Do You Read to Your Child?

 Teachers and parents often speak about the grade level on which a child is reading. This is familiar territory. Less familiar is the concept of a listening level.

What is a child’s listening level?

This is the level of difficulty of books that a child can understand while listening to them. Most children have a listening level well above their reading level through eighth grade, when the reading level and listening level merge.

Why is this important?

Children cannot be expected to understand words that they have never encountered. As children hear books read aloud their spoken vocabulary increases. This improves their chances of reading a new word when they come across it. Imagine seeing daunting words like tyrannical, undulating, and phosphorescent on the printed page for the first time, with no clue as to what they are! (and how about daunting, for that matter?)

What can I do to to improve my child’s listening level?

Read to your child. Read to your children. Read to each child individually. Read to all of your children at once. Read about anything and everything. Start a chapter book together and read a chapter each night. Resurrect the favorites of your childhood and share their magic with your children. Ask your librarian for some good suggestions for read-alouds. Read aloud every day.

And then read aloud some more.

How can I find out more?

Get your hands on a copy of Jim Trelease’s The New Read-Aloud Handbook. (Published in paperback by Penguin Books.) Borrow it, or, better yet, buy it!  It is a wellspring of advice and suggested titles for reading aloud.