Read aloud to your children! (Exclusive interview with Deaf Health Network)

Read aloud to your chil­dren! (Exclu­sive inter­view with Deaf Health Net­work)

Lis­ten­ing to Mr. Ajia read pic­ture books is a joy. His sto­ry­telling voice con­veys a sense of imagery, draw­ing the lis­ten­er into the sit­u­a­tions described in the pic­ture book, cre­at­ing a pro­found­ly enjoy­able expe­ri­ence. I’m not the only one who’s heard Mr. Ajia read pic­ture books; any­one who’s heard him share a sim­i­lar feel­ing. So, to help more hear­ing-impaired chil­dren expe­ri­ence this joy, we inter­viewed Mr. Ajia to hear his insights on read­ing aloud to chil­dren.

The fol­low­ing is the inter­view tran­script:

Read­ing should first pay atten­tion to the implan­ta­tion of mean­ing

Sim­ply put, embed­ding mean­ing means mak­ing the audi­ence under­stand the sto­ry. Teacher Ajia believes that mak­ing chil­dren under­stand the sto­ry is the pri­ma­ry goal of sto­ry­telling. When chil­dren under­stand the sto­ry, they can eas­i­ly estab­lish the con­nec­tion between lan­guage and mean­ing, which has a pos­i­tive impact on the devel­op­ment of var­i­ous abil­i­ties, includ­ing lis­ten­ing and speak­ing. As for how to achieve this goal, Teacher Ajia said that there are many dif­fer­ent meth­ods, and teach­ers and par­ents don’t have to stick to a spe­cif­ic for­mat. As long as they can cap­ture chil­dren’s inter­est, under­stand­ing will become a sim­ple mat­ter.

If you are read­ing a pic­ture book to a group of unfa­mil­iar chil­dren, the best way is to choose a pic­ture book that has a cer­tain con­nec­tion with things the chil­dren are famil­iar with, and then use this as a start­ing point to con­nect the chil­dren’s exist­ing expe­ri­ence with unknown expe­ri­ences. This guid­ance process can effec­tive­ly stim­u­late chil­dren’s inter­est in pic­ture books and make sub­se­quent read­ing rel­a­tive­ly easy.

For hear­ing-impaired chil­dren, under­stand­ing the pic­ture book sto­ries is equal­ly impor­tant when read­ing pic­ture books. Espe­cial­ly for chil­dren who are just start­ing to come into con­tact with pic­ture books, teach­ers and par­ents should not focus on cor­rect­ing mis­takes, but should use vivid and inter­est­ing ways to make chil­dren inter­est­ed in pic­ture books and under­stand the mean­ing of the sto­ries in the pic­ture books. On this basis, after repeat­ed use, chil­dren will quick­ly estab­lish their own lan­guage sys­tem, and not only will their lis­ten­ing and speak­ing skills improve, but the devel­op­ment of oth­er abil­i­ties will also be improved.

For exam­ple, the book “David Can’t” uses pic­tures to vivid­ly depict the var­i­ous mis­takes that chil­dren will make as they grow up. Chil­dren will feel famil­iar when read­ing it and will regard David as their fel­low suf­fer­er, and thus will like this sto­ry. In addi­tion, the moth­er’s reac­tion at the end of the pic­ture book also pro­vides a solu­tion to the prob­lem. When chil­dren tru­ly under­stand the mean­ing of the sto­ry, they will also become inter­est­ed in these words, and will imi­tate and repeat them, and their lan­guage and com­pre­hen­sion skills will also make great progress.

Read­ing starts with read­ing more and then mas­ter­ing appro­pri­ate skills

Teacher Ajia believes that for teach­ers and par­ents new to pic­ture books, the most cru­cial require­ment is sim­ply “read­ing.” This is because emo­tion­al con­nec­tion is a key fac­tor in chil­dren’s inter­est and love for pic­ture books: a par­en­t’s voice has a sense of famil­iar­i­ty that is irre­place­able, and the rela­tion­ship and affec­tion that teach­ers build through long-term inter­ac­tion with chil­dren are also irre­place­able. Once par­ents and teach­ers per­sist in sto­ry­telling with chil­dren, a tac­it under­stand­ing devel­ops, which in fact becomes a skill that helps chil­dren under­stand and appre­ci­ate pic­ture books.

