Tips to Read Aloud Picture Books

I have a lot of request for this one. So here goes:

1. Make it engaging

There are many ways to do this. Here are some of the techniques that I would use:
a) The tone of your voice. Read softly or read loudly or in between!
b) The pace. When necessary, go slow or go fast and most importantly normal too.
c) Funny voices. Well, this is not for everyone but I suggest you give it a go. Come on people, they are small kids and won't judge you hard! I would like to give you examples but it is not possible in words. You need to see and hear me doing it.
d) Facial expressions. We all have emotions and have expressed our feelings through our facial look. This is the time for you to do it!
e) Gestures. You can raise your hands or throw them into the air. You can use your legs, head or use the whole body if you need to. This will get their attention.
Notice or not, all of the above will also help you to teach through modelling and show the students how to do things.

2. Prep yourself.
If you want to make it good, you need to prepare in advance.
a) It would be nice if the classroom has a copy of the book. After they are eager to read right after your wonderful performance, you don't want to disappoint them by saying that they cannot read it by themselves.
b) Check to see whether the content is appropriate.
c) See any points where you want to do point no-1 and take note of them. I usually use post-its and rehearse until I get the 'feel'.

3. Make it interactive.
a) Engage the brain. You can have post-its distributed to students and ask them to record their thoughts. Ask one or two to share. You can do pair-share as well. Facilitate it but not too long.
b) Engage the brain. Ask thinking questions.
c) Engage the brain. Make a prediction.
d) Engage the eyes. Make their eyes see and notice things.
e) Engage the nose. Is there any smell to arouse their interest?
f)  Engage the ears. What sound can they imagine? Can they make a sound?
g) Engage the hands. Engage with kinesthetic activities.
h) Engage the hearts. Check their feelings about some parts of the whole story at the end.
There is a little caution here. Overdoing this may disrupt the flow and possible the vividness of the 'story world' that they are in. Doing it less may lose their attention span. So do it not too much yet not too little.

To be continued: