Read Aloud: Put some effort into it!

One of the things that has encouraged me in my reading aloud to my children was a workshop I had the privilege of attending with Mem Fox. Mem Fox is a much loved Australian children’s author. After she encouraged us to read aloud to our children every day she gave a little demonstration. Picking up one of her own books she read it in a fairly monotone, blah-kind of voice. To be honest, we all recognised the voice—it is the voice parents use to read when they don’t really want to. The voice we use when we’ve read the same picture book over and over again. The voice we use when we want to be somewhere else. After we had a guilty chuckle at ourselves she read the same story again. This time she read it with enthusiasm and excitement in her voice. Not only was she showing us how to use our voices differently but she had timed both efforts—and to our surprise the animated telling took about the same amount of time as the boring one. The lesson was clear—when we impose our droning on our children we aren’t doing anyone any favours, we aren’t even saving ourselves time! If we were to read with drama and gusto we would all enjoy the experience so much more. I share this link to Mem Fox’s website where she gives us Ten Read Aloud Commandments