tional slides. Appropriately express the triumphant tone in the last two lines. 6. Change of pitch can best be expressed vocally. (Do not be satisfied with such a selection until it has been thoroughly memorized and read over many, many times in practice by each pupil.) SOME GENERAL SUGGESTIONS If there be adequate analysis of a selection for, the thought, the reader should naturally convey the thought without undue effort, or straining for effect, or conscious attention to the mechanism of speech. We are speaking now, of course, of synthetic reading, and not of the pre liminary or incidental training for skill and facility in technique. But however much, or little, practice in vocal technique one may have had, good reading, it will readily be granted by all, requires that the reader give us the thought. And whenever a pupil does not do that, the teacher must needs recall to his mind this primary requisite by such queries and suggestions as, "What is the thought here?" "You do not make us see this picture." "Explain this to me in your own words, without reference to the language the author uses." Thus must the pupil's attention be directed, again and again, to the fact that words in themselves are meaningless until he gets from them the author's thought, and that even then they are meaningless to a hearer until he (the reader) conveys the meaning. What test shall be applied in determining if the reader "conveys the meaning"? We say that one should read "naturally." And what do we mean by that? Simply that a reader should use the same meaning of imparting and impressing thought that he uses in ordinary conversation. It should be his best conversation, to be sure, and even then one's "natural" method of talking can be vastly improved; but the point is this: in good reading there should be no noticeable departure from the animated directness, variety, and spontaneity of one's best method of talking. What proportion of our teachers of reading keep this fact in mind as a guiding principle? And is it true as it is often asserted, that if a reader comprehends thoroughly the thought to be conveyed, he will read "naturally"? Listen to the college graduate read from a newspaper, or a college professor reading his lectures, or a preacher reading Scripture or a hymn, or an author, it may be, reading from his own works, and note the wide departure from clearness and discriminateness, effectiveness and naturalness. And yet, in the cases cited, the readers know, we must assume, the thought they would convey. Mere mechanical reading must be avoided. The mechanics of oral expression must always be used as a means, not an end. Over-much talk about enunciation, inflection, emphasis, etc., is not advisable on general principles. Individual cases need specific remedies. "The trouble with most of our reading is that it dissociates itself entirely from any relation with conversation, whereas it is precisely the same spontaneous thinking that makes both intelligent," says Professor Clark in his treatise on How to Teach Reading. The natural, or conversational method of reading is frequently impeded by the mechanical directions of the teacher. Proper position, however, must not be entirely neglected. The pupil should always face the class. If this practice were begun in the first grades and continued through the high school, stage fright would be a thing of the past. The book should be held easily in the left hand, and held high enough that the head may be held erect. The throat muscles must never be restricted by bending the head over the book. The student should read to the audience and not to himself. His eyes should play back and forth from the page to the audience, not just glance up occasionally, as if to make sure that the audience had not all slipped from the room. The head should be held erect so that in looking straight at the audience, all that is necessary is to move the eye and not the head. This practice will be a great help in carrying out the basic principle that the most effective reading is simply heightened conversation. The following quotation from Professor Corson from his book entitled, The Voice and Spiritual Education, seems very pertinent: "What chiefly affects a cultivated hearer, in 'elocution' is the conspicuous absence of spiritual assimilation on the part of the reader. At best, he voices only what the eye of an ordinary reader should take in, and leaves the all-important part to the face, arms, legs, and various attitudes of the body. But the spiritual in literature must be addressed to the ear. .. Reading is not acting. It is the acting which usually accompanies the reading or recitation of the professional elocutionist which cultivated people especially dislike. When they wish to see acting, they prefer going to the theatre. When they listen to reading, they want serious interpretative vocalization; only that and nothing more is necessary, unless it be a spon·taneous and graceful movement of the hands, occasionally, as one makes in animated conversation." |