George M Jacobs teaches in Singapore at Kampung Senang Charity and Education Foundation and elsewhere. He is interested in reading, writing, environment education, humane education, geragogy, and person-centered learning and living. Email: george.jacobs@gmail.com

Willy A Renandya teaches at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is interested in second language pedagogy and language teacher professional development. Email: willy.renandya@nie.edu.sg
 

Introduction

We hear a great deal these days about work-life balance for teachers and people in other occupations. However, as teachers, it is probably impossible to completely separate our work from the rest of our lives, because when we leave our school grounds, we still have our marking, lesson planning, and other duties chasing after us.

This article discusses a good side of the overlap between what we teachers do outside and inside school. Yes, you read that correctly: there are positives to be enjoyed from blending what we do in our classrooms with what we do at home and elsewhere.

Here are some examples of how we teachers, as well as our students, benefit when we combine our in- and out-of-school lives. One, when we engage our passion for learning more about the subjects we teach by watching videos, listening to podcasts, visiting exhibitions, etc., we increase our knowledge. Plus, when we tell students about our-out-of-school learning activities, we model for students our enthusiasm for learning.

A second example of a beneficial school / home link involves when we volunteer with charitable organizations. As a result, we strengthen our compassion muscles, and that strength can be valuable when interacting with troubled students. Three, when we build social connections with family and friends, we bolster our mental health and better understand the society in which we and our students live, not to mention steeling ourselves for the mental health challenges that are part and parcel of the teaching profession.

This article focuses on yet another constructive school / out-of-school connection: being involved in reading aloud in any language. When most people think of reading aloud, they think of adults reading books to young children. Great stuff! This article goes further to suggest that reading aloud can be done not just with young children but with everyone: older children and youth, young and middle-aged adults, and seniors. First, the article discusses the why and how of reading aloud across the generations and then addresses possible obstacles.

 

The why and how of reading aloud across age groups

Reading aloud may bring back memories of being read to as children either at home or in school. Indeed, guides for parents and teachers (Layne, 2023; Trelease & Giorgis, 2019) all recommend reading aloud to children, for many reasons:

1. Children learn pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and the world of books, plus background knowledge about life

2. Adults model enjoyment of reading

3. Children and adults bond over the books and discussion of those books, whether fiction or non-fiction.

These reasons, especially Reasons #2 and #3 apply regardless of who is involved. For instance, the advent of smart phones and other IT devices, as well as more widespread and more powerful internet access has resulted in a decrease in the amount of reading the average person – from tweens to nonagenarians – does. Reading aloud might be able to do a little to reverse this trend.

Reason #3, bonding, may be the strongest reason of all for reading aloud. Reading is about so much more than recognizing words and understanding sentences. It is also an affective (a feeling, emotional) activity. Thus, when we read aloud together with people of whatever age, we have a common experience, just as if we watch a film together. Plus, while reading aloud, we can share our emotional reaction to what we read. It is much easier to pause reading aloud than it is to pause a film or tv show. Furthermore, by spending time for a reading aloud session with someone(s), we are showing that we value them and we value spending time with them.

The opportunities during read aloud sessions to share reactions is part of the idea that we are reading with others, not reading to others. In other words, in this dialogic process (Holt & Asagbra, 2021), the book is there to start a conversation in which readers and listeners both participate. Participation can include sharing emotional responses. It can also include connecting what we read with both readers’ and listeners’ lives, interests, curiosity, experiences, and hopes. In fact, no worries if the book is abandoned due to the lively and enlightening discuss the book sparked.

Additionally, reading aloud brings benefits by offering a way to take a break from other forms of media such as streaming videos. Even those of us who love looking at screens know that too much of screens, too much of alone time, probably is not the best for our mental health. By inviting others to join our read aloud session, we offer them, not just ourselves, an alternative.

Reading aloud can be difficult, especially if we did not have time to prepare. The difficulty stems from the fact that with reading aloud, we do two tasks simultaneously. First, we need to figure out how to pronounce the words we are reading (although internet tools can help). Making this pronunciation task easier is the fact that reading aloud is an informal activity, not an elocution contest or an audition for a part in a movie. Thus, we can relax. The second task we perform simultaneously while reading aloud involves trying to understand what we are reading and, since we are reading aloud with someone else, we might also want to anticipate their response to what we are reading. 

 

Obstacles to reading aloud with everyone

Just as reading aloud with small children does not always go smoothly, reading aloud with all the other age groups faces obstacles. These include convincing people to try reading aloud, finding time for reading aloud sessions, and deciding on what to read together. Each of these topics is discussed below.

Why are you treating me like a small child?

Because in most people’s minds reading aloud is something done with young children who have not yet learned to read, anyone else but small children may be insulted by our invitation to read aloud with them. Are we treating them like small children? Do we think they do not know how to read? This objection can be countered in a few ways. First, invite the other person(s) to do the reading aloud some or all of the time. For instance, someone still in school can read aloud from something they are reading as an assignment or from something they wrote. In such cases, the reading aloud with component could be them explaining to us or asking us for feedback. For people not currently involved in formal learning, they can read aloud something related to their work or about the organization with which they work. For seniors, it could be fun to read aloud something about someone whom they followed in their younger days, such as a pop star, a famous athlete, or a movie / tv star.

