Shared reading

Shared reading is a wonderful way to reduce isolation and engage older adults in an activity they may not have partaken in since childhood, if ever. Hearing a good story read aloud has the ability to stimulate memories and bring people together through shared experiences. I have had the opportunity to run shared reading groups for older adults over zoom, and the varied and vibrant conversations we've had, inspired by the characters in the stories, have been wonderful. Furthermore, reading poetry together can ignite our imagination, as we read metaphors and words that are not part of our everyday vocabulary.  I have read poetry aloud to people living with dementia and feel inspired by the different ways poetry can touch a person. The sounds of words, the rhythm of the language, the spark of old memories.

Sonnet 29

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
    For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Shakespeare