I'd like you to imagine that you can play a musical instrument very well say for example, a piano. As a brilliant pianist, you'd be able to play dramatically or gently. You'd be able to play fast tunes, or slow Jones, you'll be able to play with greater confidence, you will have full control of your instrument. Well, your voice is just like a musical instrument. You need to be able to exercise the same control over how you play your voice, as a brilliant pianist has over his instrument. In this and the following two elements.

We're going to learn just that we're going to learn how to control you Your voice more effectively. There is obviously a major difference between reading to a child of three or an adult. For a moment, I would like you to imagine that you're about to read a fairy tale to a three year old child. I've no doubt that if you read or tell them a bedtime story, you speak slower, and in a softer voice. Many people speak far too quickly. So in this element, we're going to concentrate on taking control of your instrument, your voice to slow down the pace of your read.

First of all, as a starting point, I want you to read and record the sentence on Christmas Eve many years ago, I lay quietly in my bed. And I also want you to time how long it takes you to read the sentence. When you're ready to record, press pause, press play as soon as you're ready to continue I've been using this exercise with my students now for 20 years. from experience, I would guess that you read this sentence in about four seconds. Now, I want you to read record and time the same sentence again. But this time, I want you to slow down the time it takes you to read the sentence.

I want you to read it in six or more seconds if you can. When you're ready to record, press pause. Press play as soon as you're ready to continue. How long did you take? Most of my students don't manage to stretch reading the sentence out to eight seconds on their first attempt. But if you did, that's just great.

Here are two fabulous singers, Ella Fitzgerald Frank Sinatra, they are singing at a very slow pace. They do this by stretching out every syllable in every word. Every time we say good bye bye. Imagine words are made of rubber. They are flexible, and you can make them as short or as long as you want. This will enable you to talk and read at any pace, but particularly to slow down the rate of your speech, which is very important in this day and age.

I don't mean by leaving gaps between words, that's cheating and novel out. Now there is a way to lengthen the sentence so that it takes eight seconds or more to read. The way to do this is to stretch out every syllable in every word. This requires concentration because I really mean that you need to stretch out every syllable in every word. Even the word AI is a pretty innocuous and skinny word, but you can still stretch it out to say, I rather than I. Now, listen to me demonstrate reading the sentence more slowly.

Lengthen the sentence, so that it takes about eight seconds to read. On Christmas Eve, many years ago, I lay quietly in my bed. Well, that was a point. in two seconds. Now, I would like you to read and record and time the sentence again. This time, see if you can read the sentence in eight seconds or more without leaving long gaps between words.

Concentrate on lengthening every syllable in every word. At this point, the quality of your read doesn't matter. Ultimately, the point of this exercise is to slow down the speed of your reading by stretching the words out. When you're ready to record, press pause, press play as soon as you're ready to continue. I'm going to read the sentence again and take between 12 and 20 seconds. Of course, it won't sound very good.

But we are only interested at this point in slowing down our speech. If you can do it in 10 or more seconds, then it'll be very easy to record it in Seven seconds which is about the right length when reading to a child. In this way, you will be reading well within your limit. I'll read it again and make it last 10 to 20 seconds on Chris Xmas Eve many years ago. I lay quietly in my bed 17 and a half seconds. didn't sound very good, as I said, but I've managed to stretch it out.

Okay, I now want you to read record and time the same sentence one more time. Remember to again note down how long it takes you to read the sentence. When you're ready to record, press pause, press play as soon as you're ready to continue How long did it take you this time? Did you manage to read the sentence by stretching every syllable in every word, rather than lengthening the gaps between the words. If you didn't manage to slow it down to 10 or 15 seconds, then you are not concentrating on every syllable. Someone wants took 35 seconds to read the sentence.

It sounded awful, but it made seven or eight seconds seem very easy. In this element, we've talked about the major differences between reading to a child and reading to a grown up. You need to read more slowly, more softly. And also you need to read with much more energy and enthusiasm to a child. In the next element. We're going to learn about reading softly