The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud
spectator.co.uk
spectator.co.uk
We don't read to each other as much these days (though sometimes in the car), but we definitely do read to the kids.
But over time, students with better attitudes toward reading probably do more of it, and therefore get better at it.
1: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-therapy-dogs-literacy-attitude...
1) Reading poetry is really enjoyable. To this day, if my son asks me to read to him, I'll probably try to read poetry. It just feels so good to read.
2) There are certain books that I really enjoy reading aloud and others that I don't. And its not the content, but just the feel of the words coming off my tongue.
Concrete examples, my favorite children's book to read is "The Little Island". Even thinking about reading it makes me feel a little happy. A book that I don't like to read aloud, but like the message, is "The Little Engine that Could" (this version https://www.amazon.com/Little-Engine-Could-Original-Classic/...). I found it a chore to read that book out loud.
I've read a bunch of novels to my young kids, and some I wouldn't have thought would work were great, while others that I liked when I'd read them before were just awful. Examples: To the Lighthouse. Probably a clunky read-aloud book, right? Nope, excellent. You have to stay alert due to the complex, meandering language, but it works well. Lost Horizon. Simple language, nothing tricky, should be good. Nope, tripped over the language left and right.
So we solved it by just reading the dialog and that actually turned out to be pretty fun. We'd split up the characters and sometimes make some funny voices and just go for it. As a bonus, it helps you realize just how awful the writing is in some of the most beloved old video games (Square, I'm looking your way, you spoony bard.)
As a counter-example, Flaubert used to scream his texts in his "gueuloir" as a way to perfect them.
wrong written sentences do not resist this test; they oppress the chest, hinder the heartbeat and thus are apart from real life conditions.
I wish more books came with a readaloud guide. Sometimes, characters are introduced that deserve distinctive vocal styles that aren't obvious right away. So after five lines of dialog, you find out the new character is a woman with a strong eastern-European accent, and you'd been reading her words like a man.
Tolkien is wonderful to read aloud, except for the damn songs. You arrive at a song (some of which are relevant to the plot, so you you can't skip them) and mumble your way through it like one of the obscure psalms. Ugh. But soon the great prose flows again, and all is good.
I read the whole of Harry Potter aloud to my kids, starting about age 5. The early books aren't too scary for a 5-6yo boy, though they get scarier. Those were the first books I read to them that I enjoyed too, a huge improvement over Cat in the Hat.
Although audiobooks make reading aloud obsolete in some sense, I feel it's one of the most enjoyable obsolete activities.
On nice days my partner and I've been going to a nearby park, where I'll read Snow Crash to them.
It's a bit like putting a record on a record player. You make a conscious decision to focus on the experience and cut out other distractions.
I don't know which studies are accurate. I just remember that story because the findings were counter-intuitive.
[1] "Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which tracks the progress of more than 20,000 American schoolchildren from kindergarten through the fifth grade." -- https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005...
Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it is very strange.
"What are the implications of our findings? Our main finding is that it is important that young children are being read to. This is an early-life intervention that seems to be beneficial for the rest of their lives. We show that there is an important role for parents in the educational performance of their children. The evidence strongly suggests that parental reading to children gives them a head-start in life."
I haven't studied either enough to say for sure, but it appears the the 2014 paper is trying to measure the marginal benefit of reading, while the Levitt study was looking at larger correlations. The Levitt study suggests that smart parents end up with smart kids, reading or not. What is more interesting to me at least, is what can I do to help my kids succeed? The 2014 paper comes closer to answering this question, and suggests reading to them helps.
To clarify, it wasn't a "Levitt study" per se. It was government study. The government had questionnaires asking parents "how often do you read to your children?" and it had the children's reading test scores. Levitt found no correlation in those 2 datapoints.
Worse yet is such an editorial reporting conclusions from public data, without details of the analytical methodology.
In this case, the medium is not the message here. That page wasn't an "editorial" in the sense that a dilettante newspaper editor put his own spin on research he didn't know.
Instead, Levitt himself was writing an article that was short enough for the editorial space alloted. His longer text is chapter 5 in his Freakonomics book. (In other words, the so-called "editorial" was advertising hype for his book.)
I just linked the USA Today page because I thought it was more convenient than trying to deep-link a copyrighted book.[1][2]
It was a government study so presumably, Levitt got the raw data and reports from here: https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/getpubcats.asp?sid=024
[1] best link I could do but it's not the whole book so it's incomplete: https://books.google.com/books?id=pGJ-BwAAQBAJ&pg=PT25&dq=fr...
