Reading aloud: update!

As I mentioned, I'm trying to get back into reading to my child every evening after a break forced on me by a chest infection and cough. The book I chose (with his consent) was the first part of T. H. White's four-volume version of the story of Arthur, "The once and future king" - many years after having it read to me. "The sword in the stone" works as a book for children, although the whole four-part book is really a book for adults. This first part is a prelude to Malory's version of the Arthurian legend which which we are more familiar, and covers Arthur (The Wart)'s childhood and education.

Although written in 1938, it still works! Child jumped and was really shocked at Kay trying to pass himself off as having pulled the sword out of the stone, and enjoyed the parts of the story where Merlyn turns the Wart into different things. I doubt whether some of the allusions meant anything to him, but if/when he does come across Shakespeare some of the expressions at least will not be new! I was using Humphrey Carpenter's edition, not the version I read as a child, and the episode of the ants has been cut out, so when I next visit my mother I'm going to have to dig out the copy I first read and fill in the ant story (and work out why it was dropped - it's one of the bits I remember best from my own childhood!) This was so successful that we might be going to move on to what happened to Arthur next, but not using T.H. White's version as the rest of his tetralogy is a bit dark for children.

So far, so good!

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Reading aloud, one year on

Last year, I happily described how I read aloud to my child every night, in spite of the adverse comments of some other parents (and one relative-who-shall-be-nameless). The main advantages, as I see them, I mentioned here last year: time together, a chance to introduce some books which children might not think of trying for themselves, an opportunity to challenge your child a bit in terms of language, and so on. It's also a chance to move on from some favourites which (for the parent, at least) can begin to lose their appeal after much repetition. Nothing against re-reading favourites, of course, but that's something children can do by themselves when the book is already familiar.

It is with some trepidation that I return to this subject, as soon after blogging about it last year life intervened in that unpleasant way it sometimes does. A persistent chest infection and cough first reduced my reading aloud to a pitiful croak followed by bursts of coughing, and then led to abandoning the whole enterprise, much to my distress. It has taken me a long time to get back to something approaching normality, and by that time I was meeting quite a bit of resistance to the idea of starting again. It is harder to go back to the habit after such a long break: but after some negotiation with my son we are, I hope, back on track with a new book, chosen by me but with, so far, his approval. It's a book I had read to me as a child, so we are back in the dangerous territory of living in the past, and furthermore it is one of the many books which cause my husband to look gloomy and say that he "tried" to read it once. I won't reveal what it is until it is either abandoned or successfully completed, and then we'll see whether everyone else thinks it is suitable for an eleven-year-old or not! It's in English, and it's a bit dated (OK, I admit it), but I've never been one of those who thought that children should only be exposed to literature with a contemporary or familiar setting: meeting the unfamiliar in books is one way in which your horizons are expanded, after all. (In my public library days there were often heated discussions among my colleagues about this very subject, regarding the selection of children's literature for the libraries. I'm in favour of having a wide range, and that would include some unfashionable titles as well as the latest. The good ones survive the test of time, and the bad ones mainly don't, unless they just happen to be still lying round your house!)

Watch this space for how I get on with reintroducing reading aloud after a ten-month break, and what, if anything, we get out of the mystery book!

Reading aloud

I read a chapter or two of a chosen book (often chosen by me, admittedly) to my child, aged 10, every night. I really enjoy this time for winding down at the end of the day. It's a chance to introduce him to books he might not otherwise think of trying. I was much read to as a child myself, well into my teens. It was a family tradition: my grandfather, who did not have the advantage of a university education but was nevertheless widely read, loved reading the works of Dickens aloud (doing all the voices). I didn't benefit much from that as he died when I was quite young, but the habit persisted. It is probably the way I encountered quite a few of the classics. Good writing stands up well to being read aloud: in fact, whether something sounds good read aloud is one yardstick for measuring good writing, I think.

It is several years since I first had the surprised comment from another parent, "Oh, are you still reading to him? Can't he read yet then?" Even a relative who is a retired teacher has said something along the lines of "I don't remember anyone ever reading to me, but of course I could read by the time I was 3". It seems a pity that reading aloud should be seen as something you only do for those who can't read for themselves. You can read books which may be a bit beyond a child's own reading age: that's how you can expand their vocabulary, and that's how they pick up the rhythms of the language (or, in our case, two languages). It's also a chance to share and enjoy both old and new favourites together. I have only one child, so I don't have to juggle different ages/reading ages/bedtimes, which must make the whole bedtime-reading venture a bit more complicated.

Choosing the right moment to introduce a book can be a bit of an imprecise art. I've abandoned one or two temporarily and returned to them later with more success. We have many (old) books at home, and I am greatly enjoying revisiting some childhood favourites, but we also benefit hugely from having the wonderfully refurbished Cathays Library within walking distance to provide new authors to stretch our horizons and to fill the gaps where something from the past has escaped the net. Recent successes include "The secret garden", which I loved in childhood and which my son also enjoyed, and Dodie Smith's "101 dalmatians", which somehow passed me by as a child so that was new for both of us (I didn't even know it was a Christmas story, so that was an added bonus!). At the moment we are reading "The borrowers afield", having read the first book some time ago and then having recently enjoyed the rather different TV adaptation with Stephen Fry at Christmas.

I doubt whether many children today (with honourable exceptions, of course) are ever likely to be the natural readers my generation was, as we had fewer other options for entertaining ourselves. That makes shared reading all the more important, in my view. I hope to fit quite a few more good books in before it's deemed to be "not cool".