How to improve reading aloud to my child.

How to improve reading aloud to my child.

Author
Discussion

Adamxck

Original Poster:

1,212 posts

182 months

Thursday 7th May 2015
quotequote all
I'm not terrible, though I'm sure there are accents, inflections and emphasises that I could improve on when reading books aloud to my child. I'm never going to be Simon Callow or Charles Dance, but I know my narration is not as fluid or engrossing as it could be.

Are there any resources for improving this? A quick Google doesn't yield anything useful and tends to point me towards improving my child's reading ability, or courses for illiterate adults. Perhaps some sort of acting school or similar?

She is only 14 months at the moment, but if I start improving now, by the time she is ready for books with mildly complicated narrative I hope I'll be sending her to sleep with my dulcet tones, or keeping her awake as she cries for one more chapter.

Adamxck

Original Poster:

1,212 posts

182 months

Tuesday 19th May 2015
quotequote all
Thank you for all of the advice and recommendations.

Re the character voices, my current favourite is 'A Bit Lost' which I can recite by memory now. There is a baby owl, a squirrel, frog and mummy owl which naturally lend themselves to 4 very distinct voices. I find (and this is where reading ahead is starting to help in other books) that I sometimes say: "said squirrel" in squirrel's voice rather than my narration voice though.

Practice it is.