The Importance of Reading Aloud to Students

In my classroom in the first year of school we also have a big focus on paired reading as well so reading decodable books to each other and at a similar sort of level. It's not just about getting the words right even though the focus is on decoding it's also about the fluency and the pros and also the meanings that you're learning along the way as well because the meaning that we get from text is ultimately what we want students to do. The whole point of teaching them how to decode is so that they get to reading comprehension but for many students there's been a barrier for them ever being able to access that meaning independently.