Read Aloud - a component of Balanced Literacy

All students, from pre-school through high school, can benefit from being read to. Listening to a fluent, expressive, and animated reader can help students make connections between written and spoken language.
Why Is It Important? (from TeacherVision.com) 
  • The single most important activity you can do to build the knowledge students require for eventual success in reading is to read aloud to them (Anderson et al. 1985).
  • Students can listen on a higher language level than they can read, so reading aloud makes complex ideas more accessible to students and exposes them to vocabulary and language patterns that are not part of their everyday speech. This, in turn, helps students understand the structure of books when they read independently (Fountas and Pinnell 1996).
  • Reading aloud is the foundation for literacy development. It is the single most important activity for reading success (Neuman, Copple, and Bredekamp 2000).
  • The reader's pauses and emphases allow students to better understand the phrasing and fluency of the language and to hear new vocabulary and the way the words are used (Fountas and Pinnell 1996).
  • Listening to others read helps students develop key understanding and skills, such as an appreciation for how a story is written and familiarity with book conventions, such as "once upon a time" and "happily ever after" (Neuman et al. 2000).

Read aloud should be:
1- Done consistently - preferably daily.
2- Done with books that are at the correct listening level.  Students' listening level is far above their reading level. Listening to a text that is above their reading level students can comprehend more complex information and increase their vocabulary! 
3- Interactive! Pre-reading activities, during reading activities, post-reading activities! 

A Think Aloud - ​A teacher think aloud is an effective technique to model how to use comprehension strategies before, during and after reading.
Watch this series of short videos in which an expert teacher demonstrates a Read Aloud that is designed to teach very young students how to read. 
Title, Author, Book Cover
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
End and Book Talk
Book Talk Part 2