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Reading Aloud: A Homeschooler's Mightiest Tool
An Article by Sally Hawkins-Cree
The single most influential book I’ve read on the subject of children and learning is not even about homeschooling. It is Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook. I picked up a copy of this book when my daughter was about two years old. I was intrigued by the idea that reading aloud could be so important. I was read to as a child and it was a natural step for me to begin reading to my child well before she was weaned.
The Read-Aloud Handbook made some pretty lofty promises. Trelease claimed that if I would read to my child daily and make an effort to keep television limited that I would have a child who would want to read on her own, have a strong vocabulary, be interested in the world around her and be academically successful. I didn’t really believe in his claims to the letter but I thought there was probably some value in his message. So I chose to give it a try.
It was not easy answering my child’s request of, “Can I watch TV?” with, “No, but I’ll read you a book.” After a few weeks of this exchange she no longer asked for the TV but asked directly for the book instead. By the time she was three years old she had the attention span to sit and listen to E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web one chapter at a time.
It’s ten year later. Yes, every single thing Mr. Trelease claimed has indeed come to pass. Listening to me read aloud hour after hour, day after day, year after year did give my daughter the motivation to learn to read with very little effort. She has the strongest vocabulary of any young teenager I’ve ever met. She is interested in all areas of the world around her and has indeed been academically successful.
By homeschooling, I was afforded the maximum amount of time to read aloud. I would honestly say it has made the most impact of any choice I’ve ever made. In fact, I still read aloud. Though, we’ve come a long way from Charlotte’s Web to Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. But the benefits still accrue.
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