My wife and I had a long-distance courtship. We used to read novels to each other over Skype. It was a nice change from chatting when we'd run out of things to say, and a fun way to share favourite stories. We didn't ever try to read anything really ambitious, but that was part of what made it enjoyable— even just kids' chapter books, stuff like Gordon Korman, Louis Sachar, Sid Fleischman.
We don't read to each other as much these days (though sometimes in the car), but we definitely do read to the kids.
I've begun reading Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" to my 6 year-old boy, and it's been a wonderful experience for both of us— I've enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and just as much as our boy does. I hadn't read it since childhood, and I'd forgotten just how richly whimsical it is and how formative it was for me and how much it informs my imagination today.
Heh, my girlfriend and I have been reading that to each other for about two years I think now. It's highly enjoyable, although a bit hard to follow when one falls asleep while the other is reading it.
That's an excellent idea. We read to our kids constantly when they were young, and after they got old enough to read themselves we started reading books and plays as a family on holiday weekends. It's still nice, and reading a play together as a family can be a lot of fun.
I occasionally read choice excerpts of whatever I'm reading to my wife. But what I've been reading lately is mostly Joe Abercrombie and Richard Morgan, so she typically cringes ;) However, I have managed to interest her in Neal Stephenson (Diamond Age, and maybe D.O.D.O.) and Hannu Rajaniemi (Fractal Prince trilogy).
You definitely know you're reading a book for kids, but it's pretty funny still. I think my favourite is The Chicken Doesn't Skate, but the MacDonald Hall series are great too.
Not sure how relevant this is but I worked at a dayschool for a beat and they had a few service dogs come in to sit with the children while the kids "read to the dog." Most doggies are really chill and the kids were able to read without fear of criticism or correction, and the dog was there always happy. Studies (don't ask me for references, dunno) show that by reading to a dog at a young age, people become much more confident readers.
I used to read to my kids and what is interesting is that for the first time in my life I discovered some things that I never learned as I went through school.
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.
> 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.
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.
When hiring secretarial and sales staff, I'd have them read that book. It was a great way to tell their abilities to enunciate and share information. It was also good to see how well they'd perform under pressure.
Fox Is Socks is hard to read on purpose of course. I actually reckon most other Dr Seuss books are particularly good to read aloud. The metre and general flow of things is always spot on and there's lots of expression.
My personal favorites are Where the Wild Things Are and The Giving Tree. Both stories are very simple, but they flow well and IMHO really grow when read aloud.
I generally hate reading aloud. I find that most writing is really NOT meant to be "heard" in reality, only in the mind. However, recently I decided to show my daughter (who has taken an interest in popular RPG video games like Undertale) some older games that I liked when I was younger. As you might guess, these games lack a voice track and while we can both read fine, we read at different speeds. So there is always an awkward wait before continuing to the next dialog screen.
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.)
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.
A ex and I used to read favorite novels to each other, a chapter or so every night one of us stayed over. There's something very intimate about it, and it's fun to be able to discuss characters and the books' deeper concepts as you go along. Maybe I romanticize it because I was read to a lot when I was a child.
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.
Snow Crash is amazing, this is a fantastic idea. Do you get into it with character voices? I feel like I could up my D&D DM exposition skills with this :P
Same! If you're into it I highly recommend trying out a tabletop RP game, I recently discovered how much of a blast they can be. Tickles my acting tooth :)
The (controversial) economist Steven D. Levitt pointed out that there was no correlation between parents reading to children and reading test scores.[1]
I don't know which studies are accurate. I just remember that story because the findings were counter-intuitive.
The editorial you site is from 2005, while the other paper is from 2014. The latter looks like a large and well designed study. Here is a quote from the conclusion:
"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.
>The Levitt study suggests that smart parents end up with smart kids, reading or not.
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.
The only thing I find to be less valuable than popular media news stories about scientific research results is popular media editorials interpreting research results.
Worse yet is such an editorial reporting conclusions from public data, without details of the analytical methodology.
>The only thing I find to be less valuable [...] is popular media editorials interpreting research results
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]
I find it odd that it's Levitt and Dubner saying that, because their most famous papers are the ones that use instrumental variable regressions to squeeze causal relationships out of the data. Now they're saying that a correlation from a longitudinal study can be taken at face value?
Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it is very strange.
I can easily do half an hour or more for my six year old at night. Have always been reading for him, but it's more enjoyable now that he understands more interesting works.
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.
Did the same with my first son with all Harry Potter books, which came out as he grew up. When my second son was born he caught up with the early books by watching the movies then participating to our reading sessions. I acted all voices when reading, and we sometimes would re-enact a complete scene all together, improvising lines to fit with the story and acting with any kind of props we could put our hands on.
My sons are grown-ups now, how I miss these times.
Just finished reading the hobbit and lord of the rings to my 7 year old. I absolutely loved it, and he's a full blown Tolkien nut now. Previously we read through Harry Potter.
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.
I read Harry Potter to my kids, on Periscope, and it turned out to be wonderful. Their English skills developed tremendously, we spent a lot of time together doing it, and they understood that the internet needs constant input from normal users to remain such a fantastic resource.
