Written by Sarah Mackenzie of Read-Aloud Revival
Sometimes I’m discouraged at how few books our family can enjoy reading aloud over a school year. I pretty much always wish I could read more with my kids. I know it’s good for them. I know it’s good for me. I know it’s one of the most powerful ways to connect with my children and buy steroids to bond them to one another.
I know that hearing accurate, beautiful, and sophisticated language patterns is the best way to help my children learn to read, to think, and to write.
But still. I struggle.
Can you relate? Maybe it’s taking you forever to get through your current read-aloud. Maybe you’re struggling to drum up the oomph to make reading aloud a habit. Or maybe you’re just having a hard time getting back into the groove of reading aloud after a bit of a hiatus.
I’ve been in all of those situations, and trust me- I can relate. I want to read aloud, I even LIKE reading aloud, so why the heck do I ever struggle with reading aloud?
And why do you?
REASON #1 You’re not enjoying the book.
Fake-it-till-you-make-it does not work when reading with your children; they can see right through it.
It’s a good idea to read aloud from books you yourself enjoy, because that enthusiasm and delight you feel will be passed right along to your kids. They’ll soak it up and revel in it, even if neither of you realize how important your own enthusiasm actually is.
When you don’t enjoy the book, you’re less likely to get to it every day.
If you’re all reading a gripping book together (like On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson, for example), there’s no way your kids are going to let you get away with 2 or 3 days of not reading aloud. They’ll beg you for it.
And if you enjoy the book yourself? You’ll be happy to ignore the dishes and climb onto the couch to dive into the story instead. #askmehowiknow
What to do if this is you:
Ditch the book.
If you are just not enjoying your family read-aloud, there will be very little gain from pressing forward.
If no one is enjoying the book, quit reading it completely. If your kids are enjoying it but you aren’t, then buy or borrow the audio book and let them listen while you tend to the million other things on your to-do list.
During read-aloud time, choose something that lights you up.
How to make sure it doesn’t happen again:
Use a trusted booklist– here’s one that’s packed with books particularly well-suited to be read aloud. A good solid booklist can ensure that the situation of not liking a book doesn’t happen very often (if at all).
REASON #2
You don’t have read-aloud time built into the day.
You know how you pretty much never forget to brush your teeth before going to bed? And you never forget to start the coffee in the morning? That’s because they’re habits. Same with breakfast. And putting in your contacts. You just do them because that’s what you do at that time of day, every day.
Reading aloud is no different, and you’ll do yourself a giant favor by making it happen at a regular time each day. This can be tricky at the start, but once you get in the habit, you’ll notice that picking up the book and getting started won’t take so much effort or gumption.
And anyway, you’ll be reading aloud a book you all enjoy, so your kids are bound to remind you! 🙂
What to do if this is you:
Choose a peg in your day to hang read-alouds on. A peg is just something that happens every day in your home anyway, no matter what.
Do you eat breakfast every day? Lunch? Those are pegs. Slap a 15-minute reading session onto one of those mealtimes and I bet you’ll be shocked at how much progress you make on your books, and how many happy read-aloud memories you make over time.
How to make sure it doesn’t happen again:
Well, seasons and family schedules change, and you probably will find yourself in this situation again.
When you notice that you haven’t been fitting in read-aloud time at a regular time, re-assess. Be creative about how and when to fit in read-aloud time that works with your current season in life.
REASON #3 You don’t know what to choose.
Picking a book feels like such a commitment, you know? It takes a long time to read a book aloud! Even a short chapter book like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is going to take somewhere between 3-4 hours to read.
When my family comes to the end of a book, I will experience two things- one, a thrill that we get to start a new book (because I love starting new things!) and two, a bit of anxiety about which one to choose next.
Over at the Read-Aloud Revival, we’ve been paying really close attention to what makes for a good read-aloud and which books the fabulous families in our community are enjoying best… and we’ve collected them all in one place.
It’s our brand new (and FREE) RAR Booklist. Every single book on it has been selected because of it’s read-aloud-ability (it’s a word, I’m sure of it).
What to do if this is you:
How to make sure it doesn’t happen again:
Refer back to the booklist!! (See, this one’s easy). 😉
The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleishman is sure to
elicit some giggles and guffaws!
You don’t have to tweak your entire school day to make reading aloud something that happens frequently in your home. You don’t have to create a plan or make a resolution to enjoy lots of books with your kids.
You just need to figure out what’s holding you back, remove that obstacle, and then spend your time doing the thing you’ll be so glad you did twenty years from now.
Read aloud to those kids. They’ll adore you for it.
