Reading Aloud Skills

Reading Aloud
A read aloud is a planned oral reading of a book or print excerpt. Reading aloud involves children in reading for enjoyment and adult as model for fluent reading. Reading aloud can be a good activity in classroom in order to develop interest towards reading among students.

Stress
Stress : the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in word or certain words in phrases. In reading aloud session, teacher should be able to read with correct word stress. Basically, stress word considered Content Word such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Function Word such as determiner, conjunctions, pronouns and prepositions perform function in sentence. They contain little information in sentence and need not to be stressed.

 Before reading aloud, teacher can prepare a passage with all the stressed syllable been underlined. It will help them to read the passage with correct word stressed. Teacher can read first to demonstrate correct pronunciation. After that, ask students to read aloud by themselves. Example: Peter ran to the store to buy bread and milk for breakfast.

Intonation
Intonation: Variation of pitch while speaking. In reading aloud, Reading with intonation can make the process more lively. Teacher must speak with an appropriate volume for the children to hear. Use a non-monotonous, vocal expression to clarify the meaning of the text. Speak loudly or silently or whisper when you need to, make onomatopoeic sounds ( eg: bang, cuckoo, shhh, meow)

 When using story during reading aloud session, teacher can use different tone for different character. This can help students to see the variation of intonation during reading.

Rhythm
Rhythm: A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound. Rhythm produced by combination of stressed and unstressed syllable. In reading aloud session, reading should follow the correct beat. Beats occurs at every stressed syllable. Teacher can ask students to clap the hands at the steady beat. Make sure they keep the rhythm by clapping or tapping while reading the text.

 Teacher can use poems or songs to make it easier for students to recognize the rhythm. Example: There was an old man from Peru, da DUM da da DUM da da DUM who dreamed he was eating his shoe, da DUM da da DUM da da DUM He awoke in the night, da DUM da da DUM with a terrible fright, da da DUM da da DUM and found out that it was quite true, da DUM da da DUM da da DUM. *the DUM sounds is the beat of the poem that will produce rhythm to the poem.

Selecting, Adapting and Producing Activities and Materials for Developing Reading Aloud and Reading Comprehension Skills

Definition: the quality of written language that makes it easy to read. Relevant content in the text. (not confusing to avoid misleading expectation) Reading text should be at the right level of linguistic difficulty of students.

Readability

Simple sentence structure.

Suit the interest of the reader.

Not too long, use suitable fonts and spacing between lines.