The mail still runs. Stores are open. Nobody gets cake. Still, today, we are celebrating a day that is dear to my heart. Read Aloud Day has been official for only 14 years, but reading aloud became a favorite activity for me by the time I was ten years old. My nine-years-younger sister Ruth became my willing audience. My lifeline has good memories of the read-aloud habit. Butler family naps and bedtime for three children came with a prologue of good stories read aloud.
Teaching kindergarten included read-alouds throughout the day. This time of year would have had The Snowy Day and The Big Snow for children in San Antonio who had never seen the white stuff but were fascinated by the spectacle. And I was not the only one doing the read-aloud. Doug, who came to kindergarten already knowing how to read, found a nook under the coat hangings to read aloud to his friend Todd. By spring, Doug had taught Todd to read as well.
With second graders in Kaiserslautern, West Germany and Fort Polk, Louisiana, we ended our day with our read-aloud. A parent, who happened to be volunteering one day when we read the next chapter of Stuart Little, rescheduled her time to come so she would be there to hear the rest of the story. Students took advantage of my offer to borrow any book I had finished to read when they had free time. Miss Nelson Is Missing is the worse for wear, not because it was mistreated but because it was borrowed so regularly.
With my junior high students, I started the day with the read-aloud. Their discussions of issues in The Giver, The Great Gilly Hopkins, or other thought-provoking literature often delayed the start of my carefully made lesson plans. Word has come back about ways these read-alouds have influenced some of these students. One read The Giver with her class when she became a junior high teacher. One became interested in motion study with Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes and studied it in college. Yet another loved To Kill a Mockingbird so much that she named her daughter Harper.
So, if you don’t have a captive audience, how can you celebrate? You could visit an assisted living facility and share a book or short story with a resident. You might volunteer to read at a preschool or classroom. There might be a neighbor kid who would like to come in for a glass of milk and a fairy tale. Maybe your spouse would like to share a magazine article that you read aloud and discuss. If all else fails, read something really good out loud to yourself for a treat. Don’t feel that you are in any way limited to celebrating today. The day is just to get the journey started on a win-win trip for the reader and the listener.
As for me, I’m picking up a grandson at school this afternoon. I have another Amelia Bedelia that I haven’t read to him yet.