[2] Google Books doesn't let you deep-link to Chapter 5 of Freakonomics: https://books.google.com/books?id=wNPnl5zYA-cC&printsec=fron...
Revisiting my child hood classics such as Hardy Boys, mixing in Harry Potter (books are so much better than the first and only movie that I saw) and so on: Feels like quality time, and a great way to connect. I can easily get into those books too, even in my mid 40s. ;)
I have noticed that enjoyment increases with my reading engagement level - creating different voices for the different characters and such. He has attention issues, and it's a pleasure to have him focusing on something other than a screen. I will stop every few minutes and ask questions to check if he is really listening to the story and not just the sound of my voice. Previously, it might have been more of the latter.
My sons are grown-ups now, how I miss these times.
By the end I noticed I have really developed a voice. He has developed a richer vocabulary (dad what is "clemency") and is better at reading between the lines. Certainly enjoyable and educational for everyone. Looking forward to the next series we read and will miss this when he starts reading this stuff on his own. Was thinking of volenteeering at an old folks home.
It's a great learning experience and quality bonding time.
Try reading them adult books (if you're not already—and especially classics, they tend to have really nice prose that you want to run your eyes over several times just for the sensation, anyway) or classics of children's literature (e.g. The Jungle Book). Might help. Lots of childrens' books are just plain bad.
Yes. The emphasis carries a lot of information in addition to the simple text. I find it hard to do when reading aloud from a book I haven't myself read before. In fact I think it's one reason I tend to pick my personal childhood favourites to read.
Perhaps this is lazy. I wonder if other parents do the same?
[EDIT] I've read my kids a couple old favorites, though not ones I've read recently. In part I've used them as an excuse to get through entries my personal to-read list, in fact. Multitasking! Especially when they're really young, they don't know the difference. My 4-year-old's super into Ovid right now, which is awesome. Have to skip the too-sexy or ultra-violent (or, uh, both) bits, but it's working alright.
Also, since my son had an extended stay in another state, we recorded ourselves reading books aloud to his sister, packaged them into audiobooks, and put them on his iPod. This really helped us feel connected as a family. I wrote a blog post about how to do it [2].
[1]: http://www.trelease-on-reading.com [2]: https://ben.straub.cc/2017/05/12/audiobooks/
Book is https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4059448-a-lincoln if anyone is interested.
"When he was reading, his eyes ran over the page and his heart perceived the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent. He did not restrict access to anyone coming in, nor was it customary even for a visitor to be announced. Very often when we were there, we saw him silently reading and never otherwise. After sitting for a long time in silence (for who would dare to burden him in such intent concentration?) we used to go away. We supposed that in the brief time he could find for his mind's refreshment, free from the hubbub of other people's troubles, he would not want to be invited to consider another problem. We wondered if he read silently perhaps to protect himself in case he had a hearer interested and intent on the matter, to whom he might have to expound the text being read if it contained difficulties, or who might wish to debate some difficult questions. If his time were used up in that way, he would get through fewer books than he wished. Besides, the need to preserve his voice, which used easily to become hoarse, could have been a very fair reason for silent reading. Whatever motive he had for his habit, this man had a good reason for what he did."
This seems greatly implausible. Consider, for example, the fact that the Roman walls were often covered in graffiti. The idea that a Roman would have to vocalize all of them to find one that seemed funny seems absurd. Further, there are examples in plays of a character reading a letter silently.
It does seem, though, that there have been times in specific cultures when reading prose or poetry aloud would have been considered the norm, and whether or not one could read silently, it wouldn't have been in anybody's habit to do so, because prose and poetry were "meant" to be read aloud. The notion, then, that someone could apparently "hear" all the musicality of the text while reading silently may indeed then have been cause for surprise.
Must admit though, that my wife has a fantastic speaking voice, and should probably do voice over work or something in her spare time. We were both at a seminar once, where the presenter asked her to read out some customer quotes. As soon as she read the first one, he basically handed her the script to read most of his actual presentation after that.
Myself personally though, I don't read aloud much at all. I always find that my brain tends to work much faster than my mouth muscles, and I frequently speak too fast or stumble over words, which results in me speaking less in public in front of strangers especially.
1. I stopped skimming, actually started reading
2. I got tired faster and didn't feel alone anymore
3. Learnt more pronunciation and spellings correctly
It's a great exercise!
Children's stories are better for this, as they are usually written with the view of being read aloud. Plus they also make better bedtime stories :)
I've read books to my SO before and it was enjoyable, but she usually ended up falling asleep and I was stuck debating whether I should continue.