Great work; yep, it is interesting to notice how interactively I'm reading for my own six year old, sometimes substituting hard words for simple ones, at other times stopping to explain a new one.
It's a great learning experience and quality bonding time.
I love reading, but since having kids (I'd never had to read aloud before) have discovered I find the sensations around reading aloud to be extremely unpleasant. Anything that rhymes/has a sing-song meter is OK.. but I find normal prose gruelling and can't wait for it to be over. It feels like a sort of claustrophobia, but trapped by the slowness rather than physically. I often end up paraphrasing or dropping unnecessary words as I go to make better progress.
The fun for me's in getting all the intonation and emphasis just right. You don't have to "do the voices" or anything over the top, but just try to read it how a good narrator might.
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.
Probably my favorite to read out loud that way is A Christmas Carol. Dickens originally wanted to be an actor, found fame as a writer instead, and brought the two passions together by ging public performances reading/reciting his stories. You can really tell that A Christmas Carol was meant to be read out with a bit of zest.
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?
It's a skill you get better at. Correctly guessing most of the time, looking a little ahead when you can, that kind of thing. Like sight reading music, really. Combination of well-trained intuition that mostly gets things right and sneaking a peak at the next few notes or bars when you have the opportunity. Definitely works some different mental muscles than silent reading.
[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.
A lot of prose sucks to read aloud, because the author didn't try it. Philip Roth, to pick one of many, doesn't work well spoken. Tolkien read chapters in development aloud to his kids every night, and it shows in the way it flows. Pick a good author and keep practicing!
Personally, I'm just fine at impromptu public speaking, or giving a presentation, or just talking intensely for an hour or more, but 5 minutes of reading aloud gives me a dry mouth and tired jaw. Like you, I can't wait to be done. It's probably a practice thing; we'll see how I do when I have kids.
We've been reading aloud to our kids for _years_ now, and it's a great way to all share an imaginary world together. A great resource we found is the Read Aloud Handbook [1], which includes an enormous list of great books, and the appropriate age at which to first encounter them.
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].
For material that I struggle understanding upon first read (e.g. academic papers), I often find myself pacing in circles in my room/backyard, reading it aloud, slowly, with proper intonation, as if I was lecturing. It helps a lot, although my neighbors probably think I'm crazy.
I read aloud to our children every night for about 10 years. They are both phenomenal readers and actors. I read to them because it gave me extra snuggle time.
My parents read outloud to me and my brother a lot as we were growing up. And now, this is something I really like doing with people I date? I have a couple of books of short stories that I'm slowing working through. Short stories are vital because my girlfriends zonk a handful of pages in, but they still have really liked it.
Currently reading an Abraham Lincoln Biography and apparently he used to drive one of the persons he boarded with crazy because he would read aloud. When asked why he said something to the effect of "Seeing and hearing is easier to remember than just seeing"
Although still a WIP, I found out that reading to my (mostly bilingual) kids in the non-dominant language is helping them mastering those subtle cues that previously gave them away as non-native speakers. A lot of those issues are pretty difficult to identify upfront e.g. homophones and reading aloud makes them evident to them. Correct entonation and cadence come along naturally now too.
I was reading Augustine one day and was struck by a passage that referred a silent reading in a way that made it seem quite uncommon in those days. Here it is, referring to Ambrose of Milan:
"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 passage is often cited by people (not you) who claim that before St Augustine's time people could not read silently. E.g. https://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/LatinBackground/Sil...: "There is no disputing the fact that the Romans read everything aloud, in fact they were apparently not able to read silently."
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.
One of my fondest memories of our trip to England/Scotland many years ago, was my wife in the passenger seat reading me entire chapters of a book that I had bought in a beautiful little bookshop earlier in the trip while we did long cross country drives.
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.
When I started living alone the first time, I realised I miss someone to talk to, a friend or family. But I was into reading. So I started reading aloud to myself
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
Just wanted to say I really appreciate all the personal anecdotes people are sharing; the personal stories aren't often shared in this quantity in one discussion here and doing so somehow changes the entire experience in a very positive way. Up-votes all around!
I travel a lot, and while I'm on the road my fiance often struggles to get to sleep. I've got a small microphone that I travel with, and I record myself reading Winnie the Pooh stories, and chapters from The Hobbit. I host them on my website, and she can open it up and listen to a chapter.
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 :)
Made a drinking game of it with my gf: any time Lovecraft used something racist, antediluvian, eldritch, horror, terror, geometry, ineffable, someone drank.. Good times
Nice. For dates we'd go to a library or book store, take random books and dramatically read the first, middle, and last lines. And speculate on the rest and/or make fun of it.
My wife and I read books together all the time... Especially the complex ones, so we can talk about it while we read. I don't see it as weird or lost at all...
My wife had cataract surgery this summer. (We are not kids.) She had a book club meeting coming up shortly, so with her eyes still bothering her, I read about 30 pages of the club's next book to her. She then bought an audio version from the iTunes in the next day or so, and said that the narrator read much better than I did. I did not doubt this.
I love audiobooks because of the pacing. Sometimes I realize I'm bored with a book because I'm trying to race through it. It's nice to slow down and actually process things.
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.
We don't read to each other as much these days (though sometimes in the car), but we definitely do read to the kids.