Feeling Finch and the Voice That Shows How It Feels

In the singing-reeds of Story Pond lives Feeling Finch, a tiny bright-feathered bird with the biggest voice at the pond. Finches sing in a hundred different tunes, and Feeling Finch reads the very same way — she lets her voice show how the words feel, so a story sounds alive.

A young reader was reading a very exciting page in a small, flat, sleepy voice. “Look out! The wave is coming!” — but it came out like “look out the wave is coming” with no zip at all. Feeling Finch fluttered down. “The words are exciting,” she chirped kindly, “but your voice is asleep! Let your voice show the feeling.”

She pointed to the clues right on the page. “See this ! ? That means BIG and loud. See a ? — your voice hops up at the end, like a little question-jump.” Then she read it with her whole heart: “Look OUT! The wave is COMING!” — fast and bright and a little scared, just like the story. She never teased him for the flat read; she just showed him the feeling was hiding in the marks.

Say it with Feeling Finch, out loud: “Read like they feel, not flat and slow — give the words a voice, and go.”

He tried again, and this time his voice went big at the ! and hopped up at the ?. The page came alive — you could almost see the wave. “It sounds real now!” he grinned. Feeling Finch trilled a happy note, glad he’d found the feeling himself.

That is Feeling Finch’s move. Don’t read in a flat, sleepy voice. Look at the marks — a ! means big, a ? hops up — and let your voice show how the words feel. When you sound like the story feels, reading turns into something wonderful to listen to.