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Family Read-Aloud Celebration
February 6 – March 2
Celebrate the pleasures and benefits of reading aloud!
Join the Family Read-Aloud Celebration, sponsored by the Gonda Family Library and the Family School Alliance at UCLA Lab School. This year, from February 6 – March 2, we ask you to commit to reading aloud to your children at least 20 minutes each day. Our purpose is to help families develop a habit of reading aloud every day throughout and beyond elementary school. We’ll wrap up the celebration with a party on March 2 for the whole school!
Ways to participate:
- Visit Book Corner for read aloud suggestions
- Come to the kick-off assembly on Monday, Feb. 6, on the Blacktop
- Add to our list of favorite read-alouds. Help us reach 100 titles!
- Send us a photo of your family reading together (jkantor@ucla.edu). We’ll add it to the slideshow above and also share it at the party. Send it in early and you may even find your face on a poster promoting the celebration!
- A limited supply of paper passports are available in the library - if you would like one, pick one up.
- Join us for the party on March 2
Upper students, we need your help at the party! If you’d like to volunteer, fill out this form (PDF) and return it to the library.
Go on a Reading Journey!
Books can introduce your family to interesting people, exciting places, thrilling adventures and intriguing information. Let your journeys take you through these categories:
- Fiction
- Picture Books
- Poetry
- Myths
- Folklore
- Fairly Tales
- Science
- Biography
- History
- Sports
- Arts
- Other Non-Fiction
Benefits of Reading Aloud
Reading aloud helps a child to associate reading with pleasure, create background knowledge, and build vocabulary. It also provides children with a reading model. The benefits of reading aloud don’t just apply to young children. Parents should continue reading aloud as their children grow because listening comprehension outpaces reading skills into middle school.
- In its 1985 report, Becoming a Nation of Readers, the Commission on Reading states, “The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”
- Jim Trelease, in his Read-Aloud Handbook, has noted that almost as big a mistake as not reading to children at all is stopping too soon. Until about the 8th grade, children listen and comprehend on a higher level than their decoding skills allow them to read independently. This means children can hear and understand stories that are more complicated and more interesting than anything they can read on their own.
