Reading aloud to kids has many benefits. It builds empathy, creates a love of reading, improves language and listening skills, facilitates important conversations, empowers the imagination, and is fun.
I remember a day long ago when the teacher read a book aloud to the entire class. The story came alive when the teacher became the voices of all the characters, and hearing the reactions of classmates made the story interactive.
As a kid, I certainly learned a lot of new words and how to pronounce them when an adult read a book aloud to me. This method of learning language was especially important for books in Chinese because, unlike English, you can’t rely on phonics to sound out the words. Learning pronunciation was almost like a guessing game.
Most recently, I’ve seen programs that encourage children to read a book to a therapy dog. Many of the benefits of adults reading to children are transferrable to children reading aloud to pets.
When you were young, did you enjoy listening to a story? As an adult, do you read aloud to kids?
Vanya Wryter Consulting Services 
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