teaching ' expression' in reception reading

[wobblypig]

We have been told to work on expression and punctuation use in DS's reading. I know what this means and recognise that this is lacking but not sure how to tackle this .
Anyone know what we should be doing with him?

Thanks

With DS2 when he hasn't been reading with expression, I say to him do you really think the person would have said "Wow that's amazing!" like that (echo back in really boring voice), how would he say it? We started at the beginning of reception with exclamation marks - there seem to be lots of those in the ORT books, generally preceded by "Oh no" and he just used to shout any sentences ending in ! then we gradually honed it as above.
When we got to bits with ... then I would read it to him with and without a dramatic pause and ask him which made him want to listen to the story more. So now he knows to pause too.

Read aloud as much as poss, using text with lots of speech. Use ridiculous voices, exaggerate and gesticulate. In essence, just make a tit of yourself.

Thanks - we did start a while back with speech marks ; questions marks and exclamation marks. He understands the meaning of them but doesn't seem to use them for dramatic effect when reading aloud.
I wonder whether it is because his reading is a bit pedestrian and / or the length of the books makes this all a bit too much hard work.

With DD we've been telling her to read "in a nice talking voice" which has helped with expression. Also, to take a breath when she gets to a full stop.

She's annoyingly good at the X called/shouted/exclaimed etc bits though, especially at bedtime, but can't seem to do X whispered half as well

we don't talk about expression, we talk about 'interesting'

is it interesting for the listener? -most reception aged children understand the term better and can answer the question what makes a story interesting to listen to?

Shoutymomma - thanks . We have always done this with lots of silly voices - sometimes to the point where you lose track of who is who and run out of accents. Still can't get DS to read 'expressively'.

How important is this? Is this more a teacher ideal rather than a necessary developmental step?

Workshy - I haven't actually asked DS to read' expressively' just asked him to think about how a person may have said something. Even disregarding speech in the text his reading outloud is rather stilted and monotone.

You could try reading to him as he reads to you? He might be concentrating so hard on the reading bit that he's (understandably!) not thinking about how it comes across.

Good point idea.

Sorry, good idea that was meant to be.

Would anyone suggest going down a reading level to make it easier and concentrate on the delivery?

My DS used to have a problem with ignoring full stops and just carrying on reading the text. I used to do a big deep breath when he got to a full stop to give him a clue when he had to stop and take a breath.

Using expression is important, as it shows the reader understands and it also helps whoever is listening to understand the story or text better.

It does take time and Reception is a good time to start, but don't expect it to happen over-night. Just keep giving examples and using different voices and it will click.

DS reads with good expression and I suspect one thing that helped him is that we did quite a lot of role play with very familiar stories such as Goldilocks and the three bears or the Three little pigs. If you act out the story together including the voices it makes it quite fun. From there you can progress to reading books using the voices the character would use.

I told DS to use a "storytelling voice" and that seemed to help him.

I wouldn't really expect expression from a reception child until they know the text well. Maybe keep the same book a couple of nights, and when he is really familiar with it ask him if he can use different voices etc. The first time he reads the book he is probably just concentrating on decoding the text.

It is deemed important, as indicating real understanding, rather than just "point and bark" decoding. With my two (9 and 6) I have found it comes and goes, improving massively as they master a stage of reading and then disappearing for a bit. For instance, for both of them, when really speedy reading in their head set in, they lost expression because they were reading aloud rather as in their heads (and far too fast) and so had to be coaxed back into it.

They will eventually learn than reading in head and aloud are two rather different tasks and that with the latter one needs to think about the audience.
Just keep at him, nicely, and will kick in in time. Reception is early for decent performance values, I think. (although many mothers will be able to shriek "..the magic key began to glow!" with full eye-brow and large hand gestures for years to come).

Role model it. Do you read "with expression"? and it's quite an ask to read a new book that's tricky "with expression" on first go. Read it twice or three times and then you should be getting the expression. If not, try an easier book- it does show they understand and can communicate what they are reading.

we did start a while back with speech marks ; questions marks and exclamation marks. He understands the meaning of them but doesn't seem to use them for dramatic effect when reading aloud.

He's a reception child. He might notice these types of punctuation, but expecting your child to begin reading and also have the skills to look ahead whilst reading is preposterous. Remember, punctuation comes at the end of the sentence. It's actually quite a complex process to read with expression using punctuation as a guide.

As someone else has suggested, concentrate on not speaking in a monosyllabic voice and read old favourite books. Your child should be able to use expression with familiar texts as they know what is to come and how characters might speak.

Thank-you .Yes we do 'model it' and read with expression and have been doing so for years and DS enjoys this.
The words inthe books are not posing any decoding issues - there are no tricky words at all really . DS has good comprehension and can recall details and offer explanation of things happening in the books.

Claresf - I do not expect anything - this is a suggestion from his teacher who I do not think considers this to be preposterous although she may be wrong.

DD was older I'm sure when we were asked to focus on this (she wouldn't really have been reading much in reception though).

But what seemed to work well for her to encourage a bit more expressiveness was for her to read one person's words while I read the rest of the story. So eg I would read Teddy Robinson, and she would read the bits that Teddy says IYSWIM.

That way she could think about how he would speak, but only have little bits of actual reading to do.

Hmmmm, just make it more important but in a friendly way- you can't really pressure them to "use expression" at this stage, but you could keep him on an easier book he knows really well and read it until you think he's read it "with expression". Make it into a game, eg after first reading, "fantastic reading! 10/10 for getting all/nearly all the words correct, now how many out of ten for using expression- I think 6/10, let's do it again and see if you can improve your score!" This does seem a bit artificial though, would be nicer if it could come more naturally.....

Do you ever play with him doing imaginary games/shows and take on roles? This is something my DS is and has been very keen on and of course there are lots of voices involved! You could act out one of the stories he is reading/you are reading to him- complete with dressing up...you know you want to...

With my dds (who admittedly are so into role play that 'doing the voices' comes fairly naturally) we just said 'pretend you are reading this story to some children on TV, like they do on CBeebies'. It worked a treat with dd1, though not so well with dd2 - she just said 'Its too difficult Mummy, I don't want to do the voices yet' so we backed off, and she came to it once tackling decoding got easier