The Lost Art of Reading Aloud | Hacker News Reader

The Lost Art of Reading Aloud

nytimes.com

22 pointsechair20 comments

I often read essays aloud as one of the filters before publishing them. It helps me find awkward sentences. I discovered this trick when practicing talks, but now I do it even for essays that aren't talks.

I read aloud when I've finished a draft of a screenplay, to help in making the dialogue better.

Also, I read a short story of my own (just 2 pages) out in 1997 to members of a writing class, and they all laughed at the places I expected and clapped at the end. It's a nice experience.

Since it was a discovery for you, did you experiment with other tricks? In particular, did you try to simply slow down your silent reading, and found out that it didn't do the job?

When you read aloud your tongue stumbles on the awkward sentences. Just slowing down wouldn't reproduce that.

In Roy Blount Jr.'s Alphabet Juice (under "mnemonic"), he mentions that the ancient Greeks and Romans generally read aloud, even to themselves. (We know this because Julius Ceaser didn't, and his biographers considered his reading silently, and thus more quickly, to be novel. )

I'd heard that the first known silent reader was Augustine, though apparently it was his patron, Ambrose.

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/classical_world/v100...

I often read my writing aloud in my head. Which is to say: I imagine myself reading it aloud, at what (to me) feels like the right speed.

There was a time when I used to speed-read fiction books. (I was often impatient to know how they would end.) But I caught myself doing that and deliberately trained myself to read good prose at a more moderate pace.

One thing you really should read aloud is poetry. The art makes a lot more sense when you savor the sounds of the words. You should also read poetry fairly slowly. Make each word count. Every one of them was lovingly designed for that purpose.

Reading aloud is another art form in itself, just as writing is.

Why are people so cynical about audio books? I think they contain two art forms (spoken word reading and literature writing) and can be far more satisfying than the dead tree version alone.

Yes there are some audio books that are read very badly, but they are fortunately in the minority.

For those interested in laying their hands on some legitimately free audiobooks, often of excellent quality: http://librivox.org/

I agree. Audiobooks are often recorded by fine actors and speakers. Listening to them improves one's sense of the rhythm of language, emotional nuance, pronunciation of new words, etc. They make it more real.

One's own diction and language is then improved during subsequent conversations.

There's a masochistic streak amongst educationalists. Something like: if you aren't working hard you can't be learning. Hence reading is better than audiobooks; novels are always to be preferred to movies.

I think you hit close about many educators practices, however I think the problem is they assume concentration with hard work and lack of concentration with easy work. While this can generally be true, it doesn't mean you are learning just because something's hard or that you aren't learning just because something's easy.

If you have a problem with reading books for whatever reason, I believe listening to an audiobook will have at least the same effect on an educational level. It obviously won't help with your reading skills, but it might help you with listening skills (which incidentally a lot of people seem to frequently lack). However, listening to an audiobook won't mean jack if you can't concentrate on it, just like with reading a book.

I'd say, just like some people used to have reading rooms, why not have a listening room for audiobooks?

I guess I am a very visual problem, so without something visual to latch on to my mind starts to drift. This means that often I lose track of where I am in the story. If the same happens while reading a book, it is far easier to simply go back and read again rather than mess around with a program's ocntrols until I get to the right point.

Why are people so cynical about audio books?

Perhaps for the same reason my buddy who worked at the college radio station was so cynical about Kurt Cobain. Nirvana was popular; ergo, their music couldn't be very good. Those sellouts!

But, more charitably, it might be that certain book lovers really cherish reading, which is quite distinct from being read to. Someone once said that that the secret to books, as a medium, is that they give you the illusion that you and the author are sharing a private experience. You're alone in your own little space, concentrating and free from distraction, along with someone who has never met you, who might be hundreds or even thousands of years dead, but who is nevertheless speaking to you one to one. Even the person sitting across from you has no idea what you and the author are sharing as you read. And even if you read something as mind-blowingly popular as, say, Pratchett or Wodehouse or Gaiman or Rowling, there are still going to be moments where it will feel as if the author is sharing a private joke directly with you. The medium does that.

I suspect that audio books break that illusion for many people. Suddenly a reader, a bunch of Audible.com sound engineers, whoever happens to be within earshot of your car radio, and a potentially huge number of visual distractions (such as cars rolling by on the highway) are packed into that imaginary space along with you and the author. It's kind of like the difference between a quiet dinner for two and your junior prom. This explains why it's often a good selling point to have an audio book read by the author, despite the fact that most authors do not have years of experience as professional book readers. Hearing a book read by its author helps to preserve the illusion of intimate conversation.

Though I suspect that the rise of personal media devices -- for personal listening, home recording, and cheap distribution -- are changing the feel of the listening experience. Back in the early days of TV, watching TV probably felt like going to a show -- people did it in groups, with families or in bars, and even the shows on TV were based on vaudeville, theater, and big public events like wrestling matches and baseball games. But in the era of YouTube, you can have a video-watching experience that feels much more intimate, although perhaps never quite as intimate as silent reading.

I have to admit that I've liked the few audio books that I've listened to, but I don't seek them out. Given the option, I'd rather read.

I read aloud to my daughters and enjoy every minute of it. I'm sure it helps my writing/speaking as does talking to myself (tech subjects) when alone in the car.

I highly recommend it (the kids part not the talking to yourself, that can get a little weird)

When reading aloud to kids you must read with a passion and not only read the words 'as is' (or the kids will probably hit you with something). I don't know if it helps me with my reading/writing but it probably help the kids with their reading skills.

Seconded - it's great fun.

I find that I need to be absorbing the text one or two sentences ahead of the words I am speaking, so as to plan the emphasis and timing.

Once I am familiar with the text, though, I can have a completely unrelated train of thought going whilst reading.

Although I agree with the main point of this opinion piece ("Reading Aloud" is a Good Thing), the author comes across as a bit pretentious when he tries to capture the magical "je ne sais quoi" about reading aloud, and how young people (students) can't seem to do it right.

(1) "If the work is their own, they are usually trying to read the intention of the writer."

ummm, if it is their own work, then they are the writer. The words express their intention, so reading "the words" and reading "the intention of the writer" are the same thing.

(2) "It’s as though they’re reading what the words represent rather than the words themselves."

ummm, actually, when I read a story to my niece or nephew I don't just "read the words" (if that is all we wanted, we could have a text-to-speech program do it for us). Instead, I often read what the words represent.

"Who goes there?!" shouted the witch, angrily.

"No, no, you're doing it all wrong", whispered the grey-haired professor, almost inaudibly as he shook his head. "No young man", his deep voice admonished loudly, "Just read the words! Read the damn words."

"I read aloud to my writing students, and when students read aloud to me I notice something odd. They are smart and literate, and most of them had parents who read to them as children. But when students read aloud at first, I notice that they are trying to read the meaning of the words."

I suspect this had to do with the students' expectation of what their teacher wants. I bet if the same student was given a copy of "Room on the Broom" and a willing toddler, they would read just fine.

I wonder whether some rephrasing from the teacher (such as "would you perform this text" instead of "read") would make a difference.

But there is a big difference between the music example and reading. Aside from the level of required skill, playing a piano sonata takes the same time as listening to the CD; however reading aloud a book takes significantly longer than reading. Which is why it makes sense for short forms, but not for whole novels - unless you can't read at all (eg. while driving).

If you haven't listened to quality reading in a while, check out Escape Pod's reading of Asimov's short story, Nightfall:

http://escapepod.org/2007/04/05/ep100-nightfall/

I read that aloud. It was awesome.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com