Expressive reading
Expressive reading requires good timing, emphasis, volume, pitch and intonation that good readers use to add meaning to what they are reading and make their speech lively.
Non-expressive reading: Beau reading a passage during his first session
After Reading Assistant training: increased fluency, expressiveness and confidence
Is reading aloud important?
Recent research has found that students with good prosody (expressive reading) in their early school years are more likely to have better reading comprehension by the end of year 3.
The Australian curriculum requires that students learn to read aloud with appropriate fluency, and at the same time use text processing strategies, for example monitoring, predicting, confirming, rereading, reading on and self-correcting.
You can help your child build all of these skills at home with the Reading Assistant program – the only program that listens to students read aloud and provides real-time help.
Watch a Reading Assistant demo here and view enrolment fees here.
References
Daane, M.C., Campbell, J.R., Grigg, W.S., Goodman, M.J., and Oranje, A. (2005). Fourth-Grade Students Reading Aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading(NCES 2006-469). U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Miller, J. & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2008). A Longitudinal Study of the Development of Reading Prosody as a Dimension of Oral Reading Fluency in Early Elementary School Children. Reading Research Quarterly, 43, 336-354.
