Reading Aloud is NOT a Performance
In association with BookTrust, here are my tippiest-top tips for reading in a way that captivates learners and sparks a love for stories.
Quick quiz. You’re reading a book out loud to a group of young listeners, and two of them turn to each other and start whispering. Out of the following three options, should you…
say something like, “Er, you should be listening. Attention this way please.”
look at them enthusiastically and say “Exactly! And then…” before continuing to read.
wait for them to finish.
Since this piece is written by a storyteller, you’re probably expecting the answer to be ‘B’ – and you’d be right.
But I’d be willing to bet that, in practice, you often choose ‘A’. That’s the natural choice. If we’re trying to hold an audience’s attention, we expect them to focus on us.
However, with almost two decades of experience as an oral storyteller, I can assure you: if two listeners start whispering with each other, 99 times out of 10, they’re commenting on the story.
And no, that’s not a typo.
So if you say, “you should be listening”, what you’re actually saying is, “Please stop engaging with this story. I’d rather you focus on me.”
Is that really your aim?
That said, ‘C’ isn’t great either. Waiting risks losing the engagement of everyone else…
The Keyring skill for reading aloud
Fortunately, because you can be sure that the story you’re reading is the inspiration for any activity among your audience – be it chatting, miming, making a sound effect, etc – you can also be confident with the idea behind ‘B’: acknowledge and share their excitement, then read on.
The trick is in recognising that engagement looks different for every listener. Yes, some will smile and watch you intently – but others may gaze out the window as they picture the action you’re describing. Yet others may doodle an illustration as you speak.
And so the real secret to great group reading is…
WAIT! Don’t worry – this isn’t a sneaky way to get you paying to continue this article. BookTrust is a charity founded for the sole purpose of inspiring reading for pleasure, and the rest of this article is free!
I just felt, since I wrote this article to support the charity, I should probably send you to their website to read it in full. $;-)
Plus, that’s not all you’ll find from me on BookTrust’s website. We also recorded one of my storytelling sessions at John Ball Primary School as part of a free video course on the features of engaging storytelling. It goes into a little more depth than the article, but of course requires a little more of your time.
So if you only have a few minutes spare,
If you have at least 20min,
And whichever you choose, I’d love to hear how you and your learners get on with these resources! Please…