Once par­ents and teach­ers start telling sto­ries, they need to keep improv­ing and add some skills to their read­ing process, which will be of great help in cul­ti­vat­ing chil­dren’s sense of lan­guage.

In Teacher Aji­a’s view, true pic­ture book read­ing is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort between the lis­ten­er and the sto­ry­teller. Details like the sto­ry­teller’s speak­ing speed, rhythm, wait­ing, and page turn­ing all have an impact on the effec­tive­ness of the sto­ry.

For exam­ple, in the fan­tas­ti­cal book “Where the Wild Things Are,” the sto­ry­telling process empha­sizes the use of rhyth­mic changes to unfold the plot. At the begin­ning, when the pro­tag­o­nist Max appears, the sto­ry can be told at a slow­er pace, with the pages turn­ing slow­ly to allow chil­dren to gain a deep­er under­stand­ing of Max through obser­va­tion. After the moth­er’s appear­ance, the tone and rhythm of the speech should be used to dif­fer­en­ti­ate the moth­er’s and Max’s per­son­al­i­ty traits, giv­ing the audi­ence a more accu­rate under­stand­ing of their per­son­al­i­ties and rela­tion­ship. Fur­ther­more, although the book con­tains rel­a­tive­ly few words, it’s best to min­i­mize the use of addi­tion­al text. Instead, the sto­ry should be told through con­trolled rhythm and tone, with a focus on wait­ing and fos­ter­ing emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with the lis­ten­er.

In addi­tion, com­mu­ni­cat­ing and inter­act­ing with the sto­ry­teller before read­ing the pic­ture book can also effec­tive­ly pave the way for pic­ture book read­ing.

For exam­ple, an expe­ri­enced sto­ry­teller would­n’t need to cre­ate a par­tic­u­lar­ly mys­te­ri­ous sto­ry like “I Don’t Know Who I Am.” Sim­ply telling it with a sil­ly tone is suf­fi­cient. How­ev­er, engag­ing in play­ful con­ver­sa­tion with chil­dren before the sto­ry can max­i­mize its appeal. Before the sto­ry begins, ask chil­dren sil­ly, prob­ing ques­tions like, “Who are you?” “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” “What are you going to do after you fin­ish this?” “And then what?” … until the chil­dren burst out laugh­ing and find it strange, sil­ly, and amus­ing. Then, intro­duce the pro­tag­o­nist and begin the sto­ry. This play­ful pre­lude makes the sto­ry even more engag­ing for chil­dren, brim­ming with laugh­ter.

In addi­tion to the two exam­ples above, Teacher Ajia also empha­sized some basic skills. For exam­ple, it is impor­tant to estab­lish a trust­ing rela­tion­ship with chil­dren; choose sto­ries based on the sto­ry­telling envi­ron­ment and the audi­ence; try to tell sto­ries in a way that touch­es the audi­ence with­out requir­ing inter­pre­ta­tion; choose the right form and appro­pri­ate tech­niques when telling sto­ries; and patient­ly tell sto­ries to chil­dren, encour­ag­ing them to devel­op their own lan­guage sys­tem through demon­stra­tion.

In addi­tion to read­ing, pic­ture books can also be played in many ways

In addi­tion to read­ing pic­ture books, Teacher Ajia also shared a ten-char­ac­ter guide to play­ing with pic­ture books: “Sing, Recite, Speak, Do, Draw, Act, Eat, Break, Chat, and Think.” Each char­ac­ter in the ten-char­ac­ter guide rep­re­sents a dif­fer­ent type of play, and each char­ac­ter has a dif­fer­ent set of moves. These exam­ples serve as inspi­ra­tion, allow­ing every­one to choose the right play method based on their own strengths and use the book they are inter­est­ed in.

