Just do it! That’s the motto adopted by Nike (named for the god of victory), and that should become your motto as you decide on a reading out loud routine
In our family, we have set times for reading out loud: we have Poetry Tea Time on Wednesday afternoons, which I talked about in Part 3 [link]. At bedtime every night, I read to my oldest children a chapter a night from the novel we’re currently reading through. With my younger kids, we read while their older homeschooled siblings are working on online classes in the afternoons.
We found that we are most successful at introducing new routines by folding them into pre-existing routines in our home; our kids always go to sleep, and our older kids have a set schedule of online classes. We were able to fit reading aloud into those regular portions of our days.
I find that choosing a new book every month or two is paralyzing; there are just too many options out there. Because of that feeling of decision fatigue, I prefer to work our way through a series of books, box sets, or themes. That decision fatigue is far less frequent when I know I can spend six months on a box set of books I got from Costco (one of my favorite sources to buy books, surprisingly).
It was with this decision fatigue in mind that we decided to offer the readers of Heroes of Liberty a subscription model; giving families the opportunity to have a beautifully illustrated new picture book delivered every month, so parents could easily add a new book they’re already enthusiastic about to their “to read” pile.
We have that list or pile of books in our house; books that we hear about over the course of our days and weeks that we want to get to next, after we’ve worked our way through the current selection.
But the key, at the end of the day, is to decide to do it, and find a way to make it work. We’ve given you the tools; we’ve given you all the W's and the How, and now, it’s up to you.
Just do it!
This is the final post in a five-part series on reading aloud to children, by Heroes of Liberty Editor Bethany Mandel. If you missed them, you can catch up on Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Don’t forget to check back soon; we have new blogs published regularly on all things children’s literature and homeschooling.
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