Communal Reading
Communal Reading Groups include 6-10 people who listen together and collectively make meaning of a shared essay, poem, article, book, or other reading. Groups either take turns reading out loud to each other or they jointly listen to a recording. People can follow along with the written text, or simply listen. Regardless, the group listens to, reflects on, and explores the reading together in real-time. Groups can come together for one-time gatherings or they can meet together regularly over an agreed upon period of time.
What are Communal Reading Groups?
Reading aloud forces us to read slower. There is no skimming when we read out loud. We take the time to read each and every word. In a culture that values fast, efficient, and productive, slowing down and resting is resistance. According to Hersey, who founded The Nap Ministry, rest is "anything that connects your mind and body." How better to make this connection than reading out loud? When we read out loud we engage our bodies through vocalizing and listening, and we connect this embodiment to our minds as we consider the meaning of the words on the page. Reading out loud with others then extends this mind-body connection to connecting with others. Synchronously, reading out loud with others integrates the body, mind, and social connection in ways that reading silently cannot.
Research on social reading programs has found both individual and social benefits
How does reading aloud with a small group build relational well-being?
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Reading aloud has been shown to:
Additionally, participating in social (out loud) reading groups with a skilled facilitator has been shown to reduce anxiety, with participants reporting feeling “soothed,” and more relaxed.
Beyond being restful, slow reading also connects us more deeply with the ideas that we are reading and the author who wrote them. As Jacqueline Woodson shares with us in her Ted Talk about reading slow,
"As a child, I knew that stories were meant to be savored, that stories wanted to be slow, and that some author had spent months, maybe years, writing them, and my job as the reader…was to respect that narrative. Long before there was cable, or the internet, or even the telephone, there were people sharing ideas and information and memory through story. It's one of our earliest forms of connective technology…more than 2 million years ago, when the first humans began making tools from stone, someone must have said, “What if?” And someone else remembered the story."
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Research on professionally facilitated social reading groups has shown that participants built social cohesion with each other by simultaneously validating their subjective experiences while also learning from their shared experience.
Further, over the course of the ongoing reading aloud groups, linguistic analysis showed an increase in group members’ cooperation, confidence, and reflective mirroring of one another's thoughts and speech patterns .
We understand the value of sharing a story with children; the value of close physical proximity, sharing the story together at the same time, discussing thoughts and feelings about the story as they emerge. But as children learn to read on their own, we expect readers to move from the intimacy of sharing a story simultaneously with others to reading silently and alone. I invite you to come back to sharing a story aloud together. Let us slow down, rest, connect, and savor a story together.
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Hersey, T. (2022). Rest is resistance: A manifesto. Hachette UK.
Hersey, T. (2022, February 21). Rest is anything that connects your mind and body. The Nap Ministry.
Rabinowitz, S., Pavlov, C., Mireku, B., Ying, K., Zhang, J., & Read, K. (2021). I feel less blue when I read with you: The effect of reading aloud with a child on adult readers’ affect. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 706729.
Forrin, N. D., & MacLeod, C. M. (2017). This time it’s personal: the memory benefit of hearing oneself. Memory, 26(4), 574–579.
Dowrick, C., Billington, J., Robinson, J., Hamer, A., & Williams, C. (2012). Get into Reading as an intervention for common mental health problems: exploring catalysts for change. Medical Humanities, 38(1), 15-20.
Woodson, J. (2019, April). What reading slow taught me about writing [Video]. TED Conferences.
Hodge, S., Robinson, J., & Davis, P. (2007). Reading between the lines: the experiences of taking part in a community reading project. Medical Humanities, 33(2), 100-104.