World Read Aloud Day: March 9, 2011

This morning on the School Library Journal's facebook feed, I read that today, Wednesday, March 9, is World Read Aloud Day. What a great day to read to your children or come to a storytime at the library!

There's a good article at LitWorld's webpage explaining all the details and reasons behind a World Read Aloud Day: http://www.litworld.org/worldreadaloudday/ . Last year, in their first year doing this, they reached 40,000 participants in 35 countries! There is a form online where you can register your family as participants and get counted.

The benefits of reading out loud to young babies and children are numerous. Many pre-reading skills and a love of reading can be learned by simply reading to them.

If you don't have any children at home, try reading aloud to someone at a nursing home who cannot read for themselves anymore. Or if your children or grandchildren are far away, why not tape record yourself reading out loud a few bedtime stories and send it to them? If you would like to read aloud to them directly, try calling and reading a story or using Skype to show them the pictures at the same time. Grab a book and start reading out loud!