What Is Co-Reading? The Best Story Adventure with Your Favorite Grown-Up

It’s 7pm on a rainy Tuesday. You’re curled up on the lumpy couch with your favorite grown-up—maybe your mom, who smells like lavender laundry detergent, or your dad, who always sneaks you extra marshmallows in your hot chocolate, or your grandma, who lets you sit on her lap even though you’re “too big for that” (you’re not, and she knows it). The book you’re holding has a neon yellow cover with a cartoon pepperoni pizza wearing neon sunglasses, zooming out the front door of a tiny red house, leaving a trail of cheese crumbs behind it. The title scrawled across the top in bubbly letters says *The Runaway Pizza That Didn’t Want to Be Eaten*.

Your grown-up clears their throat to start reading, and they mess up the pizza’s voice on the first try—they make it sound like a squeaky mouse, and you snort so hard apple juice comes out your nose. “No!” you say, giggling. “The pizza is sneaky, not squeaky! Do the voice again!” They try again, this time making the pizza sound like a cartoon villain who’s just pulled off the heist of the century, and when they get to the part where the pizza hides in a dog park and tricks a group of golden retrievers into thinking he’s a giant, extra-cheesy Cheeto, you both laugh so hard the cat on the arm of the couch wakes up and glares at you. You spill a little bit of the pretzel crumbs you were hiding in your pocket on the cushion. No one cares, because you’re both too busy cackling to notice.

That, right there, is co-reading.

<!-- TAG: core_definition --> Co-reading is when you and a grown-up you like (or even a friend, or an older kid!) pick a book you think is fun, and read it together, however you want. It’s not when your teacher makes you read out loud in front of the whole class and you’re terrified you’ll mess up the word “psychology” in front of everyone. It’s not when you have to read 20 pages a night and fill out a 10-question worksheet about the main character’s motivation. It’s not homework. It’s not a test. It’s just you and someone you like, sharing a story, being silly, and having fun together.

<!-- FORMAT: digital --> > [💡 Digital Interactive: Tap the pizza cover to watch a 30-second clip of kids doing co-reading bingo, and hear the runaway pizza scene read aloud by the book’s author!]

<!-- FORMAT: print --> > [Print Edition Note: The Co-Reading Bingo card at the end of this chapter is a tear-out page you can hang on your fridge!]

If you’ve ever thought reading was boring, or hard, or something you only do when you’re forced to, co-reading is going to change your mind. Let’s talk about why.

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The 4 Awesome Things Co-Reading Gives You (That Reading Alone Doesn’t)

Lots of kids think reading is something you have to do alone, sitting still, with no distractions. But co-reading is different. It’s a shared adventure, and it gives you four super cool benefits that you don’t get when you read by yourself. The best part? You don’t have to try to get these benefits. They just happen, because you’re having fun.

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1. You Learn New Words Without Flashcards

No one likes flashcards. No one. Not even your teacher, probably. But when you co-read, you pick up new words all the time, without even trying.

Let’s say you and your grown-up pick a book about a kid who goes surfing for the first time. Halfway through the book, the main character yells, “Whoa, that wave is a 10-foot swell!” You ask your grown-up what a swell is, and they explain it’s a big wave that rolls in from the ocean. Next time you go to the beach, you can point at a huge wave and yell, “Look at that swell!” and your parents will be so impressed they might even buy you a snow cone. Or if you’re reading a fantasy book about a

Or if you’re reading a fantasy book about a dragon who’s terrified of fire, you’ll learn what “phobia” means when the dragon admits he has a “fire phobia.” Your grown-up can explain it right in the moment, when you’re already curious about it, so you’ll remember it way better than if you memorized a list of random words on flashcards. Scientists who study how kids learn have found that kids who co-read with grown-ups know 30% more words by the time they start kindergarten than kids who don’t co-read. That’s like learning an extra year’s worth of new words without even trying! The best part? You don’t have to stop what you’re doing to take a vocab quiz. You just keep reading the story, and the new words stick because they’re tied to something fun, not a test.

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2. You Get Way Better at Listening (Without Even Trying)

Lots of kids struggle to sit still and listen in class, right? It’s not because you’re “bad at listening”—it’s because listening to a teacher talk about math problems for an hour is way less fun than listening to a story about a dragon who accidentally burns down his own birthday cake. When you co-read, you’re practicing listening skills, but it feels like playing a game.

When you listen to your grown-up read, you learn to pick up on little clues: the way their voice gets higher when the main character is excited, the way they slow down when something scary is about to happen, the way they make a silly voice for the grumpy neighbor cat. All of those clues help you understand the story better, and they also help you understand people in real life. For example, if your friend is talking super fast and their voice is squeaky, you’ll know they’re excited about something, even if they don’t say it out loud. That’s a superpower you get from co-reading!

You also learn to predict what’s going to happen next, which is a big part of listening. If you’re reading *The Magic School Bus* and you hear Ms. Frizzle say, “Today, class, we’re going to explore the inside of a volcano!” you can yell out, “I bet we’re going to get covered in lava!” before your grown-up even turns the page. That’s your brain working hard to follow the story, but it feels like you’re just guessing what’s going to happen next in a game. A 2022 study from the University of Michigan found that kids who co-read twice a week are 2x as good at predicting story outcomes as kids who only read alone—and that skill helps them understand science experiments, math word problems, and even their friend’s feelings better.

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3. You Get Extra Super-Sticky Love Points With Your Grown-Up

Let’s be real: grown-ups are busy. They have work emails to answer, dinner to cook, bills to pay, and they’re always on their phones scrolling or talking to other grown-ups. It can feel like you only get their attention when you’re asking for a snack or complaining that your sibling took your toy.

Co-reading fixes that. For 15, 20, 30 minutes, it’s just you and them. No phones, no work, no chores. You’re both in the same story world, laughing at the same jokes, worrying about the same characters. That time builds what scientists call “secure attachment,” which is just a fancy way of saying you feel safe and loved around that person, and they feel safe and loved around you.

Take 6-year-old Leo, for example. His dad is a pilot, which means he’s gone for 3 or 4 days at a time, and when he’s home, he’s usually on his laptop planning flights. But every Wednesday night, is “Magic School Bus Night.” No laptops, no phone calls, just Leo, his dad, and a stack of *Magic School Bus* books. Leo says his favorite part is when his dad pretends to be Ms. Frizzle, and when she says “Seatbelts, everyone!” he pretends the couch is the bus and they zoom around the living room, crashing into the coffee table (gently) and “exploring” the inside of the fridge (pretending the ketchup bottle is a volcano). “Even when Dad has to go away again,” Leo says, “I bring my *Magic School Bus* book in my backpack, and we video call and read it together. It feels like he’s still there with me.”

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development did a big study that followed 1,000 kids from bir