Reading at the Speed of Life: The Beauty of Slowing Down
Rediscovering the Art of Immersive Reading
In our information-rich world, we often find ourselves skimming through texts, scanning for keywords, and scrolling for the main points.
More recently, we have been exploring ways to save time and increase productivity when it comes to writing, through the use of generative AI tools.
While these tools can enhance the efficiency of writing, they cannot replace the benefits of slow reading.
Slow reading offers space for moments of contemplation to simplify complexity and develop a more acute sense of empathy, enhance our creativity by exposing us to new perspectives, and help us reconnect with ourselves.
From Jacqueline Woodson’s TED Talk
The deeper I went into my books, the more time I took with each sentence, the less I heard the noise of the outside world. And so, unlike my siblings, who were racing through books, I read slowly - very, very slowly. I was that child with her finger running beneath the words until I was untaught to do this, told big kids don't use their fingers.
In third grade, we were made to sit with our hands folded on our desk, unclasping them only to turn the pages then returning them to that position…
But in the quiet of my apartment, outside of my teacher's gaze, I let my fingers run beneath those words. With each rereading, I learn something new.
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, especially as the reader who wanted to one day become a writer, was to respect that narrative.
My finger beneath the words had led me to a life of writing books for people of all ages, books meant to be read slowly, to be savored. My love for looking deeply and closely at the world, for putting my whole self into it and by doing so seeing the many, many, many possibilities of a narrative turned out to be a gift because taking my sweet time taught me everything I needed to know about writing.
And writing taught me everything I needed to know about creating worlds where people can be seen and heard, where their experiences could be legitimized and where my story - read or heard by another person - inspired something in them that became a connection between us, a conversation. And isn't that what this is all about - finding a way at the end of the day to not feel alone in this world and a way to feel like we've changed it before we leave?
As technology continues to speed ahead, I continue to read slowly, knowing that I am respecting the author's work and the story's lasting power. And I read slowly to drown out the noise and remember those who came before me who probably carried with them the history of a narrative, knew deeply that writing it down wasn't the only way they could hold onto it, knew they could sit on their porches or their stoops at the end of a long day and spin a slow tale for their children.
They knew they could sing their stories through the thick heat of picking cotton and harvesting tobacco, knew they could preach their stories and sew them into quilts, turn the most painful ones into something laughable, and through that laughter, exhaled a history of a country that tried again and again and again to steal their bodies, their spirit and their story.I read slowly to pay homage to my ancestors. Each time we read write or tell a story, we step inside their circle, and the power of story lives on.
In The Case for Slow Reading Thomas Newkirk offers some strategies for slowing down, reclaiming the acoustical properties of written language and for returning to passages that sustain and inspire us.
- Memorizing
Memorization is often called "knowing by heart," and for good reason. Memorizing enables us to possess a text in a special way…
- Reading Aloud
Reading aloud is a regular activity in elementary classrooms, but it dies too soon. By reading aloud, teachers can create a bridge to texts that students might read; they can help reluctant readers imagine a human voice animating the words on the page. Besides, some passages seem to beg to be read aloud…
- Attending to Beginnings
Writers often struggle with their beginnings because they are making so many commitments; they are establishing a voice, narrator, and point of view that are right for what will follow... Readers need to be just as deliberate and not rush through these carefully constructed beginnings. As teachers, we can model this slowness.
- Quote and Comment
Here, students copy out passages by hand that they find particularly meaningful and then comment on why they chose those passages. Copying a passage slows us down and creates an intimacy with the writer's style—a feel for word choice and for how sentences are formed. At the end of a unit in which my students have done a great deal of reading, we celebrate by selecting passages we want to hold on to and reading them aloud to the class. It always interests me to see which passages the students select.
- Reading Poetry
Even in this age of efficiency and consumption, it is unlikely that anyone will reward students for reading a million poems. Poems can't be checked off that way. They demand a slower pace and usually several readings—and they are usually at their best when read aloud.
- Savoring Passages
Children know something that adults often forget—the deep pleasure of repetition, of rereading, or of having parents reread, until the words seem to be part of them.
Not all our reading, nor all our students' reading, can or should have this depth. We read for various purposes. But some of our reading should have such depth, inefficient as that might be.
In a world obsessed with speed and efficiency, let's not forget the magic of slowness in reading. Our reading doesn't always need to be fast and efficient; sometimes, it should be slow, deliberate, and deeply immersive.
Will try this! Thanks! ❤️