If you want your kids to read, read to them. Makes a lot of sense for the preliterate--babies, toddlers, preschoolers. But what about school-age kids? Shouldn't they be reading on their own?
They will, says Jim Trelease, if you read to them. A LOT.
Jim Trelease is the author of The Read-Aloud Handbook and a staunch advocate for children's and families' literacy. I must admit that I was skeptical of his argument at first. I completely understood that it was important to read to my daughter when she couldn't read by herself. But I figured that once she could take over the reigns, my read-aloud days and nights would be over. After all, I generally prefer to read silently to myself rather than listen to someone else read. I remember furtively reading ahead in my copy of Charlotte's Web when the teacher read it aloud to us in third grade. My eyes were so much faster than my ears. Who could wait to learn what Charlotte's next message in the web would be?
But Trelease notes that even sneaky readers like me benefit enormously from being read aloud to. Why? Because until about age 13 or 14, there is still a wide gap between oral comprehension skills and reading skills. (The Read-Aloud Handbook: https://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah-ch2-pg3.html#whentostop) In other words, kids can listen to and comprehend books that are much too sophisticated for them to read on their own. And just as reading aloud to very young children helps them internalize the rules of language, reading aloud to older children fills their ears with new vocabulary, complex sentence structure, and exposes them to broader cultural information.
So now I am taking a page of out Trelease's book. I read a lot to my daughter and I make sure to choose books that she couldn't manage on her own. Novels like The Jungle Book, The Secret Garden, Mary Poppins, and yes, Charlotte's Web. After all these years and goodness know how many readings I still cry when Charlotte dies... just as I did when my third grade teacher read it to us. Even though I had already finished the book and was probably reading a different book hidden under my desk, I was in tears with the rest of my classmates. There's something so intimate about hearing a story with others. There's something so visceral about hearing the words in a human voice that cracks and breaks in the telling.
Read to your school-age kids, if for no other reason than you can hug each other when you get to the end of Charlotte's Web.