Falling in Love with Read-Aloud Time

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Reading aloud together was at the top or near the top of the list of favorite family activities for each member of our family during our wonderful homeschool years. Happy were the days when the children joined me on the old plaid couch in the basement during our earliest days of homeschooling. Happy, too, were the years when the whole family spread out over the den during their teen years:

  • John on the floor with his Legos®.
  • Bethany, Mary Evelyn, and I scattered in chairs with our latest embroidery or crochet projects.
  • Ray in a soft, comfortable chair with book in hand.

“What just happened?” Mary Evelyn asked. Then we all sat spellbound as we learned what David Copperfield; Anne Shirley; or Marmee, Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy March did next. What precious, precious memories.

Listening and doing was a great combination for our family, both for the children and for me. I found that simply picking up my handwork project at some other time than read-aloud time took me right back to the scenes in the book that I was hearing the last time I had worked on it. Reading aloud is one of the best ways I know to teach children.

It is also one of the best ways I know to strengthen family bonds.

Three Cheers for Books poster by Adrienne Adams,
for Book Week, November 10-16, 1963,
published by The Children’s Book Council, Inc.,
courtesy Library of Congress

It’s been thirty years since I read Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt. That book made multi-generational changes in our family’s life. The lessons I took away from Honey for a Child’s Heart are:

  • Families should read aloud together.
  • Couples should read aloud together.
  • Children are never too old to listen to a parent read aloud.

Though Mrs. Hunt was a believer in Jesus and wrote many Bible study guides, I didn’t concur with all of her book suggestions; and I have not read Mark Hunt’s 2021 updated and expanded edition. However, I appreciate Mrs. Hunt’s heart and heartily applaud her philosophy about reading aloud. Honey for a Child’s Heart made reading aloud a top priority for Ray and me. I had the thrill of meeting Mrs. Hunt when she spoke at the Indiana Association of Christian Home Educators convention several years ago. It was exciting to tell her face-to-face: “Your book changed our family’s life.” In our conversation, she told me that when she and her husband saw a child who was having trouble in life, they said to one another: “That family must not read together.” I will always be grateful for that conversation. She passed away on July 4, 2010, at age 83.

I love this beautiful poem about mothers who read to their children:

My Reading Mother
By American writer Strickland Gilliland (1869-1954)

I had a mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea.
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth;
“Blackbirds” stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness lent with his final breath.

I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings–
Stories that stir with an upward touch.
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be–
I had a Mother who read to me.

I’ll never regret the hours and hours Ray and I spent reading aloud to our boys and girls—our children and our grandchildren, too.

Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
Psalm 131:2

 

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2 Comments

  1. Thank you for this encouragement. It’s so true! Of all the things we have done and all of the curriculum we have used in many years of home education, reading aloud from the bible and reading books with my children have held unfathomable treasures. We have travelled the world, faced wars, met many people from various cultures, been shipwrecked, learned to shoot a bow and arrow, learned from the choices of others, felt the joy of victory and the sting of defeat, and much, much more—all from reading together. The bond we have formed is unbreakable and it never ceases to flow over into our lives as we walk, sit, stand, and rest. We notice things we never would have. We appreciate nature more. God has taught us to value each other and to extend this outside our home. This has largely come from the simple act of reading. If I could go back to our beginning homeschool years, the textbooks would disappear in favor of good books much sooner!!!

  2. With educators as parents and a father who at one point owned 14,000 books; we were readers. My mom read to us.
    I have read to my kids for years while they drew pictures, colored or listened. I noticed the older ones always hung around even when I was reading to the babies. Their dad reads God’s Word with them every day. Books open such an amazing world to them and the education they get is spectacular. It is no wonder my 9 year old tested at a 7th grade level in vocabulary this spring.
    Readers are leaders!

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