My early love for reading aloud (and being read to in a classroom setting almost daily by my 2nd grade teacher) led me to sign up for a class in Children’s Literature several years into my career as a journalist.

It was a class that was considered a prerequisite for those wanting to become teachers, but I knew that even if I never switched careers, it was a class that would be worth taking.

The project I chose to do for that class was reading aloud to three different classrooms over a period of three months. I also had to write notes on what I observed while doing that.

The experience was both fun AND enlightening. The preschoolers were far more excited and engaged with the stories than the kindergarteners and 2^nd graders were. They were literally crawling into my lap to get as close to the pictures (and me) as possible.

The kindergarteners (my co-worker’s daughter was in that class) were much less active, but were willing to sit close to me on the floor in order to see the pictures better.

The 2^nd graders (in a class taught by a friend of mine) sat at their desks, but seemed to enjoy the stories. After a few weeks, I noticed that they were a little more willing to raise their hands and ask questions.