Reading to Older Kids in School, Part 1

Not everyone stops reading to children after they have learned to read for themselves. We know several secondary school teachers who regularly read aloud to students. One of them, Jimmy Leong, not only reads to his own classes, he has also read aloud to the whole school at assemblies and after the morning flag raising ceremony.

Jimmy Leong teaches English and literature, so it is not too surprising to hear that he is keen on reading aloud to his pupils. More surprising is the case of Nancy Yen who teaches mathematics at the same school as Jimmy. We’ll let Nancy tell how she got started after the idea was suggested in a course George taught about multiple intelligences:

"I was quite excited about using reading aloud as I never knew that I could do 'such a thing' in my mathematics class. I did not have much idea about the standard of English of this class but I did know that these hyperactive pupils simply love stories -- they always seemed to be so engrossed listening to the teacher during their Social Studies periods.

"On a bright Thursday morning, I walked into the class and told them: 'Class, I'm going to read to you a short story. So, just sit back and relax and I hope you will enjoy this story.' Actually, I did not have any objective other than to introduce something different from my routine mathematics lessons.

"The class was extremely quiet as I read the story; they were so eager, so attentive! I couldn’t believe that this hyperactive group of pupils actually went an entire five minutes without uttering a word! Then, they were so enthusiastic to answer the questions I asked about the story, as well as asking others of their own."

When dads read aloud it not only helps promote reading skills. Children's listening skills improve via the practice they receive while listening to us read aloud.