At first, I thought that read alouds are only good for those children who don’t know how to read yet. However, as I continue to do read-alouds for my 8 year old , who has actually read all her ‘read aloud books’ by herself, I realized that it’s still benefits her.
1) It helps the child to learn the right pronunciation. A few times, during our read alouds, she would be laughing to herself and say, ‘Oh, that’s how you pronounce it. I thought it’s … ‘
2) It creates a closer bond between mother and child. Our read-aloud time is our special time together.This is the time when we laugh together, discuss things together and simply spend time with each other. And because books we’ve read together, there is just so much to talk about in everyday situations and glean lessons from there too.
3) It enriches the vocabulary of the child further. Reading itself enriches one’s vocabulary without even trying to. Through reading, one gets to know the meaning of the word through it’s context and without necessarily consulting a dictionary. But with read-alouds, the child can have access ( through the parent) of the meaning of a difficult word. Most of the time, giving the outright definition is not enough, it has to be expounded and explained to the child. With this, I believe the word sticks more to the child.
So, these are my views about read-aloud time for 8 year old who has a reading capability of a 12 year old ( according to her assessment test). My point is, it’s never too old to read aloud to your child. It has many benefits and I especially like benefit #2.
