Parents in Education
Reading at Home Using Shared Reading Practices
Shared reading describes the interaction that occurs between an adult and a child when reading or looking at a book. Storybooks provide children with access to a world of sights, sounds, and words that may be quite different from what they experience in their homes, communities, and schools.
Reading aloud with your child builds language development so that by the time children have mastered letter-sound correspondences and can read increasingly complex texts themselves, they will have the language skills to understand what they read. Having strong oral language skills sets the foundations for children to build strong literacy skills.
An important aspect of shared reading is the conversation that occurs between the adult and child during the reading. Pausing while reading and taking the time to discuss details in the story can support your child’s oral language development. The conversation might focus on the storyline, such as characters or where the story takes place; it may focus on similar experiences the child has had to those that happened in the book; it may focus on specific words; or concepts that are new to the child. When you read aloud to your child, they hear and learn lots of new and sophisticated words and sentences they may not hear or use in everyday talk.
Virtually all children’s books are appropriate for shared reading, but the best books will have rich, detailed pictures, and are interesting to the child. Remember, the purpose of shared reading is to stimulate rich talk between the adult and child, not for the child to be able to read the text themselves.
