Incentivizing the Young Reader: Have You Tried Reading Aloud with Your Child/Student?

Let me start out by saying that “reading out loud” is not every person’s cup of tea. In fact, there are those individuals who downright hate oral reading. And for some, it can be a real phobia. So, I’m not suggesting a one size fits all approach to incentivizing the young learner in your life. What I am suggesting is to give “reading out loud” a chance . . . a try to see if it proves as a viable option to help encourage your child to develop his or her reading skills sets of the verbal variety.

Of course, the information in this blog post is to encourage you to broaden your reading horizons with your child (if you haven’t done so already). And if you have, kudos to you. Keep it going. Your child’s reading development depends on it.

So, here’s what I want you to do. If you haven’t tried it yet, I want you to open up to the possibility that oral reading may be THE very strategy that gets your child over the hump with his or her reading engagement.

And just keep this in mind: if your child is more of an interactive learner anyway, then participating in oral reading activities might actually be his or her jam. For example, some learners:

• thrive in visual environments. (They learn best by what they see with their eyes.)
• thrive in auditory environments. (They learn best by what they hear with their ears.)
• thrive in interactive environments. (They learn best by engaging with their environments through hands-on activities that allow them to explore within that learning setting.)
• are all of the above. (Probably most young children fall within this category of learners. Children are very action-prone individuals, so you would imagine that they’d exhibit the tendency to successfully soak in knowledge when multiple senses are exposed to information.)

Now, it’s not like I sent out an official survey to a representative, cross section of young children to find out what type of learners they are, and then, based my statements (above) from that data. No, not at all. I’m strictly going off of my own personal experiences with my children and other children that I’ve observed (who were not my own) during their phases of cognitive development.

Children will soak up knowledge if you let them. And, if one learning environment doesn’t work for a child, then let’s hope that that same child will be given other opportunities to find the right learning match for him or her. So, give your child those opportunities, why don’t you.

Okay, getting back to the topic of “reading out loud”. Maybe, just maybe — you should give this reading option a try with your child. It might make a positive dent in getting your little learner to open up more to reading possibilities if you give it a try and make it a welcoming learning prospect for him or her.

And here’s how I’m going to clarify the statement I just made. I’m going to drop some wisdom for the adult, helping the young reader. (Hey, that would be YOU.) Get ready for it. Get ready for it . . .

Your child will be looking to you for help; and one of the most powerful ways to be of service is to actually model the type of behavior you want your child to display as tasks are carried out. It’s important that we, as the adults, set the tone for goal achievement (task completion), especially for the hard stuff. If we know certain activities are like “pulling teeth” to get our children to perform, then we can’t act like we’re dreading assisting them in these activities. We need to set the tone, set the stage, and be an example of positivity. If we do that, then it’s quite possible that we’ll receive more of a cooperative effort from our children.

It’s also quite possible to accomplish the unthinkable when we chose to own a challenging situation and not let that challenging situation own us. Only then can we manage to move forward. We have to be the examples for our children. If they see us enjoying ourselves while doing certain things, then it’ll be easier for them to let their “I don’t want to do it” guard down and comply with the task at hand.

So, let me give you a little taste of some of the mouthy reading activities that my son, Little Man, and I engaged in (in his elementary school years) to get words spoken into our learning atmosphere. (Mind you, practicing oral reading in a safe learning environment like your home or one-on-one time in the classroom — with YOU — helps your child when he or she has to perform oral reading before a bigger and/or different audience.)

My son and I used a weekly mash-up of the following reading methods, which gave us enough variety to keep oral reading fresh.

• Little Man read books out loud to himself.
• Little Man read books out loud to me or another family member.
• I read books out loud to Little Man.
• Little Man and I alternated reading out loud to one another.

With the first oral reading option, I want to point out that it’s okay to have your child read out loud without anyone present, but the majority of the oral reading should be in the presence of someone else. Your child is developing his or her reading skills and will need guidance along this oral reading journey. Your child will also need continuous constructive feedback on what improvements are needed and what progress is being made.

And some of the areas of focus you should instruct your child in are fluency, pronunciation, enunciation, inflection, intonation, and emotion in oral reading. Here are brief definitions for each of the bolded terms:

• Fluency – the ability to read text smoothly in a manner that seems to easily flow     
• Pronunciation – the accepted method of producing sounds and applying stress patterns to syllables, words, and phrases        
• Enunciation – the pronunciation of words in a clear and articulate (very particular) manner 
• Inflection – a distinct change in pitch and tone of voice      
• Intonation – phrase and sentence sound patterns created by changes in pitch
• Emotion – the expression of feeling when reading text

You should also make it a point to read books out loud to your child, which makes for a great bedtime routine option. And, you can even try alternating the “reading out loud” assignment between you and your child during a reading session. If your child enjoys listening to you read, you might also try having him or her listen to audiobooks.

Reading books by audio format is a growing phenomenon and can play an invaluable role when it comes to helping your child learn how to improve in oral reading skills. By listening to great storytellers lay out a story, your child will pick up on and be able to mimic those oral reading skills, such as fluency, pronunciation, enunciation, inflection, intonation, and emotion, which were previously mentioned.

And here’s a suggestion for you. For any of the oral reading activities you and your child engage in, try recording the reading sessions so you can play back the audio and note areas that require work and areas that seem to be strong. It’s amazing how much you can miss, while in the act of doing something. So, having the audio recording of your and your child’s reading can be incredibly helpful for fine-tuning skills.  

In essence, utilizing all four of the above reading methods is a surefire way to keep the activity of oral reading “fresh” for you and your child. And you’ll quickly come to pinpoint the preferred verbal method for him or her. But be careful here. Don’t rely on offering reading opportunities for your child based solely on the preferred verbal method. Each of the methods has something to offer in helping your child to develop crucial skills that make up his or her complete reading repertoire.

And in conclusion, let me just reiterate that not every child is going to welcome oral reading with open arms, but that doesn’t mean you should encourage your child to avoid it at all costs. His or her reading development can substantially benefit from it. And, this method of reading provides an opportunity for the child to get used to hearing his or her own voice and fine-tuning verbal skills — something that will come in very hand as he or she gets older and is thrown into scenarios where social interactions and public speaking will be needed.

Try helping your child develop his or her reading skills while getting used to his or her own reading voice.