Reading opens a person to the world which they may have not explored or it helps us to see lives which we have not lived. But reading can add more depth to us if we make it more creative. Read on.
Often we read in a conventional manner and expect the child to do the same. We start from the beginning, we read or at times we skim read till book ends. If we don’t like book in between either we stop reading or we read slowly without interest. Here are some tips which can make reading a different kind of experience.
- Open a story book (actually any book) and start from any page (try not from the beginning).
- After reading some text in the story – read the pictures aloud or with silence. Here is how you read a picture – you talk about the lines, the curves, the colors, their shades and shadows, etc. Depending on what all is in the picture – what each character, thing or part is thinking, feeling, wanting, not wanting etc.
- Read one part of the story / book and ask the child to read another part.
- Add yourself into the narrative – If I was in this place or If I was this character or part or thing, what I would have thought, felt, done etc.
- Add irrelevant details – not written in the text, not in the pictures also. “So when she was going to fetch the water, she was wearing red saree and had one flower in her head”. This is granny’s favorite – when they used to tell stories, they would add a lot of spice “this used to happen in our time and your father used to do that”.
- Add emotion in your story – do not stay at good and bad, nice and sad. Talk in detail “so he was feeling overwhelmed with the work he had to do, his face became small like a papaya, and he will not even get time to breathe, sometimes he would stay breathless for some seconds, so he could finish his work”.
- Make it real, add your experience – so he went for hunting. I also for hunting once when I was 12 yrs old. I went with my uncle who stayed in Bandipur, His house was near the jungle and he was very comfortable with lions.
- Connect before you convince – he became greedy and then he decide to steal more money. Does this happen with you? How will you respond?
- More Reading tips from Arsalan (he started loving reading at the age of 14yrs)
