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Reading Aloud
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From: Dean Schneider <schneiderd_at_ensworth.com>
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:32:29 -0500
My wife and I read aloud to our own two kids every single night from the ti me they were babies until they were in sixth grade and they got too busy. I read aloud all 14 of the Oz books and all of the the Chronicles of Prydai n, among the many, many books we read over the years. L. Frank Baum and E. B. White and Lloyd Alexander felt like old friends. It wasn't just because we are teachers and knew that reading aloud was good for them, it was a che rished family time, a time to sit next each other and settle into a good st ory. A quiet, family time with no electronic diversion interrupting our liv es.
The family time came first, but we did know the value of reading aloud, tha t children who grow up being read to have better language resources than th ose who aren't. That kids who have been read to all of their lives have an advantage over kids who only read what's assigned in school. That's a good message to all of those placing test scores above all else. If everyone rea d aloud to their children, ate meals together and actually talked with each other, and encouraged reading and writing, they wouldn't have to worry abo ut the test scores.
But I don't want to making reading aloud sound like it's to be done to rais e test scores. It's simply an enjoyable activity for families and a way to enjoy books together and develop language skills in school. I teach middle school English and have several different classes in the course of a day, a nd I'd never have a voice at the end of the day if I had several different read-aloud books going at the same time. Still, I know the value of hearing good language and do lots of reading aloud in various ways in my 7th- and 8th-grade classes.
I try to carefully orchestrate the class novels we read together. I read al oud best chapters and do lots of informal readers' theater, where I read th e narration and pick students to read the lines of various characters, choo sing the chapters that have lots of dialogue for this. My 8th grade is just now starting reports on various artists, and I set up the project by readi ng Jan Greenberg's HEART TO HEART with them. In her book, each two-page spr ead includes a beautifully reproduced image of a 20th-century work of art, with a poem by mostly well-known poets opposite, the poems telling an imagi ned story behind the art. I have read aloud many of the poems to my student s and discussed the various artists represented in the volume, and now they have to research one artist, write a report, and then write a poem about a painting by "their" artist, just as in the book.
When I read Angela Johnson's THE OTHER SIDE with my seventh graders earlier this year, we took turns reading aloud the poems and discussing the story behind the poems. Some of the poems have good first lines that can be poetr y ideas for students writing their own poems. So, they wrote poems and read them aloud in class. It's the same approach I used for years with Karen He sse's OUT OF THE DUST. Students hear me reading aloud, then they read aloud the poems they've written.
When I read Neil Gaiman's THE GRAVEYARD BOOK with my 7th graders, I led off with having Neil Gaiman himself reading aloud the first chapter, playing t he video available on his website. He does such a great, creepy reading I c an't match, though after that I do the reading aloud or we do readers' thea ter, as I generally prefer the sounds of our own voices in our classroom co mmunity. I do the same with short scenes from ELIJAH OF BUXTON, to get the sound of Elijah and Cooter's voices, as rendered by Mirron Willis on the DV D, into students' heads for when they go on and read on their own.
Each year when we read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in 8th grade, we do the whole trial scene in class as readers' theater, hearing the voices of Atticus and the various characters on the witness stand. Not only do students get to h ear the voices, they get to trace, witness by witness, the bits of evidence and, with my nudging, begin to see discrepancies and contradictions in the testimony. Then the verdict is all that more powerful, having followed the trial so closely.
I'm currently pondering reading Acting Out next year with my 7th graders, I t's a collection of six one-act plays by Avi, Susan Cooper, Richard Peck, P atricia MacLachlan, Sharon Creech, and Katherine Paterson. We'll read aloud each play, and then write our own one-act plays, choosing one or two to st age.
