Potential of Teacher Read-Alouds

The article Tapping the potential of teacher read-alouds in middle schools, it discusses a survey that was put on by two professors in Texas.  The survey was performed on middle school teachers in one school district to see if they incorporated read-alouds in their classroom.  They were also asked to state "why" or "why not?"  I believe that read- alouds can be very effective in the classroom.  The article states that read- alouds do not only improve understanding of the text, but can improve the engagement between the students and the text.  Read- alouds are also helpful in making connections between the students and their learning.  I think this is very important.  Students need to make those connections with anything they are learning for engagement and understanding purposes.  Two downfalls I noticed about read- alouds in the article is that they are not performed much past the elementary grades, and teachers feel that the class time is to short to use other materials besides textbooks for read- alouds.  Read- alouds work great for the elementary grades, but they can be just affective in the upper grades.  They can bring change, engagement, and comprehension to older students as well.  One of the most important issues the article brings up about read- alouds in my opinion is that talking about text during the read- aloud can enrich the meaning of what is being read for the students.  The teacher must show the students how she is reading, what kind of questions she is asking, and his/her way of thinking while reading.  Two questions that I have for the article are: 1. In response to the teachers not having enough classtime to use other materials besides textbooks, what do you do?  2.  Can read-alouds be an effective way to increase students' background knowledge?