Exploring the Reading Aloud experience

Speak Up!

Exploring What Children Look For In the Reading Aloud Experience and Do I Have That?

By Molly Miller

May 11 2008

I work in a preschool. “Precious is the Child” preschool to be exact. I help look after and teach 11 brilliant children. They love to pretend and to play and learn. They also love books. They flip through book after book asking questions and looking for any piece of information they already know. Frequently they will ask for me to read them a book. When that happens, the rest of the children will drop their toys and flock around me, choosing more books and lining them up in the order they want.

One of their favorite books is “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.” When I read it to them they all fall silent- perhaps the first time all day! I think they like it because I can do a variety of voices: deep and growling for the troll, loud and deep for the biggest Billy Goat, regular for the medium sized Billy Goat, and really high for the smallest Billy Goat. Each goat, as it crosses the bridge, makes a noise that the children live for hearing: “Trip Trap, Trip Trap” as the medium and small Billy Goat cross and “TRIP TRAP, TRIP TRAP” for the biggest Billy Goat.

When this part comes up, many of the kids say it along with me. Others just sit there with their eyes and mouth wide open. They love every minute of it and I don’t know if it matters who reads it to them, as long as the voices and trip-trapping remains constant.

I think that is true with a lot of books read to children. The children like to hear a story read to them and they will only accept the book if it’s read exactly the same as the first time they heard it. Countless times I’ve read books to the children at my preschool and they’ve stopped me saying “Isn’t it this way?” or “You’re not reading it right!” or even “What about this tangent? Mrs. Most always talked about…”

I remember that about the books I was read as a kid. My mom would read us all sorts of books from “The Lord of the Rings” to “Mr. Popper’s Penguins.” I remember she read “The Hobbit” to us and ever since I haven’t been able to listen to a recording of someone else reading it. My mom’s voices echo in my head when I read it to myself and the pronunciation of the names is something I won’t ever forget.

Of course, a child does not always like a book the first time it’s read to him. Just recently I read “Froggy’s First Kiss” to a four year old boy, because he asked me to. I didn’t really think he’d like it, but because he insisted, I read it to him. I made sure to use voices for Froggy and his mother and father and classmates. The boy just stood there, hands clasped behind his back, smiling.

He was up against the shelf behind me. When the story was done, I turned to him and asked if he liked the story. He shook his head fiercely and turned red. I smiled and asked if he wanted to read a different one. He grabbed a different “Froggy” book and I tried to replicate the same voices and attitudes. This time he said he had liked it.

I thought this interesting, because I didn’t do a very good job with the consistency of the voices in the second “Froggy” book. I stumbled a lot and broke out in a fit of yawns right at the climax of the story! Yet he liked that book much better than the first one and seemed a lot more comfortable. He actually stood by my side and watched the pictures intently.

The look of complete interest and wonder that his face possessed in that second reading is the reason I love reading to children. I’ve been reading to children for a long time now. I’ve done babysitting and teaching and every time I read to children, I love it. Over this course I’ve developed a new appreciation for where I’ve learned all this.

Although I learned a lot from this course, the skills used in reading aloud to children was not created by reading texts or websites. I learned these skills from my mother, who read to us every day and taught us to love literature, and from experience with children.

Because I started working with children at a young age, I’ve had plenty of time to turn my reading skills into an expertise! Whenever I would baby-sit, and put the children to bed, I would read them a bedtime story of their choice. When I taught Sunday school, I read them Bible stories. When I visit my relatives, and my young cousin, I always read a few stories to him.

I’ve found a few tricks that help almost any child focus on the story and enjoy it more. If you use voices, ask the children questions, and move the book around so all the children can see the pictures, they become more involved in the reading process.

The things I learned from this class are really important. I gained some new insight as to how to present poetry to a group of young children (I honestly never thought about it before), I learned how much teaching is involved in learning, I was introduced to some books that I had never heard of before but now thoroughly enjoy, and I had a lot of fun just discussing my experiences. I love children, and I loved this class.