Today is World Read-Aloud Day. Who knew? Even I, avid reader-aloud of books, didn’t know until last week.
But now that I do, I want to shout it from the rooftops: Listen up, everybody! Put down that remote control! Put down your iPad! Turn off the iPod! Silence your smart phone and chuck it in a drawer!
Now, go get a child or two. It doesn’t matter if they’re four months or fourteen years old. Plop them onto the nearest sofa. Find a book. You know, those old-fashioned rectangles of bound paper. Pick it up. Open it up. Sit on the sofa next to the children you’ve plopped there. Read them the book.
Rinse. Repeat.
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According to Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook, “every time we read to a child, we’re sending a pleasure message to the child’s brain.” Neuroscientist John Medina calls this a “dopamine lollipop.” The brain likes dopamine lollipops; when it gets one, it wants more of whatever stimulus caused it. So reading aloud to your children creates in their little brains a desire to…
