Reading Aloud Challenge

We completed the Read Aloud Revival 31-Day Winter Read-Aloud Challenge!

Visiting Amelie's in reward for another great week of music practice

I admit, this required work on Mama's part. My children were interested in participating because of the prizes drawn out of a hat at the end, but they still required reminders daily. Mama's brain is about ready to explode with everything I have to keep track of, so adding one more item (times three kids) wasn't nothin'. I asked them a couple of times if they were really still interested, and they expressed firmly that they were and requested that I give them daily reminders.

Who needs to eat a croissant when one can eat up this big guy?

At Quiet Time, I would often ask the children if they wanted to take turns reading aloud to me while I lay down on the couch for half an hour, and they'd leap at the chance. We did all manner of reading aloud: one sibling reading to another, a big sibling reading to a little sibling to occupy her during school time, reading to someone at their nap time or bed time, reading to a visiting grandparent.

John started a new book, "Crossbows and Crucifixes" by Henry Garnett, which intrigued Mary so much that she has insisted on being present for all of John's reading aloud because she wants to participate in the story. Just this kind of sibling togetherness was the topic of an entire podcast published by Read Aloud Revival some months ago.

John reading aloud to us at Amelie's

I think the point of the Read Aloud Revival was to give kids a reason (prizes) to rediscover the joy of reading aloud to other people. Before we had radio and then television and now the Internet, people--families--made their own entertainment for each other, some of which was playing music for each other, much of which was reading aloud to each other. I'm always striving to introduce more of that interaction into our family--and battling the allure of television and screen time makes it a never-endingly uphill battle.

Mary finished "Heidi" by Johanna Spyri

I felt like the whole month of parental reminders and nudges was worthwhile when we were at Amelie's on Saturday, sitting down to eat pastries, when one child remarked, "I sure wish we had brought a book to read to each other."

Mama replied, "Well, isn't it fortunate you have me for a mama? Look what I have in my purse . . . "

A bookworm never leaves home without a book!

John and Mary read the required 25 of 31 days in order to enter the drawing for prizes over at Read-Aloud Revival. About a week earlier, Margaret had come to me in such a mature way and said, "Mama, I think this contest is too old for me. I want to stop doing it." I was proud of her! (FYI, the event was for ages 3+, so pre- or emerging readers were allowed to open a picture book and tell the story, as they know it, to anyone who would listen.)