Host: How does reading aloud change as children reach school-age?
Rene Hackney: As they enter school-age, a lot of times they want to participate more, so it is having them do some of the reading. It also means that you would like the reading in longer stretches, when these children were literally might have read one or two books a night. This becomes may be 15-20 minutes a night at minimum, so that the children are really getting into the stories, so it tends to a bit longer. There will be days where the child in middle elementary school just wants to read to themselves. It is fine to allow them their time to read to themselves, but you want to keep reading aloud a daily activity. If you give it up for a couple of week and just let them read aloud if this is to themselves, they tend to not want to go back to reading aloud. So, the idea is you keep it a daily part even if it is just a little bit.