Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The Magic of a Story


I love reading books to children.  It doesn’t matter how old they are, when I open a book and begin telling a story, something magical starts to happen.  Things start to get quiet.  Conversations stop.  Fidgeting slows.  Eyes drift in my general direction and, by the second, maybe third page, I am holding captive, with my magical story book, every child within earshot.  It’s great.  For those 5-10 minutes while I’m reading, we are together, just sharing the experience. 

Today I got to spend the morning reading books to the younger grades as part of our creative arts day at school.  We had a blast, dancing, wiggling, chanting.  It was great.  Even with their extremely limited English skills, they could still appreciate and enjoy the storytelling experience. This is one of the things I miss about teaching lower elementary school.  The older the kids get, the less opportunities you have to read things aloud.  Luckily for me and my kids, though, fewer does not mean zero and I still take any chance I can to enjoy a good story with them.  From what I can tell, no matter how old they get, most still appreciate an excuse to revert back to their youth.  And who am I to deny them?

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