Read­ing and speak­ing are the sim­plest and most effec­tive ways to play with pic­ture books, but they are also the most advanced of all. Sto­ry­tellers need to cap­ture the essence and key moments of the book. “Pulling the Car­rot” is nar­ra­tive, “The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar” is a prose poem, and “Lit­tle En’s Secret Gar­den” is lyri­cal. There are many dif­fer­ent styles.
　　

Act­ing: Pic­ture books with char­ac­ters can gen­er­al­ly be act­ed out. The sim­plest way to do this is to read aloud with dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters. Typ­i­cal exam­ples include “Who Pulled on My Head?” and “Jingju Cats.”
　　

“Po” (破) means to crack, solve a mys­tery, or dis­cov­er some­thing. Some pic­ture books tru­ly need to be cracked to be enjoy­able, so they require care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion. For exam­ple, “Lit­tle House” tells the sto­ry of spring, sum­mer, autumn, and win­ter, from morn­ing to night. It is a sto­ry of time. Read­ing this book is a vast chrono­log­i­cal sys­tem, from a gen­er­a­tion to a series, to the sea­sons of the year, to each month and each day, allow­ing for end­less reread­ing.
　　

“Doing” includes crafts, games, and more. It’s a bit like read­ing a pic­ture book to liv­en things up, but engag­ing in deep­er play can also be very ben­e­fi­cial to under­stand­ing the book. For exam­ple, in “Pulling the Car­rot,” you can play tug-of-war, and in “Lit­tle Black Fish,” you can play a music game. Who is the lit­tle black fish? When the music starts, every­one cir­cles around, some old­er, some younger. In fact, the younger chil­dren aren’t elim­i­nat­ed until the third round. This kind of play is very enjoy­able and leaves every­one want­i­ng more.

“Painting”—a good pic­ture book is a work of art on paper. Read­ing it nat­u­ral­ly inspires young read­ers to pick up their brush­es and cre­ate their own paint­ings. There­fore, par­ents and teach­ers can encour­age chil­dren to paint with their favorite pic­ture books.
　　

“Eat­ing” is the most cre­ative way to play. There are many pic­ture books about eat­ing, but it seems that there are no real ones that can be eat­en. You need to come up with your own ideas. For exam­ple, “Stone Soup”, “Guri and Gula”, “Cloud Bread”, “Angry Soup” and so on.

“Think­ing” can encour­age chil­dren to expand their imag­i­na­tion, devel­op asso­ci­a­tions, and broad­en their think­ing space. In the process of think­ing, some of the mys­ter­ies and fun in the pic­ture books will be infi­nite­ly exca­vat­ed and mag­ni­fied.

Singing. Some pic­ture books, such as “Su Wu Shep­herd­ing Sheep,” con­tain lyrics them­selves; singing adds a rhyth­mic beau­ty and makes the expe­ri­ence more engag­ing. Some pic­ture books are based on nurs­ery rhymes or ancient poet­ry, so par­ents who are inter­est­ed can sing along to them; it might even have an unex­pect­ed impact on their chil­dren’s lan­guage skills.

Strive to be a real sto­ry­teller

As a read­ing pro­mot­er who is deeply loved by par­ents and chil­dren, Teacher Ajia not only con­stant­ly brings vivid sto­ries to every­one, but his care­ful study of lan­guage expres­sion meth­ods also gives us a lot of inspi­ra­tion.

In fact, as par­ents and teach­ers, if you want to become a bet­ter sto­ry­teller, in addi­tion to being good at sum­ma­riz­ing and learn­ing from the expe­ri­ence of pre­de­ces­sors, the most impor­tant thing is to prac­tice more, read more sto­ries to your chil­dren, and be good at think­ing about and study­ing as many pic­ture books as pos­si­ble or oth­er lan­guage art forms relat­ed to sto­ry­telling, such as the crosstalk and sto­ry­telling men­tioned by Teacher Ajia in the inter­view. These arts that have been mature and deeply loved in Chi­na con­tain rich lan­guage expres­sion knowl­edge, which can pro­vide a lot of help for us in read­ing pic­ture books.

(“Deaf Health Insti­tu­tion Newslet­ter” 2012.11 Yang Haiy­ing
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