Random reflections based on a poem part 1
I ran across a poem on my Facebook feed this past week which inspired me to write a reflective blog post on reading in your head vs reading aloud. But now that I have run it down to cite it, it has inspired a whole other reflective tangent. So bear with me as I attempt not to choose only one path in the woods but walk down both in a mega-ramble (apologies to Robert Frost).
This is the post that I saw, I have not captured the name of the person who reposted this to the Facebook group On Butterfly Wings, English and More. My first thought upon reading the poem was, “What a fantastic poem to go with this year’s CBCA Book Week theme, ‘Reading is Magic’.” My second thought was to try reading the poem in my head silently, but dramatically, as per the poem’s instructions.
This exercise led to my first road of reflection. I am a VERY good dramatic reader, one of my favourite parts of being a TL was reading aloud to the students and I had staff members tell me fairly regularly that they loved to happen upon me reading out loud to the students because it was a fantastic experience. However, I actually couldn’t ‘hear’ the poem in my head in the same manner that I would hear it if I read it out loud. I lost the drama, even if I could somewhat approximate the instructions. This made me think of all the focus on visualisation in reading comprehension circles and the issue that this can cause for people with aphantasia (the inability to see images in their mind). Clearly I have some degree of a similar inability to hear things dramatically in my mind.
That made me reflect on why it is so important to have opportunity to hear dramatic reading aloud even beyond early childhood education. There is a perception that once you can read competently, you can “do the voices” in your own head and “watch a movie in your own head”… but that is not always the case. Having a text performed orally (read aloud) or performed dramatically (with some level of props, acting, etc.) is a vital way to bring texts to life and inspire a love for them – even in those whose mental visual and mental aural landscapes are less developed.
My reflection so far has a “what” – thinking about reading silently vs reading aloud and a “so what” – a point for the importance of reading aloud, but no “now what”(University of Hull, n.d.). I think as a “now what” I am contemplating whether there is an avenue of research or inquiry open to me to investigate potential benefits of reading aloud past early childhood education and advocating for reading aloud to remain a key focus of the role of teacher librarians.
This is getting a bit long, so I think I will save my second road of reflection for a part 2 blog post. This time on another key role of the teacher librarian – working on information/media literacy and academic integrity – specifically, citing sources and combatting misinformation and misattribution.
Share in the comments your experiences with reading aloud, listening to texts read aloud and reading silently in your own head. See you in part 2!
References
Burnham, Bo. (April, 2016) Magic. Hello Poetry. https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1624900/magic/
University of Hull. (n.d.). Reflective writing: Rolfe. https://libguides.hull.ac.uk/reflectivewriting/rolfe