Slice of Life Story Challenge - What I Know For Sure - Read Alouds

     It's Day 13 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge, started by Two Writing Teachers.  I am writing around the theme topic of "What I Know For Sure." (See Day 1 for a full explanation.)

World Read Aloud Day 2013

     Libby called last night, and we got to talking about her children's literature class she's taking.  She's a marketing major, but she had heard from a couple of her friends that the lit class was great, and she's a reader, so she thought it would be fun.  She just finished Rules by Cynthia Lord and loved it.  She had never read it before.  Now she's reading Number the Stars.  This is a reread for her.  I remember being the guest reader when her class was reading it aloud in 4th grade.  I was a stay-at-home mom at the time and jumped at the chance to read aloud to a class.  During our phone call last night, we reminisced over the read alouds we enjoyed together and talked about how important books were in her childhood. 

     Reading aloud is a non-negotiable in my classroom.  I try to read aloud every day.  This is another reason why PARCC testing was so difficult over these past 12 days.  It interrupted my regular schedule, and I wasn't able to read aloud to all my classes on a daily basis.  The flow of Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin for my 5th graders, and The Giver for my 6th graders was rudely interrupted!  No wonder I was a little cranky all week.  Reading aloud is magical.  It creates community and a shared experience, builds vocabulary and background knowledge, models fluency, gives readers a sense of story, and is just plain fun.  Every literacy cycle I plan includes a read aloud, usually around the theme topic we're exploring. (Rump is for our JOURNEY unit, and The Giver is for our LIBERTY unit.)  Our read alouds provide rich material to talk and write about, and a common text to use for modeling various skills I want to teach.  The read aloud becomes a mentor text for students' own writing and a pathway to study authors' decisions about structure, word choice, characterization, etc. We've Skyped with authors of read alouds and have learned about their writing processes and inspirations.  I can't imagine teaching language arts without a read aloud.

     I've cried and laughed with my students over read alouds and tortured them with
cliffhangers.  We've debated what makes a good read aloud and started series that inspired them to keep reading.  We've argued over our favorite characters and wondered about what might happen after the book ends.  I've perfected various voices for different characters and tweeted authors about what kids think of their books.  A social action project at our school was inspired by a read aloud (A Long Walk to Water).  I am an audio book fanatic, so I, too, still find a way to be read aloud to; I'm listening to David Sedaris narrate his own humorous essays in Me Talk Pretty One Day, which has kept me laughing aloud on my commute to and from school.

     Reading aloud to my own children and to my students is imperative to me as a mom and educator.  Memories are made.  Communities are built.  Writers are inspired.

     One of my students, Cassandra, wrote a Slice of Life about how a read aloud was a gateway into truly loving reading.  You can read it here.

     At the end of our conversation last night, Libby said, "I don't know what it's going to be like to parent someday or what to do,  but I know one thing for sure  I will have to do for my kids: read aloud to them."

What I Know For Sure:  If that's what Libby does, a new generation of readers will be born!

 P.S. I missed the #ReadAloud Twitter chat with Steven Layne on the 11th, but I reviewed it later.  Take look here if you missed it, too.