@Amanda That's awesome. Neither of my kids liked reading aloud themselves, so that's pretty cool that your son does.

@Judy Dunn Reading picture books to first-graders must be fun. I had a 4th grade teacher who read to us from middle-grade books (no pictures). She had a way of reading that helped me form pictures in my mind, which may be partially why I went into storyboarding later on. I don't know if the other kids got the same thing out of it, because I was such a strange child anyway.

@Amanda That’s awesome. Neither of my kids liked reading aloud themselves, so that’s pretty cool that your son does.

@Judy Dunn Reading picture books to first-graders must be fun. I had a 4th grade teacher who read to us from middle-grade books (no pictures). She had a way of reading that helped me form pictures in my mind, which may be partially why I went into storyboarding later on. I don’t know if the other kids got the same thing out of it, because I was such a strange child anyway.

And, from my experience (as a first grade teacher in a former life), the illustrations in books are so rich and often provoke deeper thinking in little ones. I often took one simple picture book that might take 2 minutes to read aloud and spent a half hour or more getting kids to think.

What do you think this person is doing in this picture? What is he feeling, do you think. What would you do if you were him? What do you think he’s going to do next. And so on. Story time—and art—were my two favorite times in the classroom.

And Mem Fox? I’m a big fan, all the way back to her first book, Possum Magic. Bet her book on reading aloud to kids is full of gems.

As usual, David, your blog posts are high on my must-read list. Thanks for the thoughtful post.

Thank you for writing this post. Very good info…. My son, now 6 years old, is learning to read so we focus much of our reading time listening to him read & cheering him on along the way. However, just last night he said that he wanted me to read to him (he does this a few times/week lately). He didn’t want to do the reading; he wanted me to read to him. Of course, I obliged;-) I hope he wants me to read to him for many, many years to come. We both get so much out of it!