So many of us can remember our teachers reading from a favorite book. I fondly remember, for example, Ms. G, my second grade teacher, reading The Boxcar Children (Warner, 1942). I could not wait to settle into my desk after recess to hear the many adventures of Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. Even at an early age I viewed the read aloud as one of the most sacred parts of the school day.

The read aloud helps us to build and experience a sense of community, it provides us with common ground for discussion, it entertains us, it requires no (or very little) formal student response so it gives all learners a time to feel confident and competent, and it connects us to reading and to books as a way to learn and enjoy. For all of these reasons, it is heartbreaking to see students in inclusive classrooms excluded from the read aloud. Learners may be excluded because the teacher believes the activity will be of little benefit to the individual or because the student cannot participate in a typical way. One teacher recently told me she asked one of her students to be pulled from the read aloud because “he doesn't even look up at the book.” They may be excluded because the teacher thinks there are other more important skills to develop during that period of time. One of my former co-teaching partners once asked if we should pull a student from the read aloud so we could address a few “life skills” or functional skills (e.g., hand washing, making change) during that time. Both of these scenarios illustrate how why and how learners lose access to the incredibly rich experience of shared reading time; educators do not yet understand the read aloud as powerful for all.

Including all students, including those with the most significant disabilities, in the read aloud is one of the easiest ways to promote language learning as the development of literacy skills in individuals with disabilities is associated with being exposed to models of individuals using printed materials (Koppenhaver, Coleman, Kalman, & Yoder, 1991) and having opportunities to interact with others around written materials (Koppenhaver, Evans, & Yoder, 1991). Reading to students can improve their fluency (Blau, 2001), help them access content they could not access on their own (Crossley & McDonald, 1984; Blackman, 2000; Mukhopadhyay, 2001), and expose them to a range of genres, especially those they would not choose on their own. And, to respond to my former co-teacher who thought other skills might be more important to develop, we should also consider that no skill is potentially more functional than reading.

Because of the relatively low demand on the learner during the read aloud, most students will require nothing but a space to sit and listen. Others, however, may need adapted roles, materials, strategies, or expectations to participate in a meaningful way. Consider these twenty ideas for including all students in the read aloud. These suggestions may work for students who need to fidget or move during whole-class instruction, those who need materials to keep focused, those who profit from having an active role in lessons, those who benefit from collaborative learning, and those who require alternative ways of demonstrating attention, engagement, and interest. Some of them work best for younger children but most of them would be appropriate for fiction and non-fiction selections and for students in grades K-12:

1) Give the student (or students) the same book so they can follow the story as the teacher reads;

2) Give the student an adapted version of the book (e.g., a book with extra pictures, large type, or laminated pages) so they can follow along as the teacher reads;

3) Give the student a related book (one that has interesting images perhaps) that will help them focus on the content and stay interested in the subject area (e.g., when the teacher is reading a passage on the Berlin Wall, the child can be paging through the picture book, Talking Walls [Knight, 1995]);

4) Let the student explore a “story bag” filled with objects related to the story (e.g., the bag for A River Ran Wild [Cherry, 1992] could be filled with a map of the Nashua River, a little vial of water, a pressed wildflower, and a small plastic frog);

5) Give the student a puppet to hold during the story and let him perform parts of the book on his own or to the class;

6) Give a student a copy of the text to highlight words or phrases of interest as the teacher reads;

7) Give a student a copy of the text to doodle on or code with symbols (e.g., a for “I agree”, s for “I don't understand”) as the teacher reads;

8) Give the student cards to hold up during key passages (e.g., every time the bad wolf is mentioned, the child holds up a picture of the wolf or every time the teacher says “respiratory system”, the student holds up a photo of the lungs);

9) Give the student something text-related to fidget with as the story is read (e.g., the student fidgets with a train car as the teacher reads a newspaper article about transportation);

10) Give the student a job during the read aloud (e.g., a smaller child can help turn the pages of a big book, an older child can click a PowerPoint slide with the pages of the text displayed on it);

11) Have the student read the book (if possible) to the class (alone or with a partner) instead of listening to the teacher read it;

12) Have the student co-teach the book by asking key questions (prepared on cards or programmed into a communication device) throughout the read aloud (e.g., “What do you think will happen next?”);

13) Have the student participate by reading the first sentence (verbally or via a communication device), the last sentence, and/or repeating or important passages;

14) Stop reading and designated points and have the student act out impromptu scenes from the text with classmates;

15) Give the student a notebook to draw images that come to mind as they listen to the story or passage (this may also help to boost comprehension);

16) Give the child a notebook to write key words or ideas they hear as they listen to the story or passage (this may also help to boost comprehension);

17) Give the child a story-related coloring page or worksheet to complete as they listen to the story;

18) Give the student a notebook to write in questions about the text that they might ask the teacher later;

19) Give the student a special “book listening space” to use during the read aloud (e.g., sitting in a special chair, standing at a lecturn); or

20) Have the student play “read aloud” bingo and cross off words or phrases that he hears on a sheet of paper.

References

Blackman, L. (1999). Lucy's story: Autism and other adventures . Brisbane, AU: Book in Hand.

Blau, L. (2001). 5 surefire strategies for developing reading fluency. Instructor, 110, 28-30.

Cherry, L. (1992). The river ran wild. New York : Harcourt.

Crossley, R., & McDonald, A. (1984). Annie's coming out. New York : Viking Penguin.

Knight, M. (1992). Talking walls. Gardiner , ME : Tilbury House Publishers.

Koppenhaver, D., Coleman, P., Kalman, S., & Yoder, D. (1991). The implications of emergent

literacy research for children with developmental disabilities. American Journal of Speech and Language Pathology, 1, 38-44.

Koppenhaver, D., Evans, D., & Yoder, D. (1991). Childhood reading and writing experiences

of literate adults with severe speech and physical impairments. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 7, 20-33.

Mukhopadhyay, T. (2000). Beyond the silence. London : The National Autistic Society.

Warner, G. (1942). The boxcar children. Morton Grove , IL : Albert Whitman & Company

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