{"id":1488,"date":"2021-12-10T14:29:33","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T13:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/?p=1488"},"modified":"2021-12-10T14:29:33","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T13:29:33","slug":"a-fresh-perspective-why-read-aloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/?p=1488&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"A fresh perspective: Why read aloud?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By<\/em> <em>Solveig Rose-Mollard<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Translated by Richard Peters<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMummy, book!\u201d I hear these words every night. My two-year-old just won\u2019t go to bed without one. He sits attentively next to me in his reading chair (not on my lap, please!) and drinks in everything he sees and hears. When it\u2019s finally time to close the book that he picked out, it\u2019s not unusual for him to shed a few tears.<\/p>\n<p>Even though it can sometimes be tough for us after a long, busy day, it\u2019s a ritual his dad and I both enjoy. Everybody knows, of course, that reading aloud is good for kids: their vocabulary, imagination, concentration, and ability to read all benefit. One study has shown that in affluent countries like Germany, children\u2019s educational opportunities depend to a great extent on how full the bookshelves are in their home and how thoroughly they\u2019re taught what to do with them. Here in Germany, a wide variety of organisations and institutions promote reading aloud. Among them is Stiftung Lesen (the Reading Foundation), with tips galore on which books are suitable for which age group, and what to look out for when reading aloud. It also provides powerful, scientifically supported arguments as to why those who don\u2019t like reading aloud should push themselves out of their comfort zone. Germany has even introduced a National Reading Aloud Day: every year on the third Friday in November, events devoted to reading aloud are held around the country. The message at all of them boils down to this: Parents, read to your children!<\/p>\n<p>But what about the parents themselves or other adults? Is it only children who benefit from reading aloud? Amid all the efforts made in children\u2019s best interests, this question seems to get lost in the noise. And yet it\u2019s definitely enriching for us as adults to take a fresh look at our world through the eyes of a child. It lets us question facts that we grown-ups normally take for granted. \u201cLook at that bird flying by!\u201d \u2013 \u201cHow DOES it fly?\u201d How indeed? Books that are supposed to explain the world to little ones will as often as not open our own eyes to alternatives and new ways of looking at life. All of a sudden, we spot things we haven\u2019t noticed for a long time. What about the animals that are startled by the rumble of cars and the clatter of people passing through the forest? Rubbish that has been carelessly discarded and left to rot by the wayside? Rays of summer sun that give us inner warmth on cold winter days? Time and again, the stresses of our daily work routine \u2013 or what we call the \u201cadult world\u201d, which all too often means the same \u2013 stop us from focusing on the precious little things in life. To borrow from Michael Ende, our flowers-of-an-hour are destined to fade in a flash \u2013 so taking a moment to pause and reflect (and not just during Yuletide) can do a world of good.<\/p>\n<p>But even without assuming the perspective of an innocent child, reading aloud provides an opportunity for slowing down, reflection, and contemplation. People who read in silence will oftentimes skim lines or entire pages, whether in journalism or literature, just to get to the point. Or do you actually give every comma and every dash its due when reading in your head? Engaging with a text out loud allows us to immerse ourselves more deeply in what we\u2019re reading. It lets us stop time, and it proffers material for discussion \u2013 either later or while we\u2019re still reading \u2013 of what we\u2019ve heard together. This itself can turn into an interesting exchange that reveals much, perhaps even something unexpected, about our (reading) partner(s).<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, for us as Franco-German translator parents in a bilingual household, our son\u2019s love of books has an additional educational effect: whether his current favourite book is in German or French, he\u2019ll happily demand it from both of us. During our studies, \u201csight translation\u201d \u2013 in which you have to orally translate a written text into another language spontaneously and with little preparation \u2013 tended to be a rather dry and at times agonising exercise. Now, it has morphed into a whole new challenge: since as parents we\u2019ve decided that each of us speaks to our child only in our own mother tongue, we have to translate the story in question on the fly \u2013 and not only correctly but also in a way that makes it appealing and gripping. If mummy gets stuck because she can\u2019t think of the right phrase in German, she\u2019ll soon hear the words: \u201cMummy, no. Daddy!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our society\u2019s doctors, educators and scientists are constantly extolling the virtues of reading aloud to children. But are children the only ones who stand to benefit? A slightly different take on reading aloud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[193,37,191,624,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1490,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions\/1490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}