Every new parent should get a copy of Jim Trelease’s The Read-Aloud Handbook. Teachers should have a copy too. In honor of the late Trelease, parent and award-winning artist, writer, and author, it’s important to point out that his well-documented research lives on encouraging reading aloud to children, even babies, to foster a lifelong love of reading.
How do we help America’s children learn to love reading so they’ll want to read their whole lives and be good at it? The Read-Aloud Handbook has the answers.
I taught reading to middle and high school students with learning disabilities for years, and my degrees and preparation are in this area. I recommend Trelease’s book and his website to all who care about teaching children to read.
It’s never too late to read aloud with children and teens. Make it a family affair.
I learned as a teacher that while phonics is essential to help children learn to read and to help those with reading disabilities, what drives children to improve, is continued practice reading what they find exciting and having access to books and material in their classes, homes, and school libraries.
What’s alarming is the push for young children to read by drill and a focus on sounds and flashcards and the technicalities of reading before they understand the glory of books!
Public schools are turning classrooms for young children into assessment centers, with classroom walls lined with phonics rules and sounds that hold no interest, emphasizing disabilities like dyslexia before children can understand why they should care about words. Then setting them up for instruction with unproven online programs or direct instruction with manuals.
It’s troubling to see the loss of school librarians and the closure of school libraries, especially in poor schools. It tells children that reading isn’t a priority. Why should they care about learning sounds if they cannot access books and reading material?
We know that great school libraries mean better test scores, so why is there rarely any mention of this?
Competing phonics programs, some created by individuals with unclear credentials, advertised for instructing children as young as two and three, inadvertently reveal that children dislike these programs and could be learning to hate reading.
Here are examples of some of the claims.
- Teach your child to read without tears.
- Don’t battle with your young child to teach them to read.
- Teach your child without making them cry.
- Teaching children to read and spell is challenging.
- They’re excited, but the process can be so hard that they lose interest.
- Children try to get out of it.
- The child said they thought I was their friend.
- The approach is no fun at all.
The emphasis on the technical side of reading could destroy a child’s interest, sense of wonder, or joy. Pushing young children to learn words and sounds when they cannot connect their purpose to books wastes precious time.
Some children will read early. Parents may brag that their child learned to read at age two! Maybe those children will like to read in the future, but perhaps they won’t. If it’s mostly drilling phonics sounds, they likely won’t care, but excitement about books will carry them into the future with a love for reading.
In The Read-Aloud Handbook, Trelease includes a quote by Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, called America’s pediatrician, who stated this on John Merrow’s Options in Education, National Public Radio, September 3, 1979.
I’ve had children in my practice who were reading from a dictionary at the age of three and one-half or four and had learned to read and type successfully by age four. But those kids went through a very tough time later on. They went through first grade successfully, but in second grade, they really bombed out. And I have a feeling that they’ve been pushed so hard from outside to learn to read early, that the cost of it didn’t show up until later (pp. 31-32).
One of the most moving sections of Trelease’s book is about parents who taught their daughter with disabilities how to read by consistently reading aloud the books she enjoyed when she was young.
Trelease discusses Cushla and Her Books by author Dorothy Butler who describes how parents read their child a diet of ten books daily (pp.25-26). Reading became so enjoyable that Cusla defied those who claimed she would not go far intellectually.
Instead of buying unproven, costly online phonics programs or drilling children nonstop on flashcards, get Trelease’s book and learn how to establish true reading joy for children that will last a lifetime and avoid reading remediation. Read books and magazines to children that they enjoy, that they choose!
Make sure your child’s school has a great library, and get them a library card from the local library.
Parents and teachers, children don’t need to cry to learn how to read. It can be an enjoyable process and can start anytime. It’s a simple and inexpensive solution. Read aloud to children and do it often. Even older children may enjoy being read to.
If parents and educators genuinely want to help children learn to read, they’ll follow Trelease’s suggestions in The Read-Aloud Handbook. Helping children learn to read can and should be a joyful experience. Many thanks to Jim Trelease.
Reference
Trelease, J. (2013). The Read-Aloud Handbook: Includes a Giant Treasury of Great Read-Aloud Books. New York, New York: Penguin Books.
Neither children nor reading has changed, which is why “old school” techniques like Trelease’s remain effective. What has changed is the panic that scarcity marketing has brought about in learning to read. Buy this, so your child won’t be left behind!
It’s revolting.
Thanks for bringing back the greatest hits.
