Using Read-Alouds to Boost Inquiry

Reading texts aloud to your students—no matter what their age or independent reading level—is a great way to intensify inquiry-centered learning. It’s also highly enjoyable!

Abundant research¹ has shown that reading aloud to students builds their vocabularies, provides a model of fluent reading, and meets the needs of auditory learners. Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell’s² work has documented how interactive read-alouds enable students to experience higher-level texts and build “shared literary knowledge.” But it’s also clear that read-alouds contribute to social and emotional learning.

While listening as a text is read aloud, students have the opportunity to practice self-awareness and self-management. Learning how to listen actively, avoid distracting others, and follow along as they hear the text requires students to focus and to demonstrate respect for others—two skills that are crucial to inquiry-based learning. And as they listen, students also learn to associate reading with the positive emotions of being part of a community and doing something enjoyable.

Particularly for older elementary, middle school, and high school students who have had negative experiences with reading, listening to texts can change their perceptions of their ability to understand ideas and respond to them with peers. As Lisa Hollihan Allen, a middle school literary interventionist, wrote in the Wisconsin English Journal, “Reading aloud provides positive experiences. Sharing a compelling, enjoyable, important, or funny book with their classmates can be powerful. They start to trust that reading can be a good thing and that maybe this teacher knows what she’s doing.”³