Every parent and teacher knows it, but now research has confirmed it. Reading aloud has benefits for children that go beyond getting them to sleep, and in fact can be particularly helpful for those with learning differences or who are otherwise struggling with reading comprehension.
At least initially, children acquire new vocabulary largely through listening. Reading aloud lets them to hear new words in new contexts and get familiar with them before encountering them on the page. It also builds a closer relationship in their minds between spoken and written language, serving to make text less threatening. Reading aloud also serves to increase students’ attention span and make them more comfortable with the thinking skills required to make meaning from text.
This is why Read Aloud, a feature of CARS & STARS Online, can revolutionise understanding. Instead of reading the text directly themselves, students listen to the program read it for them. This option can be switched on for students who prefer to listen to content instead of reading it directly, allowing textual decoding to occur regardless of basic literacy level.
This feature is particularly helpful for those with dyslexia or other learning differences, but can be of benefit to any student. The Read Aloud feature increases word exposure and improves vocabulary by exposing students to words they may not be able to read themselves as text yet, but which they still understand when delivered verbally.
Discovering words in this way also helps develop higher-order thinking skills, because students engage with text at a more abstract level initially and by default, being exposed directly to the concepts and not having to decode them themselves – essentially overcoming many obstacles of a lower-order thinking style while progressing straight to higher levels of understanding, a real boon for their confidence.
Read Aloud allows children who would normally be daunted by a text to engage with it before they even realise that they are. That’s a real boon to reading instruction, and just one more reason why CARS & STARS Online is a reading comprehension program like no other.
If you are interested in learning more about the CARS & STARS Online subscriptions and how they can help children to achieve better results, then sign up for a free trial to be an integral part of your child’s reading success.
