Reading aloud is an important component of the primary level English lesson. The teacher usually reads aloud stories or conversations while the students listen or follow in their books. When you read aloud to your students, you help them to find pleasure and enjoyment in the new language, promote their understanding and encourage them to read independently. Here are the main five advantages of the teacher reading aloud in the primary classroom.
1. Reading aloud provides a reading model:
It is essential that the students at the elementary level hear a model of correct pronunciation, stress, and intonation. You can encourage students to point to the words as you read aloud. In this way, you model the reading process and promote the development of print concepts, the alphabetic principle, phonic knowledge and sight vocabulary. Reading aloud fiction is powerful as it engages students’ imaginations and attention, gives them experience with stories from other cultures, helps them to learn how various kinds of literature are organized, and motivates them to read further in the new language.
2. Reading aloud enriches students’ vocabulary:
Reading aloud in EFL class can expose students to a wider range of vocabulary. The teacher can add synonymous and antonymous for vocabulary found in their textbooks. Students’ vocabulary improves when the teacher reads folk tales from their own and other cultures, fairy tales, fables, and non-fiction material about the world around them. The illustrations in these stories help students to make guesses about unknown vocabulary. Talking about the story afterwards engages students in using this new vocabulary in a natural way.
The amount of vocabulary, language acquisition and students’ oral language proficiency in English are all developed in the classroom when the teacher reads aloud to students in a rich environment surrounded by pictures, gestures and other explanatory and visual aids.
3. Reading aloud establishes the reading-writing connection:
Reading aloud can lead the learners to understand the many purposes of the printed word: to inform, persuade, and entertain. In this way, the teacher involves students in the various functions of print. In addition, it can reinforce the visual image of the target vocabulary during the early stages of reading. When reading fiction aloud, we encourage students to enter into the meaning-making process which is the essence of reading.
4. Reading aloud improves listening comprehension:
The purpose of reading aloud in the elementary stage is to facilitate comprehension for beginning English language learners so that they may enjoy the language. Young learners enjoy listening to stories. Reading aloud attracts students’ attention. You can help your students listen and comprehend by stopping at certain places in the book to discuss a picture as it relates to the story or to review the plot. You may also focus on comprehension by asking prediction questions as you go along. Don’t be afraid to read stories more than once. Students learn from and enjoy repetition.
5. Reading aloud promotes joy during the language lesson:
When the teacher reads a story aloud, students get into a magical world. They are removed from their everyday lives to different places and at different times. They are introduced to characters who are larger than life and to opportunities to experience adventure and magic. Here are five advantages of reading aloud to your primary students, especially stories.
- Helping students cope with their own emotions and feel that they are a part of the world
- Making concepts vivid and clear by illustrating them rather than simply explaining
- Helping the lesson be alive for the learners.
- Motivating students to try to understand the new vocabulary.
- Enhancing your students’ imagination & ability to speak well.
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