The importance of jackanory: Reading aloud and teaching emotion

Abstract

In this paper I argue that reading stories aloud to children in school is an important vehicle of emotional and value education, since any kind of expressive presentation of narrative must involve the attempt to convey its human significance. I argue that stories are mainly concerned with ‘the emotional world'— the world as directly experienced, or ‘felt'—and that any attainment of meaning in life presupposes that one's childhood grasp of this world has not been superseded. Through story‐reading, then, a child's feelings and their correlative values can be developed and structured. In the last part of the paper I defend myself against the charge of indoctrination by drawing a close parallel between first‐language learning and the learning of a repertoire of feeling.