Reading Aloud
Seventeen of the educators used the word joy to describe their own experiences of this unorthodox teaching method.
From The Book of Memory (bold emphases mine):
A great deal has been written on the subject of audible reading in antiquity, and its apparent replacement by silent reading at some later time. Reading aloud is assumed to have been the more common method, and those who believe that there is [a] sharp contrast between orality and literacy have made much of a change from one form to the other, seeing it as a shift of sensibility from the "earmindedness" of orality to the "eyemindedness" of literacy. Judicious scholars of this school have always known that silent reading to oneself was also practiced in antiquity, but have insisted that it was regarded as strange and uncommon. It seems to me, however, that silent reading, legere tacite or legere sibi, as Benedict and others call it, and reading aloud, clare legere in voce magna or viva voce, were two distinct methods of reading taught for different purposes in ancient schools and both practiced by ancient readers.
And, much more recently, from the Wall Street Journal:
It used to be thought that the practice [of reading aloud] primarily helps the very young, with little benefit for older children who lacked such early nurturing. A 2019 study led by Jo Westbrook at the University of Sussex, however, shows that being read to helps into adolescence. For the study, 20 English teachers at 10 schools, all with classes of poor-to-average students 12 or 13 years old, chucked out their regular lesson plans for three months. Instead of making the kids labor over short passages of text, the teachers read them novels such as John Boyne's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" at a tempo intended for enjoyment rather than didacticism.
The results were astounding. Morale and test results soared. Children who had hated English lessons, who had experienced literature as daunting and indigestible, were practically running into the classroom to find out what was going to happen next in the stories. Seventeen of the educators used the word "joy" to describe their own experiences of this unorthodox teaching method. When the children were given reading-comprehension tests afterward, average readers had made 8.5 months of progress while poorer students had made 16 months of progress. As the study authors observed: "Simply reading challenging, complex novels aloud and at a fast pace in each lesson repositioned 'poorer readers' as 'good' readers, giving them a more engaged uninterrupted reading experience over a sustained period."
