Recovering the Lost Art of Reading Aloud

With obvious respect to Dorothy Sayers, I would like to argue for a moment about something very essential that has managed to slip out of our education process. Reading aloud. I often have students come to me in seventh grade who cannot pronounce words aloud. I believe they can read them to themselves, most of the time, but they cannot read them out loud. We read a lot of literature at the school I teach at and we do a lot of it aloud when we are able. It pains me to hear students just completely butcher Mark Twain or Homer because they lack reading ability.
After several years, I have come to believe that this is related to the fact that parents stop reading to their children after their children learn to read. I don't remember being read to as a child. I remember having lots of books, but I don't remember my Mom or Dad actually reading them to me. I am sure they did, but they probably stopped once I learned how to read for myself. As a result, I often had to figure out how things were supposed to sound, and still struggle with this if the original is Latin or Greek. How do you say Aristides or Darius?
I have a friend at another school who was read to his entire childhood. His parents read short easy to read books to him when he was learning to read. They upped it to authors like Lewis, Tolkien and Wordsworth when he was able to follow them. As he grew the family began reading Homer and Livy, Plutarch and Augustine during the family reading time. By the time he was in high school they were reading serious non-fiction and long fiction together (think McCullough's 1776 or Melville's Moby Dick). The result: He has no problem reading very difficult material. He has begun the same trend with his own children. I have as well. My boys (6 and 8) and I are reading Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth right now. I have already read the Chronicles of Narnia to them and we regularly read from Bennett's Book of Virtues.
Taking the time to read aloud to your children will have many results. The most important, assuming you choose good literature to read to them (I recommend not reading Stephen King or Harry Potter), is that they will hear a lot of good literature in their lifetime. Another result will be they will hear language being read. This is very important! It relates to the seventh graders I get from time to time. I can always tell which ones come from families that read together and which don't. Those that read together are much more comfortable reading aloud than those that don't.
I know it takes time to do this. But I would argue that whether you are homeschooling or classical schooling, this is a must for any family. Take the time. Sit down for thirty minutes each evening and read something together. Don't just read some dribble either, get something with meat on it. I recommend poetry or short fiction for the beginner. Read Lewis' Narnia books together. Read Tolkien together. Read something together.