«Reading aloud shows children that learning to read is worthwhile»

Mrs Grunauer, why is it important to read stories to children?

Most children love the relaxed, cosy atmosphere of reading aloud and storytelling. They enjoy immersing themselves in a story - whether at home on the sofa or in the reading corner at school.

Children learn a lot from listening: they acquire a wealth of narrative material, characters and fictional events. They also receive linguistic templates and patterns for their own storytelling. They also create their own personal visual worlds.

Why is reading aloud also referred to as reading promotion?

In addition to the literary skills that children acquire, reading aloud also makes them curious about this hidden treasure between two book covers. They can thus be motivated to learn to read themselves.

Whenever possible, children should be read to for as long as there is mutual interest.

Sara Grunauer, reading expert

By reading aloud, children learn that learning to read is worth the effort and endeavour, as they have experienced how exciting reading can be.

What is the difference between reading aloud and storytelling?

When telling stories, Swiss parents often translate books simultaneously from High German into Swiss German because many young children prefer this. It is then their everyday language, which they not only understand effortlessly and are more familiar with, but Swiss German also brings them closer to the person telling the story.

In narrative mode, you are freer, you can also abbreviate a story from time to time. Usually, conversations about what you have read arise more quickly and often go far beyond the actual content of the book. When reading aloud, you stay true to the written language. This brings children into contact with genuinely written language, in which vocabulary and sentence patterns are different from those used in storytelling. In addition, children growing up with dialect gain their first experience of High German.

And what if a child doesn't want to hear the story in High German or doesn't understand it?

Every child is different. Some children don't mind if they don't understand every word of a story or only learn something new when they are read to again and again. Gestures and facial expressions are part of reading aloud, so comprehension does not depend on language alone.

Still others stick to the family language, Swiss German, as their narrative language and are not prepared to code-switch. An unnaturally forced switch from Swiss to High German or vice versa is rather detrimental to enjoyable reading sessions. A tip: With a new story, children are more open to a new language. This way, High German can be introduced as a language for reading aloud.

There are also parents who don't enjoy reading aloud. What can they do?

If you don't like reading aloud, it's better to leave it to someone else: Perhaps there are grandparents, a godparent or another carer who would be happy to take over. Audio books are also a wonderful way to experience stories together.

At some point, children will read for themselves. Will reading aloud be replaced by this?

Whenever possible, children should be read to for as long as there is mutual interest. Learning to read is a long and demanding process for many children. If children continue to be read to, they can experience again and again what exciting things there are in books, which can be extremely motivating for their own reading.

It is therefore important that the children like the story, that they can get excited and immerse themselves in the world of the book when it is read aloud. Sometimes it happens that children who can already read take on a part of the reading aloud themselves, so that you read the story to each other. It goes without saying that such situations can do a lot to promote reading.