It was 2020. I was beginning my teaching practice in a weird environment that probably will not happen again. Students needed tutors, they needed one-on-one teachers. I had several clients, but one in particular would log on with me early in the morning and get off with me late in the day. We got into a routine.
There was a time when I had hours with her. Beside the time of lessons, and activities I would try my best to make engaging, I would read to her. There was one point when I was reading to her for hours every week. We read mostly fantasy and science fiction, and she became immersed in them. I would have her make an art project while I read. She would create inventive and beautiful things while I read, and she would ask me for one more chapter, one more paragraph more when it was done.
Years later, she is an expressive reader and an elegant writer. I hear the voices of the novelists she loved in her prose. I always loved listening to stories out loud and reading stories out loud, and this transformation I saw in my student highlighted how valuable our read aloud time was, not only to her comprehension, but these voices rang through her head after we were done reading. I know, because I saw them come out in her writing.
So much of writing is to know how to write it, to know what to write. And mostly – it is to communicate. You are not going to communicate effectively by simply following a formula. A good book can do wonders for a young scholar.
I think it is beneficial to read to students at all ages. Reading aloud should obviously not be the only skill students develop, but, when we read aloud we model fluency and tone. We tell a story. Studies show that orally telling stories lowers our stress, making us more receptive to the lessons these stories have.
But not only that – stories are deeply layered things. Sometimes I see a book as a tight blossom of lessons that is ready to open with the time and attention.
This is why I am so excited to be introducing the Storytelling Mastery Intensive. In this intensive the scholar and I will read a book. I will read most of it to them, and I will create writing, comprehensive, historical, and thematic lessons that go with the book we are reading. These lessons will allow students to engage with the book as writers, listeners, readers, historians, and artists.
Bending Tree Education 