day fifty-six: read aloud to your children

“So please, oh, please, we beg, we pray.


Go throw your TV set away.


And in its place, you can install,


A lovely bookshelf on the wall.”


Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory






Okay, true confession time. We have eighteen bookcases in our house and small schoolroom (in the garage) . We have well over a thousand books, though prior to ten years ago, when we sold half of everything we owned and moved to a small house, we had over two thousand books! (And yes, it is crowded with eighteen bookcases in fourteen hundred square feet, though some of those are small, stacked cubes.)


We have an extremely modest home and what many would call clunker vehicles—but we are rich with books. Our sixteen year old son just informed me that he is down to one pair of jeans that he washes and re-wears five days a week—yet we just bought him a fifteen hundred page book for literature and twenty new books for Christmas! Books are important to the Reishes!


Another true confession: when our older children were little, I read aloud to them three to six hours a day six days a week! (Ray and I combined did, actually.) My undergraduate degree was in elementary education and my master’s work was in Reading Education. I felt, and still do, that reading aloud to my children would do more for their spiritual and academic development than anything else I could do.


Research and book after book confirms what I believed about reading aloud to young children. “Research and practice show that one simple activity—reading aloud—is the best way to prepare children for learning to read and to keep them reading as they learn. Reading aloud helps your children develop the language skills that they will use in school and throughout their lives” (Reading Is Fundamental).


Obviously, people can give their children a good start without having a stay-at-home parent reading aloud to them for hours every day. And even parents who work full time can carve out the time to read to their children—if it is a priority. (Trust me, I have worked at least thirty hours a week for the past five years at home as a writer, editor, speaker, and cottage class teacher/tutor—and still made reading aloud a priority in our home. Other things had to fall by the way in order to make that happen—but again, that goes back to prioritizing and deciding that reading aloud is more important, than, say, a spotless house.)


As parents, we have to decide what we absolutely think are the most important things to us in our parenting and our family—and then we must commit to carrying those things out, even to the point of excluding other, less important things.


Reading aloud is one of those things worth doing. It is worth it for more reasons than this short post today. However, consider the following three advantages for now:


1. Heart tying between parent and child—My children and I have been drawn together through books and audios more than any other thing. When we’re all together except one child and that one shows up, I pipe up with “I knew there was another one” in reference to the missing mouse in Mouse House. I say one of the kids’ names over and over again then quote Adventures in Odyssey: “Josie, Josie, Josie. You are Josie, aren’t you?” If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Curious George, Morris the Moose—all of these warm our hearts as we recollect them and the afternoons spent in Mommy’s bed sharing picture books.


2. Teaching spiritual concepts—our daily read aloud now with teens and tweens includes spiritual and character teaching from a variety of sources. Reading aloud then discussing the information helps my children grow in their faith and virtue. When my kids were all little, Bible stories and character stories filled their days through my reading aloud and providing audios of the same.


3. Building a love for learning and a love for reading—the single most influential factor in a child’s success in school is his or her love for learning. Love for learning begins in Mama’s chair during afternoon story time and Mother’s bed for early morning snuggles and books.




I am planning to review some books for read aloud for various ages—starting this weekend, so I wanted to introduce the idea of reading aloud—and reinforce its importance now. Throughout the year I will tackle various areas of reading aloud, such as:


1. Reading aloud to various ages


2. Fitting in read aloud time


3. Reading aloud with tweens and teens


4. The effect of reading aloud on “natural readers” and other reading progression in children


5. Using audio books as a family for “read aloud”


6. Bible and character read alouds


7. Reading aloud to build your child’s background of experience and listening comprehension (and the relationship of that to your child’s school success)


8. And much more!




So stay with us as we continue to learn how to parent our children positively—and give them a love for God, a conviction to help others, a curiosity and love for learning and growth, and godly character. We can do this Christian parenting thing—and we can even do it well with the right tools and the right priorities.