Reading Aloud

“Were is the book ?”. “Nife is used to cut apple”. “I through the ball “. These were the sentences written by Kabir in his assessment sheet to test his English skills-a pre-requisite to counselling session- with his parents, who were concerned that Kabir may have learning disability. Considering that he is in 3^rd grade, it was highly unlikely. This is a common confusion among kids his age with English language, as it is not phonetic. Kabir’s parents were advised to read aloud to him for 20 mins every day with best practices outlined below. After 6 months, Kabir’s score improved to 70% in his English language assessment test.

Related observations in other kids where reading loud helped are:

• Incorrect pronunciation. The word “ the “ pronounced as “ta/ha/e”
• Writing mirror image of a word/ character
• Ignoring the punctuation while reading

Art and Science of Reading Aloud

To understand one of the possible causes for such a behavior, let us briefly explore how we process the words we hear and make sense of it. Take the word “Cat”, for instance. When we were exposed to this word in our childhood, all we heard was three phonemes (unique sounds)  /C/, /A/, /T/ uttered in a sequence. This was the decoding stage. Association of this string of phonemes with cat as we know, for the first time, was perhaps through an illustration or a real cat at home. This was an aided process termed comprehension stage. Third, the recall stage, is an unaided process, where we associated the same string of phonemes with an image of cat by memory recall whenever, this word was encountered.

What has reading aloud go to do with this? A lot. When we read aloud to a kid, we strengthen her decoding, comprehension and recall skills.

Decoding

Consider the word “kite” in the phrase, “Tom’s kite had a tail and was flying high”. The phoneme sequences the kids hear is K/I/T when the word “kite” is read aloud. In this case, both “ K” in kite and “C” in cat have the same sound. Then, why is kite spelt with K? This confuses kids. An effective technique is to enable them to imagine a kite flying high by raising our hands and looking up while reading aloud. This imagery will enable the kids to associate kite spelt with letter “K”, and not with “ C” as in cat which has a completely different imagery.   Kids then learn that kite is spelt with “K” for life.

Comprehension

When an adjective is added to describe the kite such as “ Tom’s square shaped  red kite had a tail and was flying high” a different challenge emerges for the kids. There are four variables – shape, colour, feature ( tail) and action(flying). Kids often forget one or two variables. This can be improved by reading aloud and pointing to a sketch of the kite in color. This will strengthen their association skills. When done regularly, kids will cultivate the ability to comprehend complex sentences and string all the variables together. This skill is critical to excel in higher grades to understand scientific concepts and solve related problems, write a report, give a speech, debate and so on.

Recall  

All learning from earlier two stages should be in the long-term memory of kids. This the kids’ knowledge repository.  The richer and more diverse the repository is, the more confident they will be. Asking the kid to describe the kite all by herself will reinforce learning and aid recall. After reading a story, one can prompt her to think of a different title for the story or point out her favorite character with reasons for doing so. Her creativity and original thinking will stem from this ability.

The Key Question

While reading aloud has a host of benefits discussed above, the key question is how well parents are equipped to do this effectively.  

The litmus test to figure out if any of us is good at reading aloud, is to check if your kid urges you to continue reading after 2 mins of continuous reading by you. If she doesn’t, there is scope for improvement.  I have observed that whenever  parents read without any distraction at bedtime, leveraging all the best practices prescribed for this activity, the child will urge you to continue even after 15 mins. of reading. If your need to master this, here is a list of best practices, you can internalize.

Best Practices

• Based on the age of your kid, select a suitable book written in a language you are comfortable with.
  • 1- 3 yrs – 90% of the page with imagery, 10% written text in large font size.
  • 3- 6 yrs – 70% of the page with imagery and the rest with text in large font size.
  • 7 to 11 yrs – 50% of page with imagery and rest with medium size fonts.
  • 11+ yrs – 20 % imagery with rest in regular font size
• Be a voice actor and live the characters. If the character is a kid, speak in kid’s voice. Father’s character will have to be a deep gruff voice and so on
• Hold the book at the correct angle between four fingers of your left hand and  thumb to enable the kid to see the book effortlessly
• Point to the words that are being read with index finger of your right hand
• Use intonation as required. A sentence with question mark at the end of sentence should sound like a question when you read. Like wise for comma, period and so on.
• Ensure adequate reading light on the book
• Pause and ask your kids questions about the characters, illustrations and make the session interactive
• Ensure 100% attention to reading activity. No distractions.