It’s easy for preschool and elementary school teachers to tell which children have been read to at home on a regular basis, because the dads and moms reading aloud have prepared these children to learn to read. As dads read aloud to them at home, children:
- see the link between print and language. They begin to understand that those black marks on the page represent sounds and words.
- discover how to hold a book so that it is right side up and how to turn the pages.
- understand top and bottom, beginning and end, first and last.
- find out how to take a book from a bookshelf and how to put it back.
- learn how to open books and in which direction we read books. For instance, in English, books are read from left to right.
- learn the terms ‘letter’ and word’.
- build their memories, as they need to recall what happened earlier in the book to understand the part of the book that we are now reading aloud.
- increase their attention spans.
- see that their family values literacy.
Dad reminder: You can start to read to your kids at ANY age. It’s fun for the kids and dad. It really is a dad duty!
– George Jacobs, Ph.D. and Wan Loh Inn, Ed.D.
Dr. George Jacobs, Ph.D. and Dr. Wan Loh Inn, Ed.D. are the authors of many books (including “The Read Aloud Guide“, textbooks for teachers and students, curriculum guides, and children’s storybooks).
Find out more about reading aloud to your kids.