Why I read aloud a lot!

Read aloud.
Read aloud some more!

This is not a novel tip 😛but it bears repeating because it is so so important. If there is one thing I don’t regret in my homeschooling/parenting journey, it’s reading aloud to my kids, and reading aloud a lot to my kids. In some seasons for an obscene amount of time, like there were days we read aloud for 4-5 hours a day with only lunch break and bathroom breaks. 😬 JoLeigh and Steve would pitch quite the fit if I didn’t read just one more chapter and they would physically hold me down until I did. 😂 #goodtimes. I guess this is where my ability to talk for a long time came in handy.

As we added to the family the read aloud marathons became less frequent then there was the season where I tried to read aloud to all 4 kids at once. That was pretty comical, to be honest and if you try it, expect a lot of interruptions. But as hard as it was, it was still a priority. And it was so much fun. I could see the way the words and sentences and stories were helping all those synapses in their brains connect. How it bonded us together as a family.  

Read-aloud is also where some of our best rabbit-trail conversations began. One scene in a book provoked a simple question, that somehow led to a two hour discussion. But that’s what literature is supposed to do! Make you think and want to understand the world better. Understand people better. 

There are so many benefits to reading aloud it’s hard to narrow it down!! It’s what lit my daughter’s love for literature and and has given her a beautiful writing voice. It’s what’s given my son an extensive vocabulary, it’s what helped my struggling reader dive into books he never would have been able to read on his own. It’s what’s given me a really good excuse to cuddle with my youngest on the couch. 😍

You don’t outgrow read-alouds! I love to read aloud to my husband and he loves being read to. It’s great for growing your marriage too!  ❤️Find a good book to read together and you might find your spouse saying, “Just one more chapter!” 

Commercial over. Go read aloud to your kids, read aloud to your teens, read aloud with your spouse