First published in Modern English Teacher Vol. 18/3 July 2009.

Rethinking Reading Aloud

Simon Mumford, Turkey

Simon Mumford teaches at Izmir University of Economics, Turkey. His interests include academic writing, EAP material design,  the role of Reading Aloud in language teaching and teaching Spoken Grammar. E-mail: simon.mumford@ieu.edu.tr

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Introduction
Read every third word
Reading against background noise
Reading round the class
Showing your opinion
Order of sentences
Read aloud drill
Synonyms
Scan drill
Read aloud backchain
Reading the news
Reading with emphasis
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Reading aloud (RA) is seen as an activity to be treated very warily, if used at all. For example,Grellet (2002:10) regards it as a very difficult and inauthentic activity to be avoided, as most texts are not designed to be read aloud. She notes that efficient readers do not in fact read every word, but because this is necessary for reading aloud, it tends to works against developing effective reading strategies. This reflects the view of many teachers and writers.

However, RA seems to be enjoying some renewed interest, if on a small scale. Gibson (2008)  argues that it has a number of beneficial effects, such as promoting autonomous learning, improving pronunciation, helping to give anxious students the courage to speak, and use as a proofreading technique, and thus argues for  its use in language teaching, albeit ‘sparingly’.

Perhaps one of the reasons why RA has been and still is regarded with suspicion is the fact that it is almost always employed as a while-reading comprehension activity. However, because of the difficulty of focusing on meaning and pronunciation at the same time, this is unlikely to be its most effective use. Also, there seems to be the assumption that RA has to involve  individual students reading the whole or large chunks of texts, while the rest of the class sit inactive, and thus, unengaged.

There are, however,  many other possibilities for RA,  including integrating it into speaking, pronunciation, pre- and post-reading activities, using it in intonation practice, and as a vehicle for vocabulary learning. Furthermore, RA and silent reading need not be mutually exclusive but can be integrated to produce hybrid activities. RA can be included as an element in a wide variety of reading formats. Taking a wider view of  RA can make it into a flexible resource, which can be exploited in many different types of activity.

Read every third word

By asking students to read aloud every  third or fourth word of a text, we may be able to encourage the kind of looking head that good readers are known to engage in. Other possiblities include reading aloud only long words (eg more than five letters) or only main verbs and nouns aloud, thus focusing them on the more important content words, and perhaps encouraging faster reading. By asking students to deliberately ignore other words, we may be able to help them skim texts.

Reading against background noise

Have the students read a text silently to themselves, then play music or other noise and gradually increase the volume so students have to read louder to keep their concentration. After a short time, reduce the volume so students can go back to silent reading, then increase the volume again, and so on. People often have to read in situations where there is background noise, eg people chatting, TV, or mechanical noise. Reading aloud is a strategy that may help students to concentrate on the text in the presence of distractions.

Reading round the class

Ask students to read a text round the class. Each student should read a block of 2-4 words and these should be chosen according to words which students feel belong together. Teachers can prepare suitable texts: eg  One day while I was going to school I met a man with a dog. This could be divided as One day / while I was going / to school/ I met a man / with a dog. After the reading, give out the text with your divisions and see if they are the same as the students’. Stress that there may be alternatives to the way you have divided the text. This activity will force students to think about meaning when reading aloud.

Showing your opinion

If a text contains opinions that are controversial, as a post reading activity, ask students to read out sentences/extracts in a way that reflects what they believe i.e. with intonation that reflects a positive, negative or neutral attitude (practise this before). Each extract can be introduced with the phrase Listen to this, it says here......... and ended with a suitable comment: Interesting!, Rubbish!, That’s true, Hmmm (undecided), to reflect the way people read extracts from longer texts to each other when they want to make a comment, e.g.It says here that ‘internet censorship is ineffective and a denial of liberties’...Rubbish!, Listen to this...‘Globalisation has helped many countries escape from poverty’... hmmm.

Order of sentences

Choose two sentences from a text at random read them out. Do not tell the class which one comes first in the text. Ask students to think about the order they appear in the text. When they have guessed, let them scan the text and find out. Then put students in threes, two with the text, and one without. The students with the text read one sentence each at random. The third  tries to guess which comes first, without  looking at the text.  Students swap roles after several turns. This can be a pre-reading, i.e. prediction activity, but will probably be more effective as a post-reading, i.e. revision/recall activity.

Read aloud drill

Ask students  to read  individual sentences quietly from a selected part of a text.  Give them time to read it through once or twice. After each sentence, ask them to close their books. Read the sentence aloud to the class slowly, and ask students to join in with as much as they can remember. This way, they can focus on meaning and pronunciation separately in two distinct stages of the activity.

Synonyms

Read a paragraph containing unknown vocabulary aloud while students follow in their books. Write the synonyms on the board beforehand, and ask students to replace unknown words with a synonyms when reading. If the reader correctly identifies a synonym and uses it in place of the more difficult word, the teacher says correct and the reading passes to another student. The class keep reading until all the synonyms have been matched, going through the paragraph a second and third time if necessary.

Scan drill

Choose a short sentence or part of a sentence from a text and change one word, in such a way that the sentence is still logical. Drill it until students can remember it. Tell the students that one word is wrong and tell them to find which it is, and refer students to the text. Repeating to themselves, they scan the text until they find the original and  note the difference.

Read aloud backchain

Students can build up sentences in their memories, starting from the end of the sentence as follows.

1. They cover  the whole sentence with a piece of paper.
2. They reveal last word, cover it again and say the word.
3. They reveal the last two words, cover  them again, and say the two words.
4. They reveal last three words,  and so on until the whole sentence can be remembered.

Reading the news

Give the class a short news item text and underline expressions and phrases of three to five words, especially those that are important to the story. Write the phrases on the board in the order they appear in the text and get students to practise the phrases. Now ask the class to read the text aloud simultaneously or individually. When they get to an underlined sentence, they should look up and read it from the board. They can also look at the teacher, make eye contact, and continue reading without losing concentration. This could encourage them to take their eyes off the text while reading, and look at the audience.

Reading with emphasis

Give out copies of a short text to everyone in the class. Read the text aloud to the class,  emphasising some words and quickly skipping over or mumbling others. Ask students to underline stressed words and cross out mumbled words. Then ask them to repeat your reading, to each other in pairs using the annotated copy as a guide.

Conclusion

Perhaps part of the problem is the fact that RA is associated with a particular type of reading activity. RA is seen exclusively as a combined comprehension and pronunciation activity. In addition, silent reading and RA are regarded as mutually exclusive. Taking a different perspective gives us many more possibilities. As Grellet (1981) notes, most texts are not designed to be read aloud, however, we can easily create texts that are. Even those texts that are not can be a vehicle for activities which contain limited, selective elements of RA.

References

Gibson, S. (2008). Reading aloud: A useful learning tool? ELT Journal. 62, 29-36

Grellet  F. (1981). Developing Reading Skills. Cambridge University Press.

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