Photo credit: Aniruddha Chowdhury of Lounge Mint
This guest piece is a part of the Read Aloud Festival, organised by Hasirudala and Buguri Community Libraries, and supported by Radio Active CR 90.4 MHz to mark ‘World Read Aloud Day’ on February 1st, 2019. We reached out to children’s books authors and editors, community library groups, educators, parents, and other practitioners to share their personal experiences of read alouds and the benefits the practice promises.
Happy World Read Aloud Day!
Ah, the pleasures and benefits of being able to read! Reading aloud is like spinning out a story. As joyful as seeing a buguri spin! Reading is an extremely important learning tool, but not much attention is paid in schools to the act of reading. I’ve seen children struggling while they read one word at a time, never quite comprehending the meaning of the sentence. Or experiencing the joy of the words, or the story.
Apart from being a cozy, simple and effective way of bonding with the young reader, reading aloud introduces them to voice modulation, expressions, the connection between words and their meanings in different context. How do you read the word ‘what’?
What, you don’t like reading!
What are you reading?
What are you reading?
What a wonderful story!
As an editor and author of children’s books, one of the factors I value in a manuscript for early readers is its potential to be a good read aloud. A read aloud is a storyteller, grandparent, teacher and best buddy rolled into one! So let’s pick up a book now, and read it to someone!
Listen in for more!
Written by Mala Kumar, editor, and author of children’s books.
