The Read-Aloud Family, by Sarah McKenzie

Too often I fall into the trap of thinking of I’m pretty good at this mumming stuff: that I’ve learned so much, I’ve been in the trenches and now it’s time for me to relax and enjoy a full night of sleep. Then I realise my oldest kid is 8, we haven’t hit the teenage years yet, there are still lots of challenges we haven’t even contemplated coming our way.

When I heard about this book I put it straight on my ‘to-be-read’ list (as opposed to the list I keep for the kids). I pridefully thought it would confirm my approach to reading and give me an ‘atta-boy’ the kids never would. It is a really unusually busy day for me to not pick up a book at some stage with at least one kid. Surely there’s not much more for me to learn, surely my conversion to reading is complete.

Obviously, this is not the case – at all – in any way – ever. There is still so much more I need to learn, do and change.

Over the past couple of weeks, as I have been reading The Read-Aloud Family I have also been listening to Sarah McKenzie’s podcast, The Read-Aloud Revival, and I have been having lots of ah-ha moments, which I know I’ll find difficult to explain, but here goes.

I had the misconception that my job was to get the kids to the point where they could read for themselves. I have certainly said: ” I don’t have time to read to a kid who can read to themselves”. If they wanted to join in with the reading of picture books to the younger kids – great, but I wasn’t planning on making time for reading longer chapter books with them. I see how wrong I was and that there are huge benefits of making time to tackle longer books as a family. Especially the types of books they would not choose to read to themselves.

My independent reader will mostly choose to read books that Sarah kindly labels ‘twaddle’. Books (and series of books) that are fun, funny, easy, repetitive, but somewhat satisfying because they can be read in a sneeze and the child can feel a sense of accomplishment. I agree with Sarah that these types of books have their place, especially as a child is graduating to independent reading and needs to really work on speed, fluency, and accuracy in reading. That sense of accomplishment is important at that stage. But those ‘twaddley’ books generally don’t provide the child with the deeper, richer, more meaningful literary experience we might hope for them.

I have learned that for kids to develop complex and sophisticated language structures and vocabulary, they are most likely to get it from books that are currently too difficult for them. As they hear books that are too difficult for them to read by themselves, they gradually learn and understand and are able to progress to the next level.

From Sarah’s podcast, I have been hearing statistics and research that shows the long-term benefits to kid’s educational outcomes from being read to aloud. Even 10 minutes a day on most days of the week has a greater impact on their test results than even something like reducing the number of children in classes. Or that daily reading aloud to your child has the same (statistical) impact as being in a higher socio-economic bracket.

Sarah also has lots of anecdotal evidence of the benefits of reading aloud on family relationships and culture. She talks about shared literary references and jokes that siblings can have. She talks about the bonds that form between parents and children as they encounter characters who face fear with bravery, or who show love in the face of hatred, or who create beauty in the midst of terror. Reading with your child gives you an opportunity to teach them through stories, a method that has been around for centuries, after all, “things need not have happened to be true”(Neil Gaiman).

Sarah and her guests talk about how to have meaningful conversations with your kids about the stories you read. She has 10 great questions that can be asked about almost any book you encounter, even picture books and books with no words. They encourage deeper thinking and engagement with the story. One thing that has become very obvious to me, that was never obvious all through school and uni, is that all stories are the same: they all have a conflict. I’m starting to reflect and see now how true that is. That all stories are about problems and thus solutions, or tragically failure to find solutions. I have been paying attention to books with a growth mindset theme, but I now see the reality that most books will have some aspect of this, it might just be a little less overt. As we delve deeper we can learn those types of lessons from most stories.

As an ESL teacher, I told plenty of students that written English and spoken English are not the same. When we speak we have the benefit of tone, volume, and expression of emotion. We also often have facial cues and body language to assist us in the communication process. When we write we have the benefit of time and the ability to revise and hone our words, we often have to be more direct so as not to be misunderstood. Reading aloud combines the more sophisticated and complex language structures found in writing with the expression of emotion found in the spoken word. It really is the whole package of communication. I don’t know how this has never occurred to me before.

So we have started a new chapter (punny, right?) in our book life. My first thought was to begin with a book that is often touted as a classic for children, Little Women. After about 25 pages I didn’t feel like I was having the success I wanted. So I took Sarah’s advice, to not continue reading a book that isn’t enjoyable to you, and canned it. We might come back to it later, but it wasn’t right at this stage for us. We started about 10 days ago with Roald Dahl’s The BFG and it has been fantastic. The 3 older kids are asking for me to read it. The oldest gets the jokes and the play on words. The middle one finds it funny and I’m sure she is dreaming she is Sophie. The younger one is happy to be involved.