Most of us catechists are appreciative to have excellent catechetical textbooks from which we can draw forth the content of our rich Catholic heritage. That’s a fancy way of saying that in our lessons, we plan to have students read from the textbook. The problem is, that can become very routine and boring. Fear not! There are ways we can break up the routine while still reading from the textbook. I covered some of these ideas in my most recent webinar, Growing as a Catechist, but I thought it would be helpful to take a closer look at these strategies, as well as a few others, in hopes that we can incorporate them into our overall approach. This second strategy is called, “Listen to the Sound of My Voice.”
LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF MY VOICE
Read over the text ahead of time and highlight key words and ideas.- Tell the students that you will read the text aloud and that they should listen to the sound of your voice to identify and highlight key words and ideas.
- As you read aloud, use your voice (volume, tone, expression) to emphasize the key words and ideas as they highlight them in their text.
- You can make this more fun by exaggerating a key word/phrase or by using a funny voice to get their attention at significant parts.
- When you are done reading, ask the students to identify and share the key words and ideas that they’ve highlighted.
- Go back and cover any key words/ideas that they may have missed.
Thanks for these ideas! Last year I couldn’t keep my class quiet; this year, I’m not sure if it’s an actual class or an oil painting! These “reading from the text” ideas will keep us all alive and awake–and, hopefully, learning–or at least I’ll be able to better gauge what they need help with and what we need to go over more.