In addition, reading aloud provides students with a shared experience that becomes a part of the
group’s collective memory to be drawn on in subsequent discussions.
Reading aloud interactively implies that as students are listening; they are not passive, but
rather, they are actively interpreting what they are hearing. Teachers ensure that their read alouds
are interactive in a variety of ways, including asking questions while reading and having students
participate in the reading. (See Cunningham and Zibulsky 2011; Goodson, Wolf, Bell, Turner, and
Finney 2010; Hall and Moats 2000 for research related to benefits of reading aloud.)
Because listening comprehension outpaces reading comprehension until about grade eight (see
figure 2.3), reading aloud to students is an important way to engage students with text that is more
challenging than they can read independently while they are developing as readers.
Figure 2.3. Listening and Reading Comprehension by AgeSource
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State
School Officers (NGA/CCSSO). 2010a. Common Core State Standards for English
Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Appendix A. National
Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School
Officers, Washington DC.Appendix B of the CCSS for ELA/Literacy specifically indentifies texts in various genres that can be
read aloud to students in kindergarten through grade three. These lists serve as a starting point for
teachers and schools and include examples of the range of literature for these grades. Teachers at all
levels, including middle and high school, should collaborate to develop their own more extensive lists,
including selections that are relevant to their students and community. The CDE has a large searchable
database (http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/rl/) of recommended literature in all subject areas from
kindergarten to grade twelve that is a valuable resource for this work.
As important as reading aloud is, educators recognize that it supplements students’ interactions
with text; reading aloud does not supplant them. In other words, reading content area or
informational and literary texts to students in lieu of students reading texts themselves is not
recommended beyond the earliest grades. Rather, teachers help students read complex texts using a
variety of strategies to gain the information, experience the rhetorical effects, and analyze the various
meanings that texts hold.
Essential Considerations Chapter 2 | 59