July 6 // The Read-Aloud Family + some personal experience

here's inspiration + ideas for reading to your kids!

Hello! This month instead of choosing one book to discuss all month for our Wednesday enails, we’re going to begin with some highlights from The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie is a super inspiring way to get you started. It’s one of the top parenting books I recommend to anyone because enjoying stories together as a family makes life better in more ways than you could expect.

I’m curious: did your parents read to you when you were a kid? Most people I ask don’t even say “no” but “huh?” Reading to another person seems like something you do for someone who can’t read for themselves. Once your kids are out of first grade, everyone is supposed to stick to their own reading level, right?

This book challenges that idea hardcore. Here are some great quotes:

• “When we read aloud, we give our kids practice living as heroes. Practice dealing with life-and-death situations, practice living with virtue, practice failing at virtue. As the characters in our favorite books struggle through hardship, we struggle with them. We consider whether we would be as brave, as bold, as fully human as our favorite heroes. And then we grasp—on a deeper, more meaningful level—the story we are living ourselves as well as the kind of character we will become as that story unfolds.”

• “A book can’t change the world on its own. But a book can change readers. And readers? They can change the world.”

• “No one will ever say, no matter how good a parent he or she was, ‘I think I spent too much time with my children when they were young.’”

If this feels intimidating to you, just keep in mind how simple this idea is: reading out loud. If you can read, you can do this. If your kids can stay in one general area for a little while, they can do this, too.

You’ll want to read when you know you have a captive audience. If you have lunch with them, that’s a great time to read aloud! If they’re folding laundry, your storytelling will make the time go faster. (Big life hack right there.)

And if you really want some success, let them stay up a little past bedtime to listen. Chances are your kids will do almost anything to avoid going to bed 😉

It can help to read in an enclosed space (like a closed-off room) so toddlers can’t escape and teens can’t reach for their phones. Lay out a picnic blanket with popcorn and maybe some LEGO’s and you’ve probably got a solid chunk of time to read!

An important step, however, is choosing books you will like, even if it’s just picture books that catch your eye at the library. If you want to read some of the classics, you don’t need to jump into Wuthering Heights; try something like the Anne of Green Gables graphic novel!

Before long, your family might feel like you’re on an adventure together, deep into a series that your kids beg you to never quit reading.

How Our Readaloud Journey Started

My first time reading aloud was a total fail. When my husband was a kid, his mom read series like the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, etc. out loud to him and his siblings multiple times, and he and his siblings fondly remember those experiences.

So I tried reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe—a C.S. Lewis classic!—to my little ones, and after a couple chapters I asked the kids what they got out of it, and my 4-year-old said, “A girl met a goat in the woods?” 😅 We expected to like it a lot more than we did, so I gave up. Very discouraging start.

A few months later, I tried The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton, and we all thought it was so quirky and fun! It took us several months to finish, but it felt like a huge accomplishment and gave me the courage to keep trying.

We eased our way into more readalouds by listening to the audiobook of the first book in Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga. However, the kids and I were always bummed when our car rides were over, so I ended up just reading the books to them in our sun room, an hour or more at a time. I was in the third trimester of pregnancy with my fourth baby, so sitting around (and having my kids sit still, too!) was so nice. The kids would plead for me to keep reading—"We’ll scratch your back if you don’t stop!”—and I couldn’t resist. I was invested in the story just as much as they were.

We ended up reading all four books—1520 pages—in less than two months!

My husband soon picked up the task of being the main person in charge of readalouds, and by now he’s read more books to the kids than any of us have kept track of. (And yes, when he read the Chronicles of Narnia, they were a big hit.)

I cannot exaggerate how much they’ve all bonded during those many, many hours of laughing, crying, and discussing together.

Here’s a cozy picture of them reading by campfire when we lived in the RV 🤗 Nowadays, they’re deep into The Green Ember by S.D. Smith.

Hopefully some of this helps you! I’d love to hear any tips or concerns you have in the comments.

Think about how much money you would pay for a vitamin that contains all the benefits of a childhood full of readalouds!

Family connection, intellectual stimulation, imagination, communication skills, empathy…we can’t even measure all the good things.

If you’ve tried reading aloud before and it didn’t go well, there are so many factors that could’ve contributed to that. Try again! Reading out loud might become one of the most convenient parenting tools in your pocket. When you don’t have the energy to play horses or hide and seek, you can probably sit and read right? 😉

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts