This week, my oldest daughter read with her teacher. While she was excited to tell me that she had gone up a reading level, she was most excited to let me know about her teacher’s subjective comments. She let Caroline know that she read with beautiful expression. And then that teacher must have gotten her laugh of the week when Caroline responded, “Well, my mom’s a reading specialist.”

I too laughed when I heard this story. As I was laughing, though, I realized what an important message could come from this story.

 In fact, Caroline doesn’t read with expression because I am a reading specialist. It’s much more simple than that. Caroline reads with expression because I read aloud, with expression, to her all the time.

And reading with expression is so much more important than simply making the experience more pleasant for your listener. If you don’t read with expression, it is almost impossible to comprehend what you are reading. So with the simple act of reading aloud, I have given my daughter the gift of reading comprehension and her teacher the gift of a laugh.

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