Some of the best afternoons at Lear House are also the quietest ones. Over our last two Shared Reading sessions with Catherine from The Reader, residents gathered together over poetry, and what followed was some of the warmest conversation we have had in a long while.
What Is Shared Reading?
Shared Reading is a beautifully simple idea. A trained Reader Leader chooses a poem or a piece of writing and reads it aloud to the group. Everybody listens. Then everybody talks about it.
There is no test at the end, no right answer to arrive at, and no pressure on anyone to read aloud or to speak if they would rather just listen. What matters is the shared experience of hearing something read well and having the time and space to respond to it.
The approach was developed by The Reader, a national charity based at the Mansion House in Liverpool’s Calderstones Park. The charity now supports hundreds of Shared Reading groups every week in care homes, libraries, hospitals, community centres and prisons across the country. There is a lovely local connection too, as the very first Shared Reading group was held just across the water in Birkenhead.
Reading Poetry Together
Catherine reads the poem aloud, and often more than once, so that everyone has a chance to settle into the rhythm of it and catch the lines they missed the first time round. Hearing a poem read well is a very different experience from reading it silently on a page, and it is one that a lot of us do not get very often as adults.
Poetry works particularly well in a group setting. Poems are short enough to hold in mind all at once, and they tend to reward being turned over and looked at from different angles. A single image or phrase can be enough to start a conversation that runs for twenty minutes.
Then We Talk
The talking is where these sessions really come alive. We share what the poem made us think of, what it reminded us of, and how it made us feel.
Very often a line will unlock a memory. A poem about the sea brings back childhood summers. A few words about a kitchen or a garden or a particular kind of weather, and suddenly someone is telling a story that nobody in the room has heard before. Residents find themselves remembering places they lived, work they did and people they loved, and the conversation moves easily between the poem and the lives in the room.
It always gets everyone talking. That is the phrase we keep coming back to when we describe these afternoons, and it is the simplest way to explain why we value them.
Why It Matters to Us
Shared Reading brings a number of things together that we care about at Lear House. It offers genuine mental stimulation and a chance to think and reflect. It creates connection between residents who might not otherwise fall into conversation. And it treats everyone in the room as a person with something worth saying, which is exactly how we want our residents to feel every day.
Research from The Reader has found that Shared Reading improves wellbeing, reduces loneliness and helps people find new meaning in their lives. We can see all three of those things happening in our lounge on a session afternoon.
The sessions sit alongside the rest of our activities programme, which includes live music, exercise and games, craft groups and regular visits from community partners and nursery children. Together they make for full, varied weeks with plenty to look forward to.
Thank You, Catherine
Our thanks go to Catherine and to everyone at The Reader for bringing Shared Reading to Lear House. Catherine has a real gift for choosing the right poem and then giving the group the space to find its own way into it. We are already looking forward to the next session.
If you would like to know more about Shared Reading or find a group near you, you can visit The Reader’s website at thereader.org.uk.