Thursday, June 11, 2009

Reading aloud in the modern age

Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote an interesting piece in The New York Times last month about the joys of reading aloud. Read it here.
His last sentence struck me, "But what I would suggest is that our idea of reading is incomplete, impoverished, unless we are also taking the time to read aloud." This is more than readily apparent when we are children and we are learning and acquiring language, but it seems a lost art as we grow older. I remember some of my favorite moments in English class when I was called on by my English teacher to read out loud. It was the art of being to connect with the words and their intentionality, to bring life to the meaning of the author's written work. There is a beauty in that when you hear someone get the book, to bring life to it by reading it aloud.