Reading Aloud – An important way to get kids ready for kindergarten

One activity I utilize during each of my sessions with a pre-kindergarten aged student, is reading a book aloud. Many parents already do this activity throughout the week with their children, which is amazing! There are so many important pre-reading skills you can develop during these read-alouds.

It is important for children to understand the parts of a book, so before reading the actual story, I always point out the title, author, and illustrator of the book. I explain what an author does and the job of the illustrator. This is a perfect time to also work on predictions with a student; ask them what they think the story will be about based on the title and the cover illustration.

Pre-reading skills also means a child understands the difference between a letter and a word and understands that reading happens in a left to right direction. While reading a book with a child, I take the time to underline words with my finger as I read so they can see how reading works. I make sure to ask the child, “Do you see how many words we just read? If we count the words together, we see there are eight words on that page!”

Picture books are also full of new vocabulary words. Teaching kids how to think about the meaning of unfamiliar words gets them ready to encounter new words when they are reading on their own. Through this activity they will be prepared to use context clues to determine a word’s meaning in the future!

This would be a perfect opportunity to ask a child what the author means by “stormy,” why would the author say that LOVE can sometimes be “stormy?”

After reading a book with a child I will ask them to tell me what happened, first, second, third, and last. Narrative skills are super important for reading; it lets a parent or teacher know that a child is comprehending as they read!

So grown-ups, don’t skip those opportunities to read aloud to your children. Using these tricks while reading aloud helps make sure that every child will be ready to read on their own come Kindergarten!