Reading Aloud to Improve Basic Skills

Reading aloud is a great exercise for speech as well as for reading. Here is a quick guide to help you make the most of this therapy.

I can’t recommend this simple but powerful exercise enough. It can improve articulation, volume, and attention to the story.

All you really need is an interesting children’s story, a few minutes of your time, and a lot of love and patience.

Here are some general principles to remember as you begin this activity.

To Start, Read Short Stories with Short Sentences 

It’s important to start small if your child isn’t used to reading out loud. If this is a new activity, you'll need to slowly build up their endurance.

My son started out reading a very short story about a cat and a cow. It was only four pages long with about two or three short sentences per page. For a while, he struggled to get through that little story. But slowly, he improved to the point that we could move on to a longer story.

Patiently and Gradually Build Endurance

There’s no rule that says you always have to finish the story. If they get tired, you could try to have them read just a little further before stopping.

Or, if you’re already near the end of the story, you can offer encourage by telling them how many sentences are left. This can give them the motivation needed to finish the story.

In this way, you are being sensitive to their needs while still building endurance.

Try to have them complete the reading without expecting too much or too little. In other words, you want to require enough to get some good practice. But you don’t want to expect too much to the point that they become frustrated.

This is an important principle to remember regardless of what our children are learning.

Next, Focus on Articulation and Volume

Once this becomes easier for them, you can start gently correcting their articulation. If you come across a word that they are mispronouncing or that they aren’t pronouncing clearly, you can say the word and ask them to repeat it. As you do this, it’s helpful to emphasize the consonants.

Volume is another issue that some children may need to work on. If you can’t hear them very well, gently encourage them to read louder. They may need to practice speaking loud enough so others can hear them.

Reading Aloud Will Bring Improvement

This is a great activity to do every day for as long as they need it. Once your child has been doing this for a while, you'll likely begin to see improvement with reading and with speech. And even after they’ve mastered this skill, you can still repeat this activity once in a while to help them stay in practice.

As we have seen, reading aloud is an invaluable activity for teaching children with autism to read. 

Autism Speaks has some great ideas for teaching our children to read, even if they are nonverbal.  Click here for more information.

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