If you’re like most of the country, you have become your child’s primary teacher overnight. Reading, math, science, art, handwriting and a number of other subjects have all been dropped in your lap for the foreseeable future. Before I say much else: You’ve got this.
Many are feeling the pressure that comes with the responsibility of teaching their child for the next several weeks or rest of the year. Some of you are even working from home and schooling your kids. My hat is off to you. It may or may not help that there is an overwhelming amount of resources and links and ideas circulating on the internet. If you’re searching out the most important thing when it comes to your child’s education (besides beliefs and values), look no further than your bookshelf.
The most important thing you can do for your child’s education (especially right now) is quite simply read aloud. Sarah MacKenzie, founder of Read Aloud Revival and author of The Read Aloud Family states:
Reading aloud with our kids is indeed the best use of our time and energy as parents. It’s more important than just about anything else we can do. -Sarah MacKenzie
Why Read Aloud?
Most of us parents would be thrilled to raise a life long learner: a child who yearns after his or her passion long after school is over and the lessons are completed for the day. It takes a life long reader to create a life long learner.
Read Aloud Benefit #1: Academic ‘Success’
Success can mean a million different things. The word makes me nervous, so hear me out. Reading aloud to our kids gives them the best shot of being avid readers and thus becoming life long learners in whatever they choose to do with their lives after they spread their wings and leave the nest.
Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, sites a study noting students in wealthy family situations consistently score higher than students in poverty, based on seventy-five years of SAT statistics. The main cause of this discrepancy is wealthy families read to their children more often, have more words in conversation, and their homes contain more books, magazines, and newspapers. Children in wealthy homes heard 45 million words by age 4 while children in working class homes only heard 13 million.
This study tugs at my heartstrings, but much good has come from this research. Many programs have been implemented to get books into the hands of all children. And getting back to the topic at hand: those numbers showcase how important reading aloud can be for our children.
There are a million resources floating around right now on how to homeschool your kids, but if you do nothing else in your day, simply pick up a book and read.
Read Aloud Benefit #2: Relationship and Connection
One of my favorite things in this world is to be cuddled up on the couch with all my kiddos around me reading a book. Reading aloud to our kids gives us built in time for relationship, connection, and physical touch. We can wonder together if animals really can talk while reading Charlotte’s Web or laugh every time someone in our family calls a pen a ‘frindle’ after reading one of my favorite books: Frindle. Our shared reading experiences gives our family another way to bond and connect and that brings me (and I hope them) great joy.
Read Aloud Benefit #3: Presence
When reading aloud to my kids, I am fully in the moment. 100% of me is in the story, reading and enjoying it with them. I am present. I wish I could say that was the case for every single minute of my day, but that just wouldn’t be true. When I read aloud, I have the opportunity with each and every book to be fully present with my people.
What if my kids are reading?
In MacKenzie’s book, The Read Aloud Family, she states: Most of us stop reading to our kids as soon as they can read for themselves, and almost no one is reading to middle-school and high-school age kids – parents or teachers. This, according to Trelease, is the main reason most kids don’t read for pleasure.
If we want our kids to be life long learners and thus life long readers, we need them to want to read for pleasure. And if we want our kids to read for pleasure, we need to read aloud to them…even the big kids.
Implementing The Most Important Thing
If you get on board with reading aloud being the most important thing we can do as parents (again, besides beliefs and values), then it is time to begin.
When?
First, decide when you will read aloud. Many of you are homeschooling, so you can fit it into your homeschool day. (Also, I’ve mentioned this before, but you don’t need to be homeschooling all day long, if you don’t want to. Cross reference with this article.) If you don’t get anything else in during your school day, read aloud. There have been days we have sat on the couch with a stack of books and nothing else was completed except for the pile of paperbacks. And I still call it a win. Another way to get reading aloud in is tie it to a routine. We read before rest time and bedtime and that ensures it happens everyday.
Start small.
If reading aloud isn’t your thing, start with one chapter, one book, five minutes. Try to increase it each day if you can. If we read to our kids for 20 minutes a day for just 300 days out of the year, we will have read for 6,000 minutes or 100 hours in a year. It’s astonishing what a small daily habit can accomplish.
What does it look like?
When it comes to what the read aloud time looks like, it will look different for all of us. Most times at our house it looks like me holding a baby while reading and being interrupted 27 times by three kiddos about needing a drink, telling me about their ‘owie’, or the classic ‘she’s touching me’. It isn’t picture perfect, people.
The most important thing can be done on the couch, in your bed, at the dining room table, outside on a blanket. My biggest tip: keep your expectations low. Kids don’t have to be sitting still and absolutely silent while you read. Most kids can listen and many even listen better with something in their hands. Some kids may want a matchbox car to play with or a doll to hold and rock. Bigger kids may want to draw or sit on an exercise ball. Reading aloud doesn’t look like kids sitting perfectly still, eyes fixed on the book, and quiet for 20 minutes everyday. In fact, most times our read aloud time looks like the complete opposite.
The Most Important Thing
We all want the best for our kids and reading aloud is a one stop shop offering so many benefits. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed with the amount of resources out there, with the responsibility to educate your child, with the weight of school and work and what’s going on in the world, I challenge you to put away the paper and pencil for awhile, pick up a book and sit down with your kiddos and just read. I will leave you with this…
When she was hardly more than a girl, Miss Minnie had gone away to a teacher’s college and prepared herself to teach by learning many cunning methods that she never afterward used. For Miss Minnie loved children and she loved books, and she taught merely by introducing the one to the other. –Wendell Berry, Watch with Me
Reading aloud truly is important at any age. I remember my 6th grade teacher reading “A “Wrinkle in Time” aloud to us—using her voice to reflect the different characters. I loved it! I read aloud to my middle grade and elementary students daily. We used the story to learn about plot, setting, character traits, etc. I’ve read aloud to every grade Ive had the pleasure to teach. Now, I read aloud to my grandchildren. It’s a time to snuggle in close and learn about a world outside our walls. Thanks for the reminder, Vanessa!😊
Thanks so much for sharing, Kim! I have no doubt you have passed on the love of books to so so many students, I watched it first hand! There is so much to learn by opening a book. I’m sure reading to your grandbabies is a special time for all! Missing you!