pencilspapernme

HOW READING ALOUD TO OUR CHILDREN WILL CHANGE THEIR LIVES FOREVER......
THE READING MAGIC !!!!!

In 1998, my daughter Shagun startled me one evening by claiming in a state of utter excitement “i can read”. She was 4yrs...Old. I smiled as an indulgent and happy parent. She couldn’t possibly read ...could she?
She ran to her room and came back with a copy of NODDY AND CHRISTMAS FATHER....one of her favourites at that point of time, and read to us one page after the other, one word after another, with full expression .We were amazed. I just didn’t know how to react.
I had read the book to her many times day after day, and thought that she had memorized it, so I opened random pages to test this new skill my daughter had unfolded before me, and the results were the same.
‘What did i do ?’ I asked myself .’what method did i use?” I was an active teacher then and all i did was READ ALOUD TO MY GIRL DAY AFTER DAY, NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, in all the precious moments we spent with each other.
READING ALOUD HAS SUCH A POWERFUL IMPACT!!!!!
Reading aloud to our children early in life helps in developing their speaking skills. They cannot learn to talk unless they are spoken to. Which is one of the reasons why most of the psychologists and speech therapists tell us that we need to have loving ,laughing meaningful conversations with our children.
Read a-loud sessions are perfect times for engaging in these conversations as both the reader and the listener can talk endlessly about the story, its pictures, its words, its characters, the values it teaches, and the creative ideas that emerge from it. Talking aloud sharpens the brains of children .It helps to develop their ability to concentrate at length, solve problems logically, critically analyse situations, and helps develop their abilities to express themselves easily and clearly. The stories they hear help them to build on their vocabulary, pick up new phrases, expressions, new sentences. And before you know it they have learnt why and how things happen .Inshort they have learnt to READ.
Words are essential in building the thought connections in the brain, the more language a child experiences through books and conversations,and not passively through television the more advantaged socially and educationally the child will be for the rest of his life. Conversely the fewer experiences the child has with words before he starts school the more stunted will his growth be.
When I was teaching ,i would often start the year by reading aloud a story to my students,to practise what i always wanted to preach.The eyes of my students would be round with fascination ,they would sit in rapt silence,completly drawn into the story.Reading aloud to them made them happier and cleverer as students.I was able to use this as a reinforcement during my classroom sessions too.
SO HOW DOES ONE READ ALOUD?
When you think of a read aloud session what comes to your mind is a rocking chair with cushions and the child comfortably seated on your lap...or an adult lying on the bed with the child tucked snugly wide eyed as the story is being read to him..AND THE EXPERIENCE IS JUST FANTASTIC!!!
There is no correct /exact way of reading aloud. It is an art where the eyes and voice play the most important part. Read a story allowing its emotions to show through your eyes.You can widen them, and narrow them, use them to think with, to be shocked ,to be scared, to be happy, to be listening with and so on.
The next is the voice..Don’t be falsely over expressive, don’t be too sugary, cutesy, or over patronising. And most importantly don’t be overwhelming to the children.
Pause can be used to great effect before a dramatic change in the story, or if there is genuine change in the dialogue of a character.
Help, words come alive while reading. Reveal the hidden meanings of words to the children, make dead sentences come to life, leap out of pages!! Love the words you read, what you love your children will learn to love automatically. If children love the words they hear they will use them delightfully in their own speaking and writing. If they love the sounds of the words they hear they will understand them better and come to read them better sooner or later.
The easiest way to achieve excellence at reading aloud is to actually see in your mind’s eye the characters unfolding, the scenes actually occurring. The first line should be SENSATIONAL....the aim is to grab the attention of the child immediately. Not only, should it be a dynamic grabber of attention it should also be a sentence that, WELCOMES them to the ritual of, READ A LOUD SESSIONS.
The endings of a story are equally important. Just as the first line was inviting, the last line of our story telling session should be a definite dismissal , a farewell till we meet again for the next session. A rapid finish is odd, a slow finish is a delicious experience, just as the final bit of your favourite chocolate finally melting in to depths of your mouth leaving a lasting , and lingering taste till you eat it again.
Both the teller and listener should find themselves in a state of bliss, a feeling of –
“ living happily ever after”.
Expressive reading is reading that is remembered. And so it is with our children. They will read with the same expressive inflections as we do, which is why we should make the effort to read with a zest and vitality and loads of variations.
Thus engaging ourselves in an activity such as Reading a Loud we share, the words, the pictures, the ideas , the rhythms, the rhymes, the pain, the joy , the hopes, the fears, the happiness, the loss, the big and the small issues of life. We connect through the minds and hearts of our children and bond with each other in a secret that connects us to then and them to us.
The fire of literacy is thus created between a child and a book and the person reading. It isn’t created by any single one of them ....it is created by bringing all three together in harmony.
We as parents and educators need to understand the huge educational benefits and intense happiness that can be brought by reading aloud to our children- all we now need to do is to read aloud two stories a day to our children in their lives and we probably will be able to wipe out illiteracy from within our generations.