Read aloud from picture books

Susanne Oudshoorn started reading picture books aloud in her classroom at ISK several years ago. Not only are her students enthusiastic, but her fellow teachers became inspired as well. 

As part of her master, Susanne selected a number of picture books that matched the method in terms of theme and language level. As it turned out, the students not only learned many new words, they also responded very enthusiastically to being read to. We spoke with Susanne about her master's project.

What prompted this project?

In the middle of the corona pandemic, Susanne was working with her class on the theme of Falling in Love and was looking for a way to make the online lessons a little more engaging. From her experience in primary education, she was already used to reading aloud to her students, so she decided to read aloud the picture book kikker is verliefd by Max Velthuis and make a video of this every morning and send it to the class.

At the same time, she was also completing her master's degree and decided to delve further into the issue of “Is reading aloud also suitable for NT2 learners at ISK? The answer to that question turned out to be resoundingly, “Yes! The students all responded positively, not only in class but also to the questionnaire Susanne sent around as part of her project. 

Why read aloud?

There are several reasons Susanne is so enthusiastic about reading aloud in the classroom, first and foremost because reading (aloud) contributes to the language development of second language learners and, in particular, vocabulary building. “The language in teaching methods,” Susanne explains, ”is often poor because it contains only the much-needed words. In contrast, books contain a lot of rich language: longer sentences with connecting words and a mix of high-frequency and low-frequency words. Because these words are presented within a meaningful context, the meaning quickly becomes clear and students learn many new words. So reading aloud is actually the first step toward reading comprehension,” Susanne said.

While reading aloud, the teacher can also more easily explain or clarify difficult words through movements or the way they are read aloud, think of words like humming or mumbling.

Book as mirror, window and sliding door

In addition, books also have another function, namely, they can act as mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors (Bishop, 1990). Books as mirrors let readers look at themselves and books as windows let you look at others. Books can also serve as sliding glass doors, in that they introduce you to new worlds you did not know before. In this way, reading (picture) books can contribute to students' personal development, they can learn more about Dutch society, but also about their own culture and that of their peers.

Reading pleasure and motivation

Finally, reading aloud also contributes to pupils' reading pleasure and motivation to read on their own. Susanne says that not only do her students respond enthusiastically to the reading aloud itself, she also sees that the students often reach for the same books to read on their own during the reading quarter.

A while back, for example, they read together part of Anne Frank, Her Life (a biography of Anne Frank in easy language by Uitgeverij Eenvoudig Communiceren), after which many students started reading further in the book because they were so interested in the story.

Why picture books?

The benefits of reading aloud seem obvious, but picture books in particular have many advantages over regular reading books. First, the illustrations contribute to understanding the story and new words. Anyone who has ever learned a new language will recognize that feeling of hopelessness when you first try to read a book in that language and you encounter so many new words that it seems impossible to understand the story. Illustrations of picture books make sure that the story can still be followed and that you can deduce the meaning of the new words. 

Illustrations for better text comprehension

'In addition,' Susanne explains, 'these illustrations ensure that the students remain involved in the story. Besides listening to the story, they 'have' to look along to follow the story.' Again, this was reflected in the results of the questionnaire she sent to her students asking about their experiences reading aloud from the picture books. For example, the students liked that they only had to listen to the story, they enjoyed looking at the drawings and illustrations, and they could understand the story better thanks to these illustrations.