If you want your child to read...

If you want your CHILD to be a reader...then YOU need to be a reader.

Last year, we moved all of our books to a central location in our home.  We carved out a library from our previously designated dining room. Your children understand - the things you treasure, the items you have around you, they are important - my son knows, our books are important.

He also knows I am a voracious reader.  He has not always known reading was a passion of mine.  Especially since he rarely saw me read.  Oh, occasionally he would see me with a book, but his waking hours were seldom my reading hours - they were my working' or taking care of him hours.  The act of reading was tucked away under the cover of darkness or in the early morning hours before he awoke.

As a homeschooling family, we of course read together.  However, depending on the curriculum for the year, the amount of time we spent actively reading varied. Until we took a literature class together and read 12 books during family read aloud time within a period of 8 eight months. 

Our family read aloud time was a treasure and the friends we made with Heidi, Lad the dog, the pirates on Treasure Island, and others will be cherished for a lifetime.  We have continued our family read aloud time and have intentionally carved out individual, day-time pleasure reading time - along with ensuring our 'curriculum' is rich with subject reading.

If you want your child to be a lifelong reader...then you need to be a lifelong reader.

A study by the National Endowment of the Arts evaluates "reading habits alongside other behaviors and related outcomes including academic achievement, employment, and community involvement." Their conclusion:  Advanced readers accrue personal, professional, and social advantages.  Deficient readers run higher risks of failure in all three areas.*

To read the NEA Executive Summary - click here:  To Read or Not To Read - A Question of National Consequence

 

Are you interested in taking the reading challenge? 

A fellow librarian has challenged her patrons to read 10 books in six months.  Liz Cottrill of Living Books Library offers this encouragement:

"Brave parents, wise parents, face the challenge and take action. The key to winning the battle for reading with our children is within us. If we want our children to not just perform the act of reading, but become intimately enthusiastic and independent pursuers of books, we must do two things: 1) read to them; 2) read ourselves. Every single day."

Liz estimates we will be able to complete this challenge with just 10 minutes of reading every single day.  The results, of course, will have a much longer impact!

1. Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen
2. Hard Times (Dover Thrift Editions) by Charles Dickens
3. The Call to Wonder: Loving God Like a Child by R. C. Sproul
4. Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
5. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
6. A Tree for Peter by Kate Seredy
7. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
8. Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt
9. Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories by C. S. Lewis
10. Fahrenheit 451: A Novel by Ray Bradbury

Will you join me in this reading challenge?

World Book Night - April 23rd

This is my first year involved with World Book Night!  I'm excited to hand out 20 copies of Fahrenheit 451.

About World Book Night 

Q. What is World Book Night?
A. World Book Night is an annual celebration dedicated to spreading the love of reading, person to person.  Each year on April 23, tens of thousands of people in the U.S. go out into their communities and give a total of half a million free World Book Night paperbacks to light and non-readers. 


Q. How are the books chosen? 
A. An independent panel of booksellers and librarians selects the books, using lists curated by experts in the bookselling and library world. All of the information comes from external, independent sources. Additionally, each year, givers from the previous year’s World Book Night nominate books for the panel to consider. 
The World Book Night U.S. books must meet the following criteria:

• Accessible books of quality.
• Recently-published books as well as established classics.
• Books available in paperback.
• Any genre of book – fiction, mysteries, romance, SF/fantasy, classics, poetry, humor, autobiography, and young adult books.
• The list overall must have a gender, ethnic, and geographical balance.

Q. Why April 23? 
A. April 23 is the UNESCO International Day of the Book, as well as Shakespeare’s birthday! It was also chosen in honor of Miguel de Cervantes, who died on April 23, 1616 (the same day as Shakespeare). In the Catalan region of Spain, the day is celebrated by giving a book and a flower to a loved one.  World Book Night was first celebrated in the UK and Ireland in 2011; in 2012, it was also celebrated in the USA and Germany.

Q. What is the difference between World Book Night and World Book Day? 
A. World Book Day is celebrated in the UK and Ireland by giving schoolchildren a book token. World Book Night was introduced in 2011 in the UK and Ireland to bring attention to books for adult readers.  With its launch in 2012, World Book Night U.S. chose to continue the focus on adult readers, with a few books for teens and middle readers included.

Q. Why not children’s books?
A. Many, many other wonderful programs already exist to get books to young children, and they are essential. But World Book Night U.S. fills another important need: Encouraging reading in the adult population, especially those who may not have access to printed books for reasons of means or geography.
The goal of World Book Night is to seek out adult readers wherever they are, in towns and cities, in public settings or in places from nursing homes to food pantries, low-income schools to mass transit. 

I'm looking forward to sharing these 20 books and hopefully inspiring others to begin a reading journey. What about you?

Have you heard of WBN before?  Are you involved?  Do you know of similar organizations or efforts to get books into the hands of many?

Do you long to be free?



Why do you homeschool?  Why do you choose the curriculum you use?  Are you satisfied with the results?  Or do you long to be free?  Free from the expectations, free from the check boxes, free to homeschool differently - simply.

This past weekend, I ran into a long-time homeschooler friend.  As we gravitated towards each other, I sensed her exhaustion.  She had joined another co-op group.  Her family now participates in 5 outside groups.  As she enumerated the many valuable aspects of the groups, I nodded politely, but unconvinced.  I do not judge, I applaud.  She's a mother, doing her best while homeschooling three children and taking care of her home.  Her time, her children, her co-ops - she makes those choices.  I just wonder if she longs to be free...

No matter where you are in your homeschool journey, a veteran on a well worn path or a newbie with just a few lessons underway, it is ok to rethink the already planned.  It is ok to pause and reflect and refocus.

Does this sound familiar?

"We can’t read today, kids. We have too much math to do.
Mommy would love to play with you; but you need to finish your schoolwork first. And don’t forget about yesterday’s work.
We’ll do that later, after we do school."
 

Heidi St. John at The Busy Homeschool Mom shared a revealing essay on her homeschool journey and choices.  She says "I often find myself a hostage of homeschooling rather than a mom who is enjoying the gift that she has been given through homeschooling."

 

After reading her story, I was inspired to evaluate our homeschool days and to appreciate the simplicity we have chosen this year by focusing on reading.

Thank you Lord for the gift of homeschooling, thank you for the choice and the strength to be free.