86 Reading Aloud

In Beijing in 2005, a young woman became known for standing next to a main road during rush hour, opening a book, and reading out loud. She told a journalist writing for The New York Times that reading out loud helped her concentrate while practicing her spoken English. At the time of the report, she had been reading aloud at the busy intersection for at least five years.

Of course, you don’t have to stand beside a busy intersection to get the benefits of reading aloud. Like reverse outlining, this revision strategy helps you step back from your work, to hear it in a new way, and to become your own audience. Reading aloud works just as well if you ask someone else to read your work aloud. Teacher-writer Donald Murray suggests, “Read a draft aloud to hear the voice—when it is most effective and when it is not. Have someone read the draft to you so you can hear its voice.” We often have a better sense of grammar, mechanics, and style in the spoken word than for words on a page or screen.

If asking someone else to read your work back to you feels a little intimidating, you might try using a screen reader or asking a trusted classmate, co-worker, friend, teacher, or family member to read your paper to you while you take notes on what you’d like to revise later. After another person has read your work to you, ask them to summarize it for you. This step helps you know if you’re getting your point across. Ask them if they think you need to tweak some aspect of the work, such as fixing a mechanical problem, choosing a better word, or dropping a section that detours from the main point. In other words, have a conversation with your reader and, from there, improve what you’ve written. For more on this step, revisit some of the suggestions in the peer-review section.

Ready to read aloud? Find a comfy place, gather your writing, and read a sentence, paragraph, or one page out loud. What do you notice?