Benefits

Many of the benefits of reading aloud to children are intellectual—it increases their fluency. They understand language better and develop a broader vocabulary. ”Reading aloud helps students learn how to use language to make sense of the world; it improves their information processing skills, vocabulary, and comprehension,” says Iowa University. When we read to our children they are exposed to a higher level of language than they are capable of yet reading themselves. And as they are exposed to the wonder of books, they become more motivated to read books on their own.

Much of the exposure that children get to other cultures, ideas, and viewpoints in good books crosses from merely intellectual benefit into social and emotional intelligence. After reading Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins, or Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga I see girls in non-Western dress from a different perspective and recognize more similarities than differences. Children can also begin to see that the stories of lives from the past can have surprising parallels to our present.

In March of 2020, we were reading A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt by C. Coco De Young. This book is set during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The main character is a young girl who is watching her world slowly crumble around her. Neighbors are losing their jobs and homes and moving away. She understands that something started “knocking down the dominos” of their lives a few years before, though it was hard to pinpoint how it all started. As we sat on our couch in California in 2020, we understood that dominos were being knocked down in our world too, and we didn’t know how far they would go and what effect they would have. Today, they are still falling. Who could have predicted that shortages of toilet paper and computer chips, divisions among communities over masks and vaccines, and economic fallout could have affected us so deeply? But my kids and I have a language to describe what’s happening around us because we read that book together as it all started.

The emotional benefit of reading to our children is surprisingly deep. An article from PBS describes it this way: “When parents read with their children more . . . they learn to use words to describe feelings that are otherwise difficult and this enables them to better control their behavior when they have challenging feelings like anger or sadness.” My kids have known the grief of losing pets—even favorite horses that have had to be put down. When Ralph in Little Britches suffered through that, they knew his sadness and that they weren’t alone in theirs.

Our kids learn empathy as they put themselves in the place of a character in a story that might be very different from their own situation. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry opened the door to a lot of conversation about truths that are hard to come to terms with. Meanwhile, it had never crossed our minds to consider what life in the times of the Khans was like for a 12-year-old girl in Mongolia until we read I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade. We considered what it would be like to have your family try to marry you off so young. Was she strong enough to survive the adventure she found herself on? Why did she have to pretend to be a boy to survive? Stories about other people’s challenges and triumphs give us language to discuss our own. And I want so badly for my kids to be comfortable talking about their struggles and successes with me.

The time spent together is invaluable. The truth is, I always have a long to-do list. I’m not great at stopping and giving my kids my full attention. But when we sit down together to read, everything else fades. We are transported together to a new place, time, adventure. We get to know new friends together in the characters of the book. Would we like them in real life? What do we hope happens?

The Excuses

Your child is not too old, or too young. You can read to babies, and you can read to adults, so your teenager can certainly join you. They may not realize yet that they’ll like it, but they’ll come around. If this isn’t a habit in your home, start slowly. Ask them for just10 minutes a day after breakfast, for example. When they ask for “just 1 more chapter”, let them savor the anticipation and wait for tomorrow! After a while, you can build up the time that you are reading. If your kids are fidgety, let them color or build legos, just ask that they do it silently.

You might be surprised to see your big kids looking over your shoulder at picture books you read to your smaller kids, as well. And not all picture books are aimed at small children. A beautiful picture book can say so much even without words. Don’t ignore the picture book section of the library or bookstore. Many are clever, beautiful and profound.

If you worry that you aren’t a good reader, just remind yourself that practice makes perfect. Give it time. Maybe even trade off reading with your kids. Most likely your kids won’t mind, or they’ll hopefully come to value the time with you so much that they’ll overlook the occasional stumble over words. As they build stamina to listen, you will build stamina to read. You can certainly listen to audio books together sometimes, but I would encourage you to save these for the car or a particularly difficult book. I know that if I don’t have to sit and read, I’ll listen while I clean the kitchen or fold laundry and I won’t be giving my full attention to my kids.