Read Aloud Activities to Increase Student Engagement

Read aloud activities are a daily component of my teaching and an absolute must. Reading stories to my own children and to my students is one of my favorite aspects of being a teacher. The origin of this goes back a long way. When I was in the first grade I vividly remember my teacher reading a certain story aloud. It was a very pivotal moment for me. For weeks I spent my free play time acting like the teacher and reading that book to whoever would listen. It is no wonder that reading books to my students is still one of my favorite aspects of teaching.

Reading stories aloud to children is important because it helps build their vocabulary and language skills as well as their listening and comprehension ability. Below are some fun and creative read-aloud activities to incorporate at home or in your classroom today.

Importance of read aloud stories

Reading stories aloud to children is important for many reasons including it builds language and listening skills. The more books students are read the more words they are exposed to which means they’ll have better vocabulary and richer background knowledge. This helps them when they encounter new words or topics in other books. Students can usually understand better because they have such a strong foundation in language and comprehension.

I read a study that showed that children who are read to consistently from birth to the time they attend kindergarten are exposed to 290,000 more words than children who are not read to with consistency. This is incredible. 290,000 words is quite a lot and all because of consistently reading to a child. Below are a few more important takeaways from read aloud stories.

Valuable lessons

Most children’s stories have a moral or lesson to learn. Reading stories aloud to children and having a discussion throughout the book allows for valuable life lessons to be learned. Reading fables is a great way to discuss morals and values of a story. I always ask students to think about why the author wrote a book and what the author is trying to teach us. Every book teaches us something and it is important to teach our children this concept.

Social Stories

Many read aloud stories are known as social stories. Social stories make kids feel like they can relate to the characters. Problems the characters may be facing could be similar to those of the student reader. This is a great way for children to learn how to solve problems without adults having to dictate all of this for them. Remember that saying, “children will do as you do, not as you say.”? This is also a great way to normalize children’s feelings and emotions. 

Challenging topics 

Some topics that children encounter are hard for adults to have a discussion with children about. Using a read-aloud story is a nice ease into harder conversations. For example, when children have lost a pet it may be hard to talk about, but reading a story where the main character loses a pet may help the adult start this conversation with the child.

Interactive read aloud activities for school

Reading to children is important but it is crucial that we also do something more while reading. Below are ways to make read aloud activities interactive which deepens student knowledge and understanding.

Prediction

Encourage students to make a prediction before reading a book. Show students the cover of the book and then read the description on the back cover. Next, I ask students to make a prediction about the character or the plot. Making predictions is important because it helps students tune into the story better and have a deeper understanding of the text because they are continually trying to figure out if their prediction was correct or not. Be sure to check in with student predictions a few times while reading the story as well.

Model Thinking

As students become more fluent and older they will be making connections to text and thinking throughout an entire story. Before students do this automatically, we need to be modeling our thinking. As I read a story aloud to students I will often use a few of the following sentence starters –

• I wonder what would happen if…
• This makes me think of a time…
• This book reminds me a lot of…
• I think the next thing that’s going to happen is… Let’s find out.

All of these sentences model my thinking which engages students in thinking about the story on a deeper level too.  

Retell Story

Once the story is complete it’s important for students to retell the story using beginning, middle and ending statements. This allows students to solidify the story and for you as the reader to help clarify any misconceptions a student may have. Thinking about a book sequentially is important for reading comprehension. Try asking your students or child to tell the story using first, next, last transition words.

Use Voices

My favorite aspects of reading aloud is using different voices for different characters. I think the reason my own children prefer me to read a book over anyone else is because I get very animated and theatrical with the voices I use. This builds engagement and excitement, but also helps students better understand characters within a story. 

Interactive read aloud activities to use at home

All of the above listed activities can be used at school and at home. Below are a few interactive read aloud activities specifically to use at home. 

Consistent Reading Time

Consistency is always the key. Perfection is not. Make sure to find a consistent time that you can read stories aloud to children at home. In our home we always read stories before bedtime, but I often read stories during snack time as well. 

Reading stories during snack time is like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It’s almost too good to be true. My children are snacking and eating their food in its entirety and I am reading a story that builds reading development. My children always finish their snack/meal and they are even more invested and tuned into the story. Looking for more ways to promote reading at home in a fun way? Check out this blog post.

Create a new ending

After completing a story discuss the ending with your children. Then encourage them to create their own alternate ending. They can do this verbally or draw a picture in a reading journal. It is always fun to see what children will create.

As you can see it’s incredibly important for students to experience read aloud activities to develop their listening, language, comprehension, and reading development. When we create read aloud activities that build engagement and dive deeper into necessarily reading development skills, students reading is developed further. 

Are you looking for a reading system that takes out the constant teacher and student interruptions, managing of literacy centers and gives the teacher back the calm, uninterrupted environment to teach guided reading groups? Do you want a system that encourages students to support their peers, learn time management and reading is an exciting time? Well then a Must Do May Do system is your answer. Click here or the image below for a free quick guidebook and template to transform your literacy time from chaos and noise to calm and engaged learning. 

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