So, the above is a hint at how I make a classroom language rich by reading aloud. We also write up a storm, so that the language resources developed t hrough the spoken word are further developed through the written word, the students' developing ear for language guiding the way.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, Tennessee schneiderd_at_ensworth.com
Received on Sun 03 Apr 2011 01:32:29 PM CDT
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:32:29 -0500
My wife and I read aloud to our own two kids every single night from the ti me they were babies until they were in sixth grade and they got too busy. I read aloud all 14 of the Oz books and all of the the Chronicles of Prydai n, among the many, many books we read over the years. L. Frank Baum and E. B. White and Lloyd Alexander felt like old friends. It wasn't just because we are teachers and knew that reading aloud was good for them, it was a che rished family time, a time to sit next each other and settle into a good st ory. A quiet, family time with no electronic diversion interrupting our liv es.
The family time came first, but we did know the value of reading aloud, tha t children who grow up being read to have better language resources than th ose who aren't. That kids who have been read to all of their lives have an advantage over kids who only read what's assigned in school. That's a good message to all of those placing test scores above all else. If everyone rea d aloud to their children, ate meals together and actually talked with each other, and encouraged reading and writing, they wouldn't have to worry abo ut the test scores.
But I don't want to making reading aloud sound like it's to be done to rais e test scores. It's simply an enjoyable activity for families and a way to enjoy books together and develop language skills in school. I teach middle school English and have several different classes in the course of a day, a nd I'd never have a voice at the end of the day if I had several different read-aloud books going at the same time. Still, I know the value of hearing good language and do lots of reading aloud in various ways in my 7th- and 8th-grade classes.
I try to carefully orchestrate the class novels we read together. I read al oud best chapters and do lots of informal readers' theater, where I read th e narration and pick students to read the lines of various characters, choo sing the chapters that have lots of dialogue for this. My 8th grade is just now starting reports on various artists, and I set up the project by readi ng Jan Greenberg's HEART TO HEART with them. In her book, each two-page spr ead includes a beautifully reproduced image of a 20th-century work of art, with a poem by mostly well-known poets opposite, the poems telling an imagi ned story behind the art. I have read aloud many of the poems to my student s and discussed the various artists represented in the volume, and now they have to research one artist, write a report, and then write a poem about a painting by "their" artist, just as in the book.
When I read Angela Johnson's THE OTHER SIDE with my seventh graders earlier this year, we took turns reading aloud the poems and discussing the story behind the poems. Some of the poems have good first lines that can be poetr y ideas for students writing their own poems. So, they wrote poems and read them aloud in class. It's the same approach I used for years with Karen He sse's OUT OF THE DUST. Students hear me reading aloud, then they read aloud the poems they've written.
When I read Neil Gaiman's THE GRAVEYARD BOOK with my 7th graders, I led off with having Neil Gaiman himself reading aloud the first chapter, playing t he video available on his website. He does such a great, creepy reading I c an't match, though after that I do the reading aloud or we do readers' thea ter, as I generally prefer the sounds of our own voices in our classroom co mmunity. I do the same with short scenes from ELIJAH OF BUXTON, to get the sound of Elijah and Cooter's voices, as rendered by Mirron Willis on the DV D, into students' heads for when they go on and read on their own.
Each year when we read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in 8th grade, we do the whole trial scene in class as readers' theater, hearing the voices of Atticus and the various characters on the witness stand. Not only do students get to h ear the voices, they get to trace, witness by witness, the bits of evidence and, with my nudging, begin to see discrepancies and contradictions in the testimony. Then the verdict is all that more powerful, having followed the trial so closely.
I'm currently pondering reading Acting Out next year with my 7th graders, I t's a collection of six one-act plays by Avi, Susan Cooper, Richard Peck, P atricia MacLachlan, Sharon Creech, and Katherine Paterson. We'll read aloud each play, and then write our own one-act plays, choosing one or two to st age.
So, the above is a hint at how I make a classroom language rich by reading aloud. We also write up a storm, so that the language resources developed t hrough the spoken word are further developed through the written word, the students' developing ear for language guiding the way.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, Tennessee schneiderd_at_ensworth.com
Received on Sun 03 Apr 2011 01:32:29 PM CDT
