{This week’s Spotlight on the Crew article is brought to you from Jill, at Blessed Beyond a Doubt.}
Read aloud time has become a family highlight each day after lunch. I’m not quite sure who enjoys it more – the children or me?
Many intellectual and spiritual conversations have sparked from our countless hours of reading chapter books together.
It is my intent that that a few of these tips might encourage and make your read aloud time more pleasurable while building priceless memories for you and your children.
10 Tips in Making Read Aloud Time Fantastic
- Always stop for the day at an intense part – you want your children to beg for more. Don’t feel like you have to stop at the end of a chapter.
- Always read a bio about the author – find out where the author is from and dig around in their childhood. This will help you relate to the story.
- Always be consistent – we like to snuggle on my bed after lunch when the little ones are napping.
- Always allow busy ones to do something with their hands – I allow the younger ones to color or play quietly with a small toy on the floor.
- Always make read aloud time a special treat – it is considered a privileged when they are allowed to stay for read aloud time. Make certain stipulations.
- Always pick one child to narrate after a chapter – this makes the children pay attention and gives them an opportunity to practice public speaking.
- Always expose your children to different genres – we usually rotate and try to read books that take place in our history studies.
- Always bring your book on errands – I can’t tell you how much we have enjoyed a book while in waiting rooms or simply at a park on a beautiful day.
- Always ask moral and spiritual questions – look up scripture with your children pertaining to the actions or situation in the book. Did they behave in a righteous way? How could they have handled it differently?
- Always enhance the book with a project or field trip – we have often made ethnic meals, visited a location, or just looked online for more research on various topics of interest in the book.
These are just a few of the tips that have made our read aloud time a blessing. Each family is different, so I am sure your read aloud time will look somewhat different. And that is perfectly fine, there is no right or wrong way to implement read aloud time in your homeschool.
Just do it!
I must admit, read aloud must be made a priority or it won’t happen. Pick several books to read each semester and add it to your daily schedule.
There are so many benefits to reading aloud to your children that you can incorporate your reading time into many subjects, such as, vocabulary, history, science, and grammar. Have your child copy a paragraph for copywork and use those words as their spelling assignments. The ideas are endless.
Here are our TOP 24 books for children that have ignited interesting conversation on controversial topics within our family.
Do you have any tips to add to the list to make read aloud time fantastic?
Jill is a homeschool mother of 5 boys and 1 Princess. She enjoys the simple pleasures of faith, family, and just being home. She shares encouragement, printables, easy recipes, product reviews, and simple frugal tips for the busy homeschool mom. She just released a FREE biblical character ebook: 100+ Tips and Resources to Train Children HIS ways on her blog Blessed Beyond a Doubt.