It’s alarming how they’re changing early childhood ed. to drilling sounds like every child has dyslexia. And you’re right, Christine. They’re focused on marketing. That’s what it’s all about. Thanks.
I taught adult students in an early childhood program. We used Trelease as a textbook. Most of the students had never been read to. They all “got religion” and wrote Jim Trelease letters about how his book had changed their lives. I just found a letter he wrote me thanking me for the correspondence. This is why i think illustrated “childrens” books are the way to literacy for everyone. And pleasure!
Agree. Thanks for sharing, Lauren.
Reading aloud to my daughters bound us in a way that had positive outcomes for them. We established a camaraderie that would play out on vacations, before we left for school and a vocabulary to transition into love of reading of a lot of different genres. In their late twenties now we share reading as a focal point in our our casual conversations across the country.. Aka literate adults.
That is lovely, Stephanie. Thank you for sharing.
Nancy,
This is so powerful and accurate. I fear what we are doing to children.
Do we wonder why our teenagers are struggling when there has been so much pressure on them at such a young age.
All of my children were late readers…2nd grade and older. Now they read a lot and for pleasure. They got a play based childhood. I refuse all the assessments for them. They are in public schools.
Even I failed a 3rd grade practice test. Do we realize how horrible these tests are? I cringe when I hear a politician state that 65% of kids are not reading at grade level. Uggghhhh.
Those who are pushing their children to read so early….should we expect 6 month Olds to be walking? Should we expect babies at 2 weeks to hold their heads up. How about talking at 2 months.
I am so glad I didn’t push my children to read at a young age. Did I worry? Yes but I knew the research etc. And knew from my own experience teaching.
Kids need to have a desire to read. My childhood had all of this phonics. Maybe it helped but we didn’t have all the tests or pressure. And we had a great library and librarian. We were allowed to practice.
Here are some of my writings on the topic.
https://tutucker.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/im-a-reader-what-are-you/
https://tutucker.wordpress.com/2020/03/03/expectations/
Thanks for sharing, Stefanie. I appreciate your blog entries, including mention of data collection. This is a concern considering all the online reading programs.
Also, critical point about standardized testing, unfortunately, changed reading expectations for young children.
Especially good to hear your children are doing well and like reading.
I have learned the importance of phonics from my 50+ years in education , first as a classroom teacher, then as a director of a cooperative preschool, and later as a college professor at a PBI (Predominantly Black and Hispanic Institution) school, but I also learned that children need a rich exposure to good children’s literature, literature that engenders discussions both about the content of a story and bigger issues that arise from the reading.
Many of the students who I taught at the college level were not “exposed” to great children’s literature. According to them, starting in the early grades, the emphasis of their reading and then English language classes was on phonics and drilling skills so that when they entered college, they did not have the “background” information that comes from a rich exposure and discussions of books that informs a lot of adult reading. This put them at a big disadvantage in some college level classes.
The content standards for the lower grades have changed over the years from when I started teaching. They now emphasize at younger and younger ages formal guided reading instruction. For some children that is fine but the majority of kindergarten children who are now expected to be “reading” by the end of kindergarten, this expectation has dampened their desire to read – engendering an emotional response to reading that is very negative. In addition, many do not see themselves as “readers”, They have lost the enjoyment that reading should bring.
Will we rectify these terrible introduction to reading expectations so that our children grow up to enjoy reading for pleasure as well as for information?
Phonics is essential, especially for children who come to school speaking a language other than English, but it should not be the entire literacy program. Let’s go back and look at the research on early childhood development and how learning takes place with young children! This is essential!
Thank you, Nora. I agree. Phonics has been around for a long time. Some children need a heavy dose of it, but it’s alarming to read structured literacy rules that leave out giving children the opportunity to find and read the books they find interesting. Not sure how many children will come out of this strange experiment unscathed before a lot of $$$ is wasted on programs, a lot of them online.
Three cheers for Jim Trelease.
I got my first copy of The Readaloud Handbook from the Weekly Reader Book Club in my second (or third) year of teaching – 1977 or 78. Back then it was a pamphlet, not a book. But it got me started.
For the next 30+ years the most important part of my reading program was the daily read aloud. It didn’t matter what grade (over the years I had all grades K-6). They were all read to. After I retired I returned as a volunteer and read to classes.
Trelease was, by far, the most important influence on my teaching career.
That’s wonderful, Stu! Good for you! Thanks for sharing.