between reading, TV, and the Internet. Perhaps the best thing about the book is its extensive Treasury of Read-Alouds, categorized by type and children's ages. The types are: Wordless Books, Predictable Books, Reference Books, Picture Books, Short Novels, Full-Length Novels, Poetry, Anthologies, and Fairy and Folk Tales.

Without opening the book again, I can remember certain points that were salient to me:

1. Read aloud no matter what the age of the child. Infants benefit and so do teenagers.

2. It's okay for children who are interested in them to read comic books, graphic novels, and other materials. The idea is for children to learn to love to read, not for them to read all the great classics and nothing else. There is a reason great classics are classics, but did you know many of them are now available in graphic novel form? Anything that gets a child's interest will lead to more reading, including the original books eventually, one may hope.

3. The biggest predictor of whether or not children will love reading is whether or not their parents love reading and show it. A home full of books, magazines, newspapers, and reading parents will produce children who love to read. Borrowing them from the library is exciting, free, convenient, and offers more variety than a home library, but there is also a section in The Read-Aloud Handbook that talks about the importance of a home library and how to build a good one.

In a recent post from Chronicles of a Babywise Mom, I was reminded that the book also talks about the impact of the kinds of materials parents read. 95% of children whose mothers read novels had a high interest in books. The same high percentage did not hold up for fathers who read novels. However, 91% of children whose fathers read newspapers had a high interest in books.

Like many parents and educators, I am so enthusiastic about The Read-Aloud Handbook that I need two posts to talk about it. My second post will contain the specific ways we implement the ideas from the book, and any setbacks we have experienced in reading to our children.