Do I HAVE to do voices?

I was asked this once, by a Head Start father, via the site’s Family Support Worker.

My response: No. You don’t HAVE to do voices.

But when sharing books with young children, here’s what you HAVE to do: HAVE FUN. Personally, I don’t think I really do “voices”. I think I have one voice, and all the characters are a variation on that one voice.  It gets higher, lower, louder, softer, or more child-like or adult. But to me, it sounds very much like the same voice. Others have told me differently. But what I KNOW I do is have fun, and so the kids have fun too.  Having fun with books is so important. When kids think books are fun, they are motivated to learn to read on their own. If books are boring, uninteresting, or a chore, well, who in their right mind would want to pick one up and read it?

I tell people that no, you don’t have to worry about creating different character voices and keep track of them all. But if a character says he’s sad, make him sound sad. If he’s excited, he should sound that way! The book’s text and illustrations give lots of clues how to read a story: print size, the character’s face, if something was shouted, or whispered, etc. Make animal sounds or truck sounds. Be silly.  Make the story go beyond words on a page and come to life.

Pages from Maybe a Bear Ate It by Robie H. Harris

Take a look at this page, from Maybe a Bear Ate It by Robie H. Harris, illustrated by Michael Emberley. It gives pretty clear clues about how to read the story: in the first illustration, the little bear/cat/creature is obviously sad. In the second, he’s gone from sad to out-and-out crying. Also, the text gives clues: the hyphens on the first page make us pause between words, and the text in the second is larger, making the words more insistent and louder.  While you don’t need to go full-on shakespearean for this passage, you can easily make the creature sound sad, and more distressed at the loss of his book.

Beyond your storytime performance, though, what’s most fun for a young child, though, is the chance to snuggle up in a parent or caregiver’s lap, and hear a story, look at pictures, and talk about the book. It’s that one-on-one sharing time with a loved one that really helps the learning take place, and the child will forever equate books with that warm feeling. And when they’re ready to learn to read, they will, if they’ve had enough of that quality time with books.

Tags: caregivers, Early literacy, learning to read, Maybe a Bear Ate It, parents, reading, Robie H. Harris, sharing books, voices