A 10th Inning Resource-rich Read-Aloud Wrap-up...

Let’s hear it for my fellow bloggers’ insightful and informative posts celebrating World Read Aloud Day and Read Across America!
IMHO: all have hit it out of the park.
(Guess who has Spring Training on her mind and the 27-day-count-down 'til the baseball season begins?)

April highlighted the value of listening as we read aloud the picture books and poetry we write.

JoAnn shared the favorite books she read aloud to her children and the magic created.
Bobbie WOW-ed us with how reading aloud empowers our imagination.
Carla reinforced the impact of reading aloud our own books when we visit schools.
Marti concluded our series of posts by sharing how reading aloud her work helps her revise.

To make sure we keep reading aloud to those children we teach/love/treasure/care for, I packed today’s post with nine resources.
(Again: guess what’s on my mind?)
For the record, I’ve been a Read-aloud devotee since Kindergarten.  In a heart-beat, I can see myself seated on the Kindergarten reading rug at Overbrook Elementary, hanging on Miss Patton’s every word, so afraid that ugly duckling wouldn’t find his family. As a classroom teacher, reading aloud to my fifth graders was my favorite part of the day. (Think THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.) Little did I know the impact of that experience until students wrote me later in their lives how they read to their kiddos the books I’d read to them.  Outside the classroom, I thought nothing was more delicious than reading to my own kiddo, until his kiddo came along and proved me wrong. J As I wrote in my March 23, 2015 interview with Dr. Steven Layne, author of IN DEFENSE OF READ-ALOUD (Stenhouse), in my book (so to speak) read-aloud needs no defense.

So,

re-read my interview with Dr. Layne, then savor the Read-aloud Tips he shared in the March 25 Wednesday Writing Workout.  His motto is “Practice makes perfect!”

While revisiting earlier TeachingAuthors posts, stop by April’s review of Sylvia Vardell’s POETRY ALOUD HERE, SHARING POETRY WITH CHILDREN 2 (American Library Association) which Booklist calls “required reading for all librarians.”

If you’re looking for a good book to read aloud to children in classrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, libraries, whether they’re yours or someone else’s, you can check out the American Booksellers Associations E.B. White Read Aloud Award Winners, including last year’s winners Jacqueline Woodson’s BROWN GIRL DREAMING (Nancy Paulsen) for middle graders and Jon Klassen’s SAM AND DAVE DIG A HOLE (Candlewick) for preschoolers. This year’s winners will be announced in May.

 Also worth checking out is Wisconsin Librarian Rob Reid’s “Reid-Aloud Alert” column which appears in Booklist Online and also in Book Links Magazine. The January 2016 issue of Book Links offers his recommended “first line grabbers.”

ReadWriteThink offers all sorts of classroom activities, including reading a song and choral reading, as well as additional websites and resources.

As JoAnn noted last year in her post about her niece’s PAWS FOR TALES program in Greenbay, Wisconsin, young readers can get lots of practice reading stories to dogs.

The Shelter Buddy Reading program “trains kids to read to dogs as a way of readying them for permanent homes, all while instilling a greater sense of empathy in the readers.”
You can watch the program in action in Missouri last week, thanks to this ABC newsclip.

Here in Chicago the SIT STAY READ program allows children to gain confidence while reading aloud to trained Dog Buddies – in schools, in libraries, in bookstores.

READER’S THEATER is yet another confidence-building read-aloud opportunity.  Toni Buzzeo noted in the introduction to her READ! PERFORM! LEARN! (Upstart Books) that “reader’s theater offers readers the opportunity to become familiar in advance with the text they will read, to practice it until they are fluent with it, and then to relish the positive experience of reading that well-practiced text aloud for an audience.” Usually a story’s script, taken from a written work familiar to the class, can be divided so that everyone gets a reading part.  No memorization.  No costumes.  No staging or special lighting is needed.

Finally, what could be better than getting together to read aloud? I’ve seen with my own two eyes the magic Mary Ann Hoberman’s YOU READ TO ME, I’LL READ TO YOU (Little, Brown) creates.  It’s a true game-changer in building confidence and connections, especially for beginning readers. The Queen of Poetry offers 13 rhymed variations, designed to be read aloud by two voices, on the theme of coming together to read.

          “I’ll read one line”

                                                (“I’ll read two.”)
                                          “You’ll read to me.”
                                                                                (“I’ll read to you.”)

Here’s hoping that when it comes to reading aloud, the resources I’ve shared help you score big time.

It’s never too late to celebrate World Read Aloud Day!

(And never too early to shout, "GO, CUBBIES, GO!")

Esther Hershenhorn