Across Five Aprils

Many students, even some very good ones, do not internalize voice and intonation when they read. As a result, these students, lacking phrasing, intonation, and the ability to utilize multiple voices while they read, find reading literature, with its unfamiliar vocabulary and complete-compound sentences, and elaborate metaphors, very laborious. Consequently, a short novel that could be read in a weekend takes the student three weeks or longer to finish. Using any standard edition of the text, the students follow the printed pages while listening to the recording. As a result, within a much shorter period of time, the students have read the novel, discussed it, digested it, and are prepared to be tested on their literal and conceptual understanding.