Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 304, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1918 — READING ALOUD TO CHILD [ARTICLE]

READING ALOUD TO CHILD

By .HAMLIN GARLAND,

(Author of “A Son of the Middle Border," Etc.) The value of reading aloud to a child cannot be overstated. In the first place, it establishes a delightful comradeship between parent and child. It builds • a lasting foundation of- common interest and mutual understanding. The child associates with the face and the voice of his sire much of the dignity and poetry of the book he has heard read. He infers that his father hfis something of the quality of the author, and -he carries with him a grateful memory of the busyman who laid aside his large affairs in order to give pleasure to a small boy. A father's voice can vitalize the printed page to his son even before the. son can comprehend the written words. I commenced reading aloud to my daughters before they could understand the spoken words, for the reason that the very music of the ballad or the drift of the story enthralled them. It was good to see them strive to comprehend. It developed their imagination. They are growing toward womanhood now and they are able to tell me that they remember those nights when I read to them, with an emotion which they find it hard fittingly to express. I gave them both, in - this way, a feeling for• glorious verse, and a love for choice words which has been of the highest vplue to them up to this time, and which will Increase in value as the years pass.