Making the most of reading aloud

There are entire books written about reading aloud to children and teachers take seminars just about reading aloud. But there are lots of little things that you can do at home without making it feel like they are in school. I'll talk about a few of them:

1. Starting with the cover, make sure you read the author. They'll start to recognize favorite authors after a while, and you can point it out as well. Also, the pictures on the cover at this age are a dead give away for what is going to happen. I always ask Isadora what she thinks the story is going to be about. It's all stuff we do as readers - we grab books and make predictions about what the story is going to be about based on the cover - it's just getting those habits started early.

2. As you read a story, draw their attention to the illustrations and ask them questions. For example, I was just reading a book to Isadora entitled Martha Doesn't Say Sorry. Many of the characters were unhappy with the things that Martha was doing, although the text didn't explicitly say that. So I drew her attention to the pictures, asking Isadora how she thought they were feeling.
Good readers tend draw on multiple sources for comprehension, and check their understanding as go along. As Isadora gets older, the goal is that she will sound out words and then automatically check her understanding to see if she is getting conflicting messages. One way of checking is by reading more text (as most of us do), but we can also look at other sources of information that is available to us, like pictures. If she sounds out the word "jeep" and there is a sheep in the picture, I hope that she will pause, realize that there is conflicting information, and then sound out the word again.

3. If you are reading nonfiction, always read the table of contents (if it has them)! Too often we skip over that and then our children do too. They are a wonderful tool that your child can use as they get older. It helps them understand that non-fiction texts do not have to be read the same way as a fiction text.
I recently purchased the cookbook Pink Princess Tea Parties, which has a wonderful Table of Contents at the front. So before we begin looking through it (and she wants to look at every single page because there are photos of each sugary confection) I have her look at the table of contents and ask her if she wants to look at the drinks, cookies and cakes, sweets and treats, or sandwiches and snacks. She decides and then we go from there. Nonfiction, in any form, is great!