A second way to counter people’s reaction that an invite to read aloud together is an act of condescension involves explaining that people read aloud to people of many ages. For example, on tv news shows, news readers are reading aloud from a script that we cannot see, just as in a movies actors are reading aloud from a memorized script. In fact, we can maybe learn from the actors and make our reading aloud a bit more dramatic.

Maybe the best strategy for convincing people to read aloud with us goes back to the bonding benefit, #3 on the list of benefits explained earlier in this article. We can just tell people, “I like spending time with you. I want to get to know you better, and reading aloud together and discussing what we read might be a good way to do that. Let’s give it a try, please. Maybe we can eat chips or fruit salad while we read.”  

I have no time for reading aloud!

A big issue with achieving work-life balance or doing anything we want to do lies in finding and devoting the time to do it. Below are some suggestions, but there is no escaping the fact that, for many reasons, time can be a scarce commodity. Before sleeping often seems to work best for finding time for reading aloud with young children, and it might work for other age groups as well. By the time late evening comes around, maybe people have done most of their urgent tasks (or at least as much as they feel like doing). Now, they need to shift gears and slow down before sleep.

Other opportunities for read aloud sessions could be during commutes or longer trips, during meals, relaxing after a meal, while visiting people in hospitals or care homes, and as part of events, such as birthday parties. Think of read aloud sessions as being similar to storytelling sessions, except reading aloud is easier because, unlike storytelling, with reading aloud, we do not need to memorize anything.

Another point to make regarding time for reading aloud is the length of what is read. Maybe starting with short pieces makes sense. Examples of short pieces would be newspaper articles or social media posts. Also, remember that any time we want, we and our read aloud partners can stop in the middle of what we are reading and say, “To be continued next time.” Indeed, we can go farther than that and decide that we are not interested in a particular piece or topic anymore, and we will read something else next time. On the other hand, we can derive a sense of accomplishment by completing entire chapter books and short stories collections.

I don’t want to read that. Yuck!

Last but not least, a third obstacle to reading aloud across the generations involves the matter of what to read. Different people have different tastes. Thus, compromise will sometimes be needed. For instance, we can take turns to choose what our small group reads. Maybe one person likes fantasy, whereas one of their read aloud partners prefers non-fiction about animals. This turn taking provides opportunities for everyone to try different genres and learn about different aspects of the reading world.

Of course, with young children, adults let the kids decide. Maybe the same policy can apply with seniors, especially seniors dealing with cognitive and health issues (Banks, 1999). On one hand, these valuable individuals often have a great deal of free time. On the other hand, for many reasons, they may be reluctant and easily distracted participants in reading aloud sessions. Allowing them to choose what we read together may overcome some of these problems.

Younger adults and youth who enjoy reading – whether they are the seniors’ family members or volunteers helping in their community – can see these read aloud sessions as precious opportunities not just to offer companionship and cognitive stimulation to the seniors, but also to learn about and learn from older generations. Such opportunities are all too rare in our fragmented societies and should be seized upon when they present themselves.

Another suggestion about what to read may be controversial, but please keep an open mind. That suggestion is that we read aloud books for children. Such books offer a few advantages. Firstly, they are short. Secondly, children’s books can warm our souls with children’s innocence, energy, and vivid imaginations. Thirdly, these books often have happy endings, whereas to look at the news is too often to be flooded with sadness. Fourthly, children’s books can remind us of positive values, such as kindness and cooperation.

 

Conclusion

To bring this article back to its theme – benefits to teachers of reading aloud with others outside of school – here are two core benefits. One, reading aloud is a learning / teaching technique that can be used not just in language classes but in all areas of education. By doing read aloud with sessions outside school, teachers can explore variations on this powerful technique, increase their skill in its use, and enhance their appreciation of its benefits.

Two, work-life balance is not something that can be measured quantitatively: how many hours / days teachers spend in school and on school-related tasks versus how much time is spent out of school and on non-school matters. More importantly, work-life balance should be measured qualitatively: how teachers spend their precious non-school time. This article has suggested that maybe doing reading aloud with people of all ages provides a way for us to learn from and with others, to enjoy with them the world of reading, and, most significantly, to bond with them. The resulting learning, enjoyment, and bonding will send us back to our teaching ready to take on and maybe even relish the challenges that teaching brings. 

 

References

Banks, C. (1999). Reading aloud to the elderly. The Lancet, 354, SIII10-SIII11. https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673699902623.pdf

Holt, Y., & Asagbra, E. (2021). Implementing dialogic reading intervention through community-based participatory research: a tutorial. Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 52(1), 4-15. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-19-00100.

Layne, S. (2023). In defence of read-aloud: Sustaining best practice. Routledge.

Trelease, J., & Giorgis, Cl (2019). Jim Trelease's read-aloud handbook (8th ed.). Penguin.

 

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