Reading aloud to your kids

blacbird said:

Read to them, as long as they allow it, until they tell you Stop, I can read it myself.

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No, keep reading even then.



I'm 27. When my brother (now 25 and married) and I were little, Mom read to us every day. Dad read to us less often, but I remember snuggling up by the fire or under a blanket around Christmas time while he read "A Christmas Carol."

I started reading when I was 3 and basically never stopped. Brotherling wasn't far behind.

We went on vacations every year, and one of the great vacation traditions was buying a book for Mom to read aloud. (obviously we also had books for silent reading when Mom took a nap)

And even just a few years ago, on our last real road trip, the chorus of "read to us, Mom!" and, "come on, Mom, keep reading! Just one more chapter, please!" continued until she was hoarse.

I read over Mom's shoulder (and always have) and it drives her nuts. She tries to make me take over the reading but I stammer when I read aloud so I refuse to do it. Anyway, the visual input helps me focus on the story.

My sister-in-law doesn't appreciate books on quite the same level, so we've kind of stopped doing this since she joined the family. Also, usually she and Brotherling have work stuff to do on their laptops and phones while we drive.

But if we were to do a real family vacation with the five of us, you can bet Brotherling and I would turn up with a handful of middle-grade or YA adventure or mystery novels (Mom's preferred genres) and a resounding cry of, "Read to us, Mom!"

Amen to this. I wouldn't love reading as much as I do if my parents didn't surround me with stories as a child. Just telling me stories, made-up or not, was also wonderful.

I had the most awesome fifth grade teacher who still read to us after lunch. My sixth grade teacher read aloud once in a while, too.

We read to both kids every night. We also have "family reading time" where everyone sits down together and reads to themselves. (Yes, this includes the toddler, who sits in her crib and mimics reading her board books.)

Another great thing parents can do is show enthusiasm for books themselves. My other half and I will also discuss books we've read in front of the kids. (We got into a heated debate one time about whether the grisly reality of Song of Ice and Fire was over the top or not. But we had to keep it in kid-friendly terms, which was amusing.)

I read to my son daily when he was little, and sporadically after that (always the Christmas classics, though). Then during his senior year in high school, I read him the unabridged Les Miserables. We decided to do it on impulse after watching the musical, and it turned into an incredibly cool six-month experience.

Now when he's home from college we read shorter pieces--poetry, short stories, David Sedaris. We're currently working our way through a pop introduction to physics so I have some clue to what he's studying.

So yeah--don't stop. Or if you've stopped, see if you can start up again. I wouldn't trade that time with my son for anything.

Well, I can think of several things not mentioned that would benefit kids more than reading to them, but there's no doubt it's important. They'll tell you when it's time to stop, and when they do, listen to them. You can make them shy away from reading as easily as you made them interested in the first place.

There's certain ages through which you have to make reading to your kid extra fun or special or you'll make them resent it. Just like any other activity that they *have* to do. If you make them feel obligated to give up time with their friends or doing their activities in order to let you read to them (even if you say it's their choice, but they know you're resentful if they choose something else), they'll hate it.

But if you work it into time that is usually family time, and you choose books that they are interested in, it shouldn't be a problem. Mom reading in the car is a great example of this.
Alternatively, when Dad wanted to read to us when we were older, he'd say, "Hey, I was thinking we could read [book title - usually fantasy] together. Are you going to be home tonight?" and we'd read a couple of chapters before bed any night that everyone was home. We all had other books we were reading that we could enjoy if someone was gone, so there was no pressure.

We were allowed/encouraged to read aloud, as well. Brotherling did once in a while. Even I tried a few times. But both of us prefer to listen and/or read silently.

...Also potentially a driving factor, our computer and TV time was limited.

mimstrel said:

...Also potentially a driving factor, our computer and TV time was limited.

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still is for those willing to invest in a sledgehammer, and compensatory cookie

My daughter is 10 and perfectly capable of reading herself, but we still have the evening routine of me reading to her before bed. Usually a chapter of a novel, unless she's taken too long to get ready for bed, (which usually means she's spent half an hour sitting in her room, naked and daydreaming) then she misses out on reading time.
She has never not wanted the bedtime read, it's like our special wind-down bonding time at the end of the day, when all arguments and hard feelings are dismissed before sleep

My boys are 11 and 13 and I still read to them every night. Right now, we're reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I read to my son every night for years--too many books to remember, but the biggest challenge was finishing The Fellowship of the Ring over one summer. (The point size was tiny!) He's now a senior in high school applying to universities and is literate and well read. I will always remember our reading time together, and I know he benefited from it tremendously.

