Pick a book. Choose a title of interest to your audience that you feel comfortable with too. If reading to children, let them choose a book but allow yourself to have the last word, especially if it's a longer, multi-chapter book for reading over several days.
Read the book yourself quietly if you don't know it. Even if you do know it, scan quickly if it's been a while since you actually read it. Some books work fine for quiet reading but don't flow well at all when read out loud. Test a page by reading it out loud.
Gather your audience in a comfortable place that has sufficient light for you to read by. If you are reading a picture book to a young child, make sure that he or she can see the pages and is close enough to reach out and touch and point to things.
Recap the events of the previous chapter with your audience. Ask questions to make sure they remember and understand where the action left off. If reading a one-session story they already know, ask about their memory of the book and why they want to hear it again. If starting a new story, show the cover to the audience and ask what they think it's going to be about.
Read out the title and the author before beginning the story.
Vary your pace. Don't rush but pick up the pace if your audience appears impatient. Adjust the pace to what you are reading. Go slow in descriptive or lyrical parts and pick up the pace in dynamic or exciting action sequences.
Don't be afraid of pauses. Use them to increase suspense and let the audience absorb what they have just heard.
Vary your pitch. Use “bendy voice” to read with expression. Verbs are very important, so pay them special attention.
Use different voices when reading dialogue. For example, be gruff when reading a bear's lines and squeaky when speaking as a mouse. Don't be afraid of making a fool of yourself; embrace the task and let go of inhibitions. Young children might be scared when they hear you speaking in a scary voice of an evil character, so return to normal diction when the direct speech is finished.
Let your audience recap at the end. If you finished the whole book, ask what they liked about it and what they didn't. If it's the end of a chapter, ask what they think may happen next. On ending a long chapter book, talk about the choice of the next one.