The Importance of Reading

Ever since our children were little babies reading aloud has been an important activity in our family.  Our children love books and love diving into the exciting worlds, into the lives of the characters and imagining wonderful stories.  Because of our love for reading aloud I was thrilled to win a copy of The Read - Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease at our Homeschool Conference.

This book is full of amazing information about the importance of reading aloud to your children, the different stages of reading aloud, the difference of silent reading and reading aloud, the effects of television, and most importantly lists and lists of amazing read alouds for different ages and different genres.  If you are not already convinced about the important of reading aloud, the first half of the book will statistically show you the benefit that reading aloud gives to your children in their learning academically and also in your relationships with your children.  Once you start implementing reading aloud into your daily life, the second part of the book fills you with years and years of great sources of amazing books!


The Read Aloud Handbook

In our family we started that we would always read aloud to our children every night before bedtime.  Sometimes it was for 10 minutes and sometimes when we would continue for 30 minutes or more.  As our children have gotten older and we have started homeschooling our read aloud time has also been implemented during other times during the day.  We usually take 20-40 minutes each morning to read together either chapter books, great classics, or books from the Catholic Mosaic or Five in a Row book list.  Sometimes we all are cuddled up on a couch together, and sometimes I sit and read in the comfy chair and our children are at my feet playing with wooden trains, blocks or other quiet toys. 

As our older children are starting to read independently we are definitely promoting their own individual love for reading, but will also continue read aloud time in our home, hopefully for a long time.  I am going to start a little series here at Children of the Church where I try to check in once a month with what we have been reading and am calling it simply "What We've Been Reading!"  I think it will be a fun way to keep a list for our own family of what books we are reading and also share some of our favorite books at different developmental stages!  I also love reading myself and think that having our children see me prioritizing time to personally read is very important so I will share some of what I am reading as well.  I would love for you to join in and share some of your favorite books that you are reading with your children so we can learn together!

Also, I have also learned about the fabulous Usborne books and am hosting my first Facebook Party this weekend, Saturday August 8th at 8pm CST.  If any of you would like to come chat, learn more about great books and maybe even win some fun prizes just leave a message here on the blog or on the Children of the Church Facebook Page and I can add you to our party!  If you cannot come to the party Saturday evening, but still want to order some awesome books for your homeschool year, children's home library or for birthday/Christmas gifts stop by the Usborne site using this link to find some awesome selections! 

Click HERE to order awesome Usborne Books!

Find Awesome Usborne Books HERE!!