I teach 11th grade English, an American lit. course. My students beg me to read to them, especially when we come to passages with complicated sentence structure or involved dialect. My East Texan accent lent itself to _Huck Finn_ rather well! Our previous principal had a real problem with this practice. He said he had been put to sleep by teachers reading aloud to him. I have found, though, that he must be in the minority. The consensus in our English department is that we procure the majority of our students' rapt attention when we read aloud to them. Reading aloud doesn't sustain a program, of course. While students must read aloud themselves and practice silent reading, the most interested reactions I receive come from the times when I read to them. My theory is that family life today is either too rushed or non-existent for my students. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of my dad reading _The Chronicles of Narnia_ to me. It met a vital need for sharing and communicating and attention. Perhaps my students get a little of that when I read to them. These are important processess no matter how old you are. Diane M. Peterson Queen City High School