How do children learning to read and write benefit from listening to themselves as they read? Why is having children read aloud such a powerful practice in early literacy instruction? In this article, I argue that the auditory input...
moreHow do children learning to read and write benefit from listening to themselves as they read? Why is having children read aloud such a powerful practice in early literacy instruction? In this article, I argue that the auditory input provided by the sound of the reader’s voice as he reads aloud is a multifaceted asset to the reader in the formation of a literacy processing system . The reader can utilize this auditory contribution to self-monitor in a variety of ways: identify and sort letter/sound relationships; solve words in isolation and in continuous text; and monitor the fluency of one’s own reading . As well, self-directing talk during reading may reveal glimmers of the beginnings of inner, self-regulatory speech for the reader . I discuss how listening to oneself reading can contribute to the development of more-flourishing literacy processing amidst several dimensions—drawing examples from the context of Reading Recovery lessons—and point to prompts from Clay asking children...
