Why Read Aloud?
-JIM TRELEASE- One day back in the 1980s I visited the kindergarten room I had attended years earlier as a child at Connecticut Farms Elementary School, in Union, New Jersey. Gazing up at me were the faces of about fifteen children, each of them seated expectantly on their story rug. “How many of you want to learn to read this year?” I asked. Without a second’s hesitation, every hand shot into the air, many accompanied by boasts like “I already know how!” Their excitement matched what every kindergarten teacher has told me: Every child begins school wanting to learn to read. In other words, we’ve got 100 percent enthusiasm and desire when they start school—the first chapter in their life. In subsequent years, when the National Reading Report Card surveyed students, they found very different attitudes and behavior as the students aged: Among fourth-graders, only 54 percent read something for pleasure every day. Among eighth-graders, only 30 percent read for pleasure daily. By t...