Reading: How to Teach It

by Sarah Louise Arnold

How can children be taught to read aloud clearly, distinctly, and with feeling, so as to clearly convey the author’s thought and to give pleasure to the listener? “My pupils do not read with expression,” is a common complaint. “How can I help them?”

Manifestly the first requisite to reading with expression is the mastery of the thought on the part of the pupil, and this cannot be accomplished without mastery of the words. As has been said in another chapter, children should be trained to study in such a way that they can decide for themselves what words present difficulties to their understanding. When the pupils, after studying a lesson, are enabled to point to the exact words which are obstacles to their thought-getting, the teacher’s labors are minimized and her teaching is at once made definite. Such study, too, leads the pupils to more thoughtful reading. Since they must weigh every word in the sentence to discover its meaning, they become accustomed to dig for the thought, and to estimate their own difficulties. By this means they help themselves to the mastery of the thought, as far as the words in which it is expressed belong to their vocabulary.

But when a pupil points out to the teacher the words which mark the boundary of his understanding, it becomes her duty to make them clear to him. This is a fruitful exercise. The child desires to learn the meaning of the word which has blocked his way, and his need of it makes him its master forever after. It is only in this way that words are mastered. It is idle to explain a list of words for which children have no use in the expression of their thought. But after the study has revealed to the child his need of new knowledge, the word fits at once into his vocabulary and answers the new need. The teacher’s explanation not only suffices to make the reading plain, but it increases the child’s vocabulary for future use.

It should be borne in mind in such exercises that the word is not always made plain by simple explanation; illustration may be necessary, or some entire language lesson like those indicated in a previous chapter. The teacher should make mental note at least of these unfamiliar words, in order that she may so direct her language lesson as to supplement her teaching in reading. She is wise if she keeps a notebook at hand in which these lists may be recorded.

It will be seen from the above that the pupil is expected to master the words of the lesson as a means of getting the thought, before it is assumed that he can read with expression. But, having prepared himself through study, and having been assisted by the teacher’s illustration and explanation, there should be no hindrance to free and natural reading. We do, however, find expression hindered by various minor causes, some of which it may be well to discuss.

A frequent occasion of indolent or indifferent reading is the child’s feeling that the exercise is perfunctory, one of the tasks assigned at school as a school duty, but having in itself no excuse for being. He needs to realize that he is delivering a message, or telling a story which some one desires to hear. It has often been observed that children read their own productions with marvellously good effect, even when they stumble and hesitate in the normal reading exercises. The reason is easily discerned. In the one case they have something to tell, and desire to tell it. In the second case, the exercise is one in which they have no special interest. The teacher’s chief endeavor, then, should be directed toward inciting in the children a desire to communicate thought. This may sometimes be secured by having the class listen, with closed books, while a single pupil reads, the teacher insisting that he shall so read that every one who listens may understand and enjoy all that is read. Another help which has been suggested by many teachers is the practice of bringing from home different short selections, which the pupils are encouraged to read to the class. These selections may be brief and simple—some anecdote, some clipping from a newspaper, some phrase or line, some conundrum, which has interested the child. It will soon be discovered that the children will learn to read well only when conscious that their reading is the means of conveying the thought to their hearers.

The practice of consulting reference books, even with pupils in the lowest grammar grades, has a reflex influence upon the power to read aloud well, since it gives to the pupil something which he desires to read to the others and which he alone can convey to them. This desire to share what is read by becoming able to read well should be stimulated in every possible way.

Again, ease in reading, which is an important factor, is often prevented by the pupil’s self-consciousness, which renders him timid and awkward whenever he attempts to read aloud in the presence of others. This timid self-consciousness varies with different individuals, of course, and it also varies in different classes. The teacher is often responsible for this shrinking on the part of the children, although it may be an unconscious responsibility on her part. Undue criticism of the reader, which draws the attention of the class to his faults and makes him conscious of himself, often prevents the very thing which the teacher is striving to obtain. The pupil’s thought should be drawn away from himself and centred upon the thought in the sentence, the message which he is to deliver. The question should be directed toward that, rather than toward the pupil’s idiosyncrasies.

This is coupled with another serious consideration. It has just been said that the child cannot read with expression if he is thinking about himself. It is also true that he cannot read well except as his mind is centred upon the subject about which he is reading. The teacher’s efforts should be in the direction of picturing the scene which the child describes, so that it will become real to him, and that he may be enabled to paint it to the class. She not only will endeavor to refrain from drawing the pupil’s attention to himself by ill-chosen comments, but she will also help him to imagine the thing described and to fix his thought upon it. For the time being everything else is forgotten.