Quick quiz. You’re reading a book out loud to a group of young listeners, and two of them turn to each other and start whispering. Out of the following three options, should you…
- say something like, “Er, you should be listening. Attention this way please.”
- look at them enthusiastically and say “Exactly! And then…” before continuing to read.
- wait for them to finish.
Since this piece is written by a storyteller, you’re probably expecting the answer to be ‘B’ – and you’d be right. But I’d be willing to bet that, in practice, you often choose ‘A’.
‘A’ is the natural choice. If we’re trying to hold an audience’s attention, we expect them to focus on us.
However, with almost two decades of experience as an oral storyteller, I can assure you: if two listeners start whispering with each other, 99 times out of 10, they’re commenting on the story.
And no, that’s not a typo.
So if you say, “you should be listening”, what you’re actually saying is, “Please stop engaging with this story. I’d rather you focus on me.”
Is that really your aim?
That said, ‘C’ isn’t great either. Waiting risks losing the engagement of everyone else…
The Keyring skill for reading aloud
Fortunately, because you can be sure that the story you’re reading is the inspiration for any activity among your audience – be it chatting, miming, making a sound effect, etc – you can also be confident with the idea behind ‘B’: acknowledge and share their excitement, then read on.
The trick is in recognising that engagement looks different for every listener. Yes, some will smile and watch you intently – but others may gaze out the window as they picture the action you’re describing. Yet others may doodle an illustration as you speak.
And that is the real secret to great group reading: pay attention to your audience, far more than requiring them to pay attention to you.
This technique is so fundamental that it’s more than a key skill – it’s a keyring skill. All other engagement techniques hang from it.
I won’t deny that there are specific engagement techniques that some storytellers use – ‘doing the voices’, physical gestures, use of props, puppetry, etc. But for any of those techniques to work, one consideration is more important than any skill on the part of the storyteller:
The technique needs to be the right one for that audience.
Why is paying attention to your audience so important?
If the audience’s engagement is not considered, you risk failing to achieve what you want to achieve with your reading. You might still get engagement, but you will more than likely attract the wrong engagement.
Take ‘doing the voices’, for example. A reader might be exceptional at altering their voice so that every character in a book sounds different. They get a laugh every time, proving that their audience is engaged.
But what has each listener engaged with? The performer’s skill, or the story?
It could be both – but only if they’re the kind of listener who can completely block out the sight before them, picture the character in their head, and imagine that it’s a character speaking and not the storyteller.
Many young listeners can engage like that. Yet there are just as many (if not more) who will laugh and love the storyteller’s skill without really paying attention to the story. Ask them about the story later, they’ll likely need their memory jogged by reminding them, “You know, the bit where the character said…”
Why is this important? Because reading recreationally requires finding pleasure in the content, not the act of reading itself. That’s why the pleasure of a good story read aloud can transfer so easily to the pleasure of reading good stories independently.
However, if the pleasure is in how the story is read aloud (in this example, the voices), that is more likely to make the listeners interested only in having books read to them. They may also grow interested in developing the skill, perhaps trying to recreate the voices themselves. But they haven’t been drawn to the story, so they won’t be drawn to independent reading.
Books shouldn’t need to be read aloud to be enjoyed. We’re reading aloud with the aim of encouraging independent reading – and I promise you it’s possible.
The secret to audience engagement: trust the story
In practice, engaging reading aloud is as simple as exploring the story with your listeners as if you’re reading it for the first time (and maybe you are!).
Do this even if it’s your favourite book and they know it. Even if it’s their favourite book, and they’ve heard it multiple times before. Treat it like you would rewatching a favourite film or theatre show.
Laugh with them; gasp with them; question character’s actions with them. Continually check in with them. “They don’t sound like a very nice person, do they?” “Hmmm… Is that a sensible decision, do you think?” “What do you think’s gonna happen now?!”
Trust that the writer is able to make sure they’re understood; you’ll check that later and evidence it. Right now, you don’t want any barriers between your listeners and the story.
The more you confirm their engagement, the higher that engagement will be. Every laugh, gasp, comment and/or reply provides a feedback loop for your listeners, confirming their engagement for themselves.
And as a bonus, this engagement will improve their understanding – increasing their attainment in that area when you do come to evidence it…
Using the Keyring with other key techniques
The magic of collaborating with your audience in this way is that it supports and enhances any other reading techniques you might wish to try.
Let’s look at those voices again. Maybe you’re brilliant at creating character voices. Maybe you’re in awe of those who can. Either way, you’re approaching a moment of character dialogue. What can you do?
Using the Keyring approach and considering your audience’s engagment, pause the story, and ask your listeners, “What kind of voice do you think they’ll have?”
Craft that voice together, and you’re more likely to find a voice that matches both your capabilities and their idea of the character. Moreover, your listeners will have invested some creativity of their own into the reading experience, giving them more ‘skin in the game’ – the root of all engagement.
But more than anything else, you’ll have drawn yet more fun from the book, reinforcing that the pleasure is between those pages – not your skill as a performer.
Reaching all readers
If your listeners include children who may find engaging with stories and books challenging, here’s one top tip: share as many short stories with them as you can before moving on to more complex narratives.
Why? Because this is how you develop your listeners’ reading stamina. To feel compelled to make it through a longer book, your listeners need to have developed an appetite for the satisfaction of story endings. Once they are aware how good endings feel, they’ll be more able to stay the course over longer narratives.
