The Read-Aloud Handbook - Book Review

I believe that one of the most important things you can do as a parent is read to your child. If you are a parent, grandparent, educator or any other person that has contact with children, I recommend The Read-Aloud Handbook. It is that important. If I could, I'd give you all a copy! If you live by me, you can
borrow mine!


The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease is inspiring. We all know we should read to our children (but you may not know we should continue reading out loud once a child can read themselves), but sometimes it is hard to know what to read to them, how to read to them, and well, life just gets busy and reading sometimes gets neglected. This book will get you and your child inspired to read and it will show you how to do it!


Reading has so many benefits for children and their parents. A book can be a child's teacher, a child's friend, a source of pleasure, a source of family bonding time, a source of life meaning and an escape into another world. And the benefits last a life time. A love for reading is an amazing thing. If you have it, you know what I mean.

How many of you can still remember your favorite books as children? How about reading with your parents? These memories and the feelings related to them last forever. And while you are enjoying your time reading or being read to, you are learning effortlessly. If you want a smart child and a child whose childhood is full of great memories, put away the flash cards and the educational toys and dvds and take out a book. Really, it's that easy! You and a book can be one of your child's best teachers.


As much as I love the message of this book and the amazing index of book suggestions in the back of it, I don't love how Trelease seems to make conclusions based off of single anecdotes. A+B doesn't just equal C. There are so many variables in there. I still love the book. And I still think everyone should read it!


Here's the Read-Aloud Website with more helpful information.


And here are some favorite Quotes from the book:

This is not a book about teaching a child how to read; it's about teaching a child to want to read. There's an education adage that goes, "What we teach children to love and desire will always outweigh what we make them learn."

There should be no rush to have your child reading before age six or seven. That's developmentally the natural time.

The best SAT preparation course in the world is to read to your children in bed when they're little. Eventually, if that's a wonderful experience for them, they'll start to read themselves.

...Research shows that the seeds of reading and school success are sown in the home, long before the child ever arrives at school. 

Reading is the ultimate weapon, destroying ignorance, poverty, and despair before they can destroy us. A nation that doesn't read much doesn't know much. A nation that doesn't know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box, and the voting booth. And those decisions ultimately affect an entire nation--the literate and the illiterate.