Read Aloud Time
If you asked Ray or me or any of our children what their favorite parts of homeschooling were, all of us would include family read aloud time. How precious those times were for us. Perhaps many of you do this already, but I haven’t mentioned it in a long time and I want to be sure to suggest it for any of you who haven’t yet made it a regular part of your lives together.
Children are never too old to listen to a parent read aloud.
Here is a short video we made a couple of years ago about reading aloud.
It’s been more than 20 years since I read Honey for a Child’s Heart, first published in 1969. That book made multi-generational changes in our family’s life.
The lessons I took away from Honey for a Child’s Heart are these:
- Families should read aloud together.
- Couples should read aloud together.
- Children are never too old to listen to a parent read aloud.
I had read aloud to our children a great deal when they were very young, but I needed to hear what this book said about middle school and high school. I don’t agree with all of the book suggestions that Mrs. Hunt offered, but I applaud her philosophy. After reading Honey for a Child’s Heart, reading aloud became a top priority for me and for Ray, too.
I had the thrill of meeting Gladys Hunt when she spoke at the Indiana Association of Home Educators convention several years ago. It was exciting to tell her face-to-face: “Your book changed our family’s life.” She told me that when she and her husband saw a child having trouble in life, they would say to one another, “That family must not read together.”
Some of my favorite family memories from the time our children were teenagers were the evenings that the five of us gathered in the den to listen to Ray read David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, or some other tale. Bethany, Mary Evelyn, and I embroidered or did another handcraft. John built with Legos. Read-alouds continued well into our children’s adulthoods. Precious, precious memories. And you can imagine my joy when I hear about our children reading aloud to their children — and to their spouses!
Need some suggestions for middle school children? The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder or Heidi by Johanna Spyri (unabridged) or Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli would be good for starters.
The Lord will reign forever,
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!
Psalm 146:10