With the movement in literacy classrooms moving towards long periods of independent reading, sometimes reading aloud to a partner gets a "bad rap". Partner reading is when students find a partner and read one text together. But there is benefit to allowing students to socialize around a book. According to Brown the article, Investigating Classroom Discourse Surrounding Partner Reading, here are a few reasons why partner reading should be a part of the language arts classroom:
Allow opportunity to have your child read with a partner sometime. It is fun and will build their lifelong literacy skills!
- Students can disagree with each other: When partner reading, children are at ease disagreeing with each other. This is not that surprising, since it is easier to disagree with the other person in a pair, than it may be to disagree in a large group of peers.
- Build meaning with each other: Children reading independently only have their own set of beliefs and experiences that they bring to a text. When they are partnered with someone else, they then have the experiences of their partner that can help them to make meaning of the text.
- Set the rules of engagement: Students practice their problem solving skills by deciding how they will read, who will read and when, and what method of partner reading they will be doing (i.e. choral reading, cloze reading, echo reading, etc.)
- Work on Word Attack Strategies: Children who only read independently never get the opportunity for someone to help them with a word they do not know how to say. By reading with a partner, they can help each other past tricky words.
Allow opportunity to have your child read with a partner sometime. It is fun and will build their lifelong literacy skills!