This is the Best Thread Ever. No, it just is.

My son is 9-months old. One of his favorite things is taking the books off his shelves and laying in the floor looking at the pictures. We read almost every day, but sometimes he gets so excited about turning pages himself that it doesn't always make a great bedtime activity. He loves to be read to while he plays though.

My friend has a daughter who just turned 3.
Once, her mom told her to play with me. She grabbed my hand and took me back to her room to show me her books. She's got a big bookcase and there were books all over the floor. "Read me!"
"Okay, which one should I read?"
She sat down, pointed at a stack, and grinned up at me. "Whole pile of them!" she proclaimed.

So I read her a whole pile of books.


Ken - Growing up, both my brother and I hated the limitations our parents placed on our tech usage. 1/2 hour of TV per day, and it had to be educational; the news was one during dinner and usually we'd watch one or two shows a week with our parents. They increased the time as we got older.

Once we were in college, we talked about it. Both of us agreed it was one of the best decisions our parents ever made.

I don't remember my parents reading to us when we were children, but our house was flooded with books and my sisters and I were bookworms from an early age. My husband also comes from a family of avid readers, and when our children were born we both read to them every day. Sometimes several times a day. My eldest's first word was 'book' (at first I thought she was saying 'bac', like a chicken, until she pointed at the book in my hand). Her literacy test during her first year in primary school came back that she had the reading age of an 11+. She was reading the Harry Potter series in her first year at primary school, but her teacher wasn't happy that she already knew how to read and write, and tried to limit her because "children at that stage are only supposed to read/write at level...whatever it was." I had to fight the school to allow her to read fiction books in class and not Biff and Buff Go Swimming. Very frustrating. My younger daughter, at 6 yrs old had the reading age of a 15+, but thank the stars we moved house and changed her school to one with an accelerated reading programme.

I'm convinced reading to our daughters from when they were inside the womb (What can I say? I was sort of loopy like that and also taught them my own version of sign language as babies bc I don't care what anybody says, I had NO IDEA what the different types of crying meant, so a simple tap on the lips for 'I'm hungry', for example, came in handy at 6 months) and my husband taking them every Saturday to the library has turned them into such great readers and communicators. My kids are not Einsteins or super-duper smarties. They are normal girls, aged 12 and 9, who read an average of 10 books each, per week. Our conversations at the dinner table are never boring bc we're talking about books. And now, they enjoy reading to US! Maybe we are weird, but this Christmas for example, we're all planning to buy/take out from the library a book to share after our Christmas meal, in front of the fireplace. Maybe this will change as they grow up, but the hubs and I are overjoyed that our daughters never say "I'm bored," and we're convinced they'll bring the love of books to their children, also.

Some of my earliest memories are of reading to my younger brother when I was 7 and he was 2. My daughter just turned two and we're marking the last 12 days before Christmas by having her open a new book to read each day.

We read to both of our kids from day one. My son is a reader. My daughter is less so. This is because reading is harder for her, and I can no longer figure out how to read to her and get her enough sleep. She's up for a 7 AM bus; in the younger grades her bus came at 8:30. We used to read from 9 - 9:15. Now, I'm trying to have her in bed by 8:45. The earlier schedule for preteens and teens just sucks. (Yes, she is tired enough to go to sleep at that hour.) I wish I could still read to her. I might convince her to go beyond chapter books. Her tastes would bore my ten year old if we read aloud as a family.

Both of mine (6 & 4) have bedtime story every single night. On the days that my 6yr old does great in school behavior chart, she gets two stories. Always the stories are of their picking. Damn books are taking over my house.

I read to my kids every night even though they can read for themselves. I won't stop until they ask, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I have read to all three of my kids, but my son now feels he's too old (16), and only asks me to read so he can fall asleep listening to me. I must be a very boring reader, lol!

I still love reading to my younger two, and I love doing ALL the voices. I don't care if they want me reading to them or if they listen to an audiobook or just read to themselves...as long as they continue to love reading, I'll be one proud mom!

