Wagging a Few "Tails" - Reading Out Loud
By Mary L. Peers

Parents take heed!  It has come to my attention that children have started enlisting the help of more than a few furry tails for the purpose of exploring fairy tales.  Reading out loud to dogs?  It certainly gives one paws…for reflection that is.  Not to mention wagging a few tails, and tales, along the way.  Canine buddies are the best!  Yes, children have started practicing reading out loud to man’s best friend, who’s always ready to share an hour or two under the old apple tree exploring a good book.  Not to mention cookies.

Learning the joy of reading is a special lesson parents can bequeath to their children.  I was fortunate to come from a family of readers, and was read to often as a child.  Had someone told me that our German shepherd was interested as well I might have gotten a lot more practice!  Storytelling and reading is, undoubtedly, one of the many wonderful pastimes a family can share, as there are so many levels of participation.

Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language will tell you that learning to read it is very different than learning to speak it.  As children learn to read, and then to speak the words they are reading, they are accessing a different part of the brain.  Reading out loud is a process of recognition, a type of feedback mechanism, which teaches correct speech and voice modulation.  It is important to help children gain the confidence needed to develop this skill.  One way of doing that is to make it fun!  I suppose that’s where the furry tails come in.

Although it’s true that many families are indeed overscheduled, making time to share the process of reading is extremely beneficial.  In a society that leaves so much to the Hi Tech transference of information, finding ways to improve the bonding between parents and children matters.  Besides benefiting the actual process of reading and speech, we explore concepts and ideas together.  I still have the children’s literature book my mother gave me when I was eight.  It was my treasure chest from which I discovered the morals embedded in fairy tales, the rhythm and meter in poetry, and the fantastic world of foreign lands.  I learned to read out loud and actually liked it so much that before going to bed at night I began to read to my sister, who to this day swears that the sound of my voice helped her to sleep better!

Reading out loud is also connected to theater, and thus leads somewhat into the art of storytelling. The process of storytelling goes back ages to an era when history and myth were passed down by word of mouth.  Villages often had one person who was responsible for the memorizing, and keeping, of the history of their people.  Villagers would gather to listen and learn the lessons and wisdom being passed down. Nowadays, there are so many ways to retrieve information it seems inconceivable to us that just one person would hold the key to the stories that comprised the essence of a whole village!  Modern storytelling may have moved from a category of one to that of the many when it entered our entertainment media, but it still holds the same power.

When children practice reading out loud, besides learning to read and speak, they also learn about the ability to enter a story, and the imagination is activated.  Another fun activity for families is to begin the process of creating their own stories.  My sister and I have done this for years, and have a manuscript that goes back and forth between us.  Her last installment was so staggering that it ground me to a halt and I had to spend a fair amount of time thinking about the next course of action.  This little game of ours grew out of reading out loud to each other.  And the stories we create are often read out loud to her children, and now grandchildren.  It is a wonderful way to support the education process of school, and engage the imagination.  And the family bonding, and discovery, of shared storytelling - or rather story making – cannot be denied.

So if you haven’t done so already, go ahead and haul those old stories out of the crypt.  You know the ones: The books that fueled your dreams and opened up worlds of possibilities.  Share them with your children, and then let your children share their particular favorites with you.  Read out loud and listen to the words as they rise off the page and into your child’s mind.  And remember to include the family pooch.  Even if they do bark in all the wrong places, they can be very attentive listeners.  And don’t be surprised if you wag a few tails along the way!

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