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The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

spectator.co.uk

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Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#11

Post by kenjackson »

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.

Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#12

Post by reaperducer »

aureliano wrote: post #10

Interesting, reading aloud has been a tradition inside every cigar factory in Cuba since the 19th century. http://mashable.com/2016/11/19/cigar-factory-lectors/#l37Rcj...

And before there was a Cuba or a New World, being a lector was a profession in the factories and workshops of Europe.

Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#13

Post by petercooper »

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.

Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#14

Post by tpeo »

jasode wrote: post #9
dangayle wrote: post #5

It's been long established that reading aloud to your children is one of the best ways to advance their early learning. ( https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2267171 )

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. [1] "Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which tracks the progress of more than 20,000 American schoolchildren from kindergarten through the fifth grade."…

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.

Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#16

Post by sova »

mikepurvis wrote: post #8

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…

That's very beautiful. A friend of mine was kind enough to "make me an audio book" by recording chapters and sending them to me via e-mail.

Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#17

Post by sova »

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.

Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#18

Post by b_emery »

jasode wrote: post #9
dangayle wrote: post #5

It's been long established that reading aloud to your children is one of the best ways to advance their early learning. ( https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2267171 )

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. [1] "Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which tracks the progress of more than 20,000 American schoolchildren from kindergarten through the fifth grade."…

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.

Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#19

Post by ashark »

kenjackson wrote: post #11

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…

> 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.

Re: The Lost Pleasure of Reading Aloud

#20

Post by DigitalJack »

petercooper wrote: post #13

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 unneces…

You echo my feeling on reading aloud.
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