Tell us in the comments- which obstacle do you find yourself most often getting hung up on?
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It took us a bit to get into reading aloud, simply because I have wigglers. And I was not okay with them keeping their hands busy while I was reading aloud to them. I began to catch them at the breakfast table, since I’m always the first to be done. They were then able to eat and listen which morphed into other things like scribbling and listening, playing and listening. I think I had this picture in my head of my kids around me listening intently to every word on the couch and we don’t (always) look like that. Sometimes, we read at the table, sometimes outside, and it’s all okay because I know they’re listening!
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It took us 7 weeks to get through Redwall (just finished 2 weeks ago), it was a long slog at some points! I think the book was above our level and maybe that’s why it took us so long. I had heard such good things about it but after we finished I thought maybe we could have waited a couple of years. Another reason why it took us so long is that we were only reading it at bedtime and that time always gets squeezed, so we were only getting a good chunk of reading done about 3-4 days/week. Toward the end we started reading some during the day (downside: without Dad) and that helped to speed things up. Right now we’re reading The 21 Balloons and it’s working great – it’s a much shorter and lighter story and it’s going quickly.
Spot on! We’ve been reading aloud for 17 years, but only 13 of those years were for “school”. Everything you said resonates with me as it was our experience, too. Great tips!! All of them 🙂 We read aloud all kinds of books including fiction. It’s one of my kids’ favorite thing about homeschool. We haven’t encountered hurdles other than the strain in my voice when we start the new year, and I’m reading an hour or more after taking the summer off. Oh one more hurdle: I don’t like reading the same picture book over and over again, so often I “read” the pictures. It’s more interesting for me, and the kiddos don’t seem to mind!
We just finished “Pilgrim Stories” as a part of our history program for this year (Beautiful Feet Books Primary) and can I just say a huge hallelujah that we made it to the end?! Sometimes I forget that 1/4 of our curricula is reading out loud, so that gives me permission to pick just-for-fun books for our read aloud family time. If our family time read aloud isn’t fun for all of us then it feels like a chore and no one wants more of those. So for school books, we push through and finish, but for family time we stick to the love it or leave it rule. 🙂
Love this post – and love the book list!!
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Thank you for such a great post, and your fabulous podcast. As an avid reading family, I carefully choose to read books that I really want to read aloud. That is my one and only trick to reading masses of books to my kids. And no, they would never let a mealtime go past without another chapter… collections of words are apparently just as important to filling their tanks as the food on their plates.
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Thank you for the list! I just sent it to my email and I’m excited to look through it. My daughter and I try to do about 20 minutes of reading together every night and when we pick a clunker of a book it becomes such a chore for the both of us. We are currently halfway through the Narnia series and the last couple ones have been really difficult for her to enjoy. I think after this one we will take a break from them and read some standalones.
Her favorite readalouds are relatively short (150 pages or so) and have some pictures in the text. So far she has loved Beverly Cleary (we read the entire Ramona series in a little over a month) and Roald Dahl.
We just finished Alice in Wonderland & I told my daughter that, from now in, if I don’t enjoy reading a book, I will stop & she can read it on her own when she knows how (she’s 6). I’ll also use your idea of getting the audio book.
Oh my, it was so painful. A good reminder that not all “classics” are worth reading!
Another possibility that I’ve experienced – my voice gets tired! My kids are old enough (9 and up) to listen for a solid 45 minutes to a GOOD book, but my voice won’t go that long. So we’ve switched to audiobooks!
I second some of the comments about their voice giving out. I loved the ideas you gave. I really need to find some books that are exciting and I will enjoy reading. I would like reading to my kids to become a normal thing. I put my email in before but never received the copy so I just did it again. I’m worried it won’t work again. I would like to use your recommendations though!
Thanks for sharing, have been thinking these exacts things lately. It’s encouraging just to know I’m not the only one. I’ve ditched a few read alouds in the past because I’ve not enjoyed them, a good book is cross generational. I think for me just now I have to reassess our schedule and and make a few changes.
It was always timing for us. Lots of chaos and energy and when the littlest takes a nap, I must too. We are reading How the War Saved My Life at bedtime. I actually lie in my bed and they gather around and listen to me read it on my smartphone. I do not know how I found this book but cannot believe how much I love it. It’s more for my 10 yr-old, but I know that even if the littles don’t quite get it, their getting something from it.
Mealtime for sure worked best for our read-aloud time. Highly creative books or ones that made everyone laugh like the Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I encourage you young mamaa to have papa read right after dinner for at least 15 minutes before anyone is excused. My home-schoolers are grown now and have their own families but we all have such fond memories of this time together.