Why YouTube Read Alouds?

During this unusual time in education YouTube can become a teacher's best friend. YouTube allows teachers to view and share read alouds to their students. This is a fun and interactive way to get students engaged in the lesson from the start. YouTube is also free to anyone who wishes to start a channel. Starting a channel and being able to read the stories to the children in your classroom could help them during a distance learning situation like the current one we are in now. Believe it or not students miss school and miss their teachers and being able to see them reading a book could help to further their distance learning success.

If teachers are worried about unwanted views on their YouTube videos there are options to take to avoid this. When uploading a video there are several prompts to follow. One of them being the viewing preferences of the video. If the teacher wishes the video to be public they can list it as a public video for anyone to see. However, if teachers only want their students to view the video they can list it as an unlisted video. This means that only people with the direct link to the video can view it. YouTube also has a kid directed content setting that can be selected. This means that it will filter the content as kid friendly content so that if any ads are put into the video they will be age appropriate for children.

During this time of distance learning we as educators have to keep children reading. YouTube read alouds are a tool that can help to ensure children are staying confident and fluent readers. Viewing their teacher or others reading may help them to become more motivated to continue reading.

Caitlin