♫ You can also listen to an extended version of this blog post here ♫
Reading out loud is so beneficial and we can often underestimate the value of doing this – and we may sometimes feel a little silly doing it – but it is a really worthwhile activity to do regularly.
Reading out loud requires more effort than reading silently – and very often when you start to read out loud, you don’t sound as you imagined you did when you were reading in your head! You have to think much more about making the right sounds – and to do this you will often have to use your mouth differently to recreate the sounds. You have to think about liaisons, intonation and also, the silent sounds too. When reading out loud, you have to focus not only on what you are saying but how you are saying it as this contributes to the meaning of the sentence, which can in turn deepen your understanding of what you are reading.
Reading out loud can really help you to identify specific sounds or vowel combinations that you may struggle to recreate and if you can identify this, then you can rectify it. I spoke about using ‘go to words’ in an earlier blog and this technique can help conquer those trickier sounds.
You may have seen that next week, I’m running a free mini course and throughout this, I have created daily opportunities for participants to read out loud. It’s not too late to sign up so please do head to the link.
In summer, I am also running a revamped version of the summer course I ran last year which again will be packed with lots of opportunities to practice reading out loud but that will equally be full of listening activities recorded by myself and two of my lovely French friends. There will also be a brand-new course specifically for Advanced learners too.
I’ll be sharing more information about these very soon.
I hope that you found this useful.
Thank you!
Sarah x