Tips for Reading Aloud With Preschoolers

Read aloud so preschoolers can:

Continue to associate reading with warm, pleasant feelings

Talk about the characters, settings, and plot and relate them to their lives

Learn about words and language; expand their listening skills

Build their vocabularies with words they understand and can use

Gain background knowledge about a variety of topics

Learn that print is spoken words written down

Choose books preschoolers enjoy, including stories

About young children who have experiences similar to your preschooler

With simple plots your preschooler can retell in her own words

With repetitive and predictable rhymes, phrases, and story lines

In longer picture books and chapter books that allow for for several sessions

Based on folk tales wherein animal characters think and talk like humans

With facts, explanations, and new people, places, and things

While reading aloud:

Introduce the book: read the title, author, and illustrator

Look at the cover: talk about what the book might be about

Run your finger under the text as you read

Talk about the story during and after a read-aloud session

Use information and reference books to answer your preschooler's questions

Have your preschooler look at the pictures to help her understand the story

Repeat interesting words and rhymes while reading and at a later time

Pause so your preschooler can say the word then ends a predictable phrase

Stop to ask thinking questions like "What'll happen?" or "Why did he do that?"

Invite your preschooler to draw or paint a picture based on the story