I used to teach kindergarten and my little students absolutely loved it when I read to them aloud. I'd used dif. voices sometimes. When I read Charlotte's Web, they borrowed every single copy from the school library and would 'read along' with me, even though they couldn't yet read. I warned them in advance that Mrs. E was probably going to cry at one part, and five kids jumped up to get me a Kleenex. And when I read Stone Fox, omg. They couldn't wait for our reading time right after recess. Kids love to be read to and seeing their little faces, seeing how engaged they are in the story, it's a wonderful thing with zero downside. And having all kinds of books available for children really gets them excited about books and reading, learning new things and building their vocabulary and all. Can't say enough about how wonderful it is, for children and reader both. I feel really lucky I was able to instill a love of books and reading in those little kids.

I had teachers who used to read to us. One read to us during lunch to keep us quiet, most read to us in the period after recess. If it was too cold we got to race to the fence three times and then sister would read to us for a whole hour! I was one of the last to the fence-- hindered by orthopedic oxfords and my grandma's potato pancakes with lots of jam-- but when sister asked who could catch us up on what happened the chapter before- I was the STAR! As I remember the books were all pretty Catholic with a deep moral lesson --usually about meekness but always a good fist fight or two in between the the moralising. Brass Knuckles is the only one I remember by name. Of course they were older books, circa 1915-- because my teachers chose them. It was okay with us. We were baby boomer kids--not much tv yet, still used to a voice on the radio.

Now Sister Isabel in the 5th grade is especially memorable. She could be pretty scaly as a general rule but she must have been a history buff. She read us a lot of history. I remember one about Coronado that had us pulling down the big wall map to check his route. She told us about a couple of kids from Kansas who found bits of Spanish bridles and coins in a cave near Liberal. There was a story of a farmer finding a rusted Spanish sword in his wheat field. I was always keeping an eye out for Spanish swords in wheat fields after that. Lots of beer cans in the family wheat, no silver inlaid swords. She read us a book about Mexico and one about the Franks--think that one was by Asimov for some reason.

Best of all, she read us Treasure Island. It was a split classroom, 5th and 6th graders, and since it was a Catholic school and the Baby Boom, the class was close to thirty. Teaching a classic like that to ten and eleven year olds, these days, would be considered enrichment at best and more likely an impossible dream. We had a diagram of an old sailing ship to help us out--mimeograph purple on white paper-- with forecastle, boatswain, port and starboard. We Kansas kids knew very little about the sea. Even tides, jetties and wharves were foreign to us. But once Jim Hawkins met up with Billy Bones it was all worth learning. There was a chalk map on the blackboard of the island. It was in colored chalk with the Union Jack next to it and stayed there until the book was finished. Teachers were expert at drawing maps on the chalkboard in those pre copier days. I remember us being sad when Sister erased the map.

The point is, most teachers don't have the time for this kind of class activity. You would think with copiers and e-grades it would be different. Enrichment classes have gone by the wayside--too many assessments to pass, too many parents wanting the focus on the nuts and bolts classes, not enough time for a book with lots of archaic vocabulary that will take months to master. If you want your child to have an enrichment experience you will probably end up doing it yourself. Be sure to choose something you like. It is hell for you and the kid if you have to teach something in detail that you don't love yourself.

My parents read to me but it was mainly poetry and dog and horse stories, things they and my siblings enjoyed but always made me cry. ( I swear seeing Walter Farley on a book spine used to make me tear up!) I liked a good soft history book or something about rocks, minerals, fossils, stars, planets, native Americans. Or about far away dangerous places, like the Superstition Mountains or the Amazon. THis is what I read to my grandkids--Oh and Laura and Mary--can't grow up without Laura and Mary. --s6

Shakey, you've brought up something that doesn't get talked about enough in terms of reading to children: non-fiction. Bravo for Sister Isabel!

Usually, we think of reading to children as reading fiction, and it seems to be accepted that children will listen to a 'harder', more advanced story than they could read for themselves. There's no reason that wouldn't work with well-written non-fiction. History is an obvious one, or books about life in unfamiliar places. Or, poetry: a kid struggling to master the words is not going to enjoy a poem as much as one who can listen to a reading. And, children understand a lot more of the words they hear than the words they can decode. As an extra benefit, it would expose not-very-fluent-readers to ideas and works that they wouldn't find on their own.

But then, I think that Shakespeare should be taught by having the students watch a DVD of a performance, then working on the play, rather than have a selection of unwilling classmates forced to recite unfamiliar words.

Update: Now that summer is here, I'm reading to my daughter a few nights a week. (She's choosing whether to read or not.) We're reading Lyddie by Katherine Patterson.