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The more you read my posts, the more you will see that I am a big advocate for reading to kids. There is plenty of evidence out there showing reading to your kids is the best thing you can do to give your kids an educational advantage. My sister in law is a classroom teacher and she has said that in the classroom you can tell pretty quickly which kids have parents who read to them.

I am not going to post scientific articles and quotes about why you should read to your kids. This is about sharing my own observations, and the things I’ve learned about reading to kids. I will also share some resources on how to select good books for read alouds.

Reading Aloud Builds Vocabulary

I started reading to my oldest when he was an infant, and as he grew people were constantly impressed with his vocabulary. When your child is young and in the pre-reading stage, there are parts of language that they will never encounter without good books. When you read to them, you can select books that are slightly above their level of language and even slightly above their level of understanding. The brain, like other muscles, will grow, stretch and adapt to the slightly difficult language. It’s much more fun to stretch a child’s vocabulary by snuggling on the couch reading than it is to give them a vocabulary workbook.

As your kids get older and begin to read on their own, it’s still important to read aloud to them. I still recommend choosing some books that are slightly above their level. When they read to themselves, they have to do the work of processing and decoding the written language, so it’s not always enjoyable for them to read difficult books. When you read the more difficult books to them, it eliminates a few steps in the reading process and makes room for them to enjoy and learn the more complex language.

Reading Aloud Sparks the Imagination

As I mentioned above, it can be a lot of work for kids to read on their own. Reading aloud gives them the headspace to get caught in the story and let their imaginations take over. Imagination is important in almost all aspects of life and good books give bigger ideas to fuel the imagination. Imaginative individuals become the best problem solvers, creators, inventors and heroes. Imagination fuels the belief in greater things and lofty ideals. It is often an overlooked aspect of education, but such an important one. Read imagination fueling books to your kids and give them the opportunity to imagine different worlds and big ideas.

Reading Aloud is a More Enjoyable Way to Teach

I really don’t care for text books and prefer literature based curriculum, especially for content subjects. Good books with heroic characters help you make connections to the events of the past that you may not understand from a textbook. Choosing good read alouds as part of your homeschool curriculum will make learning more enjoyable for your kids, especially if you’re dealing with a subject that’s not a favorite.

When I had a second grader and a kindergartener we studied American history. I was reading good books to the boys that related to our study and I decided to read some related books myself. The two I read were George Washington’s Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade and Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini. I learned so much more from these two books than I ever did from any textbook. It also lead me down a rabbit trail of more research and reading source documents. My experience convinced me that there’s so much learning that can be done from real books. I want my kids to feel like they have the same freedom to chase their own rabbit trails when they are so inspired. Reading aloud to them gives them the time and energy to do so without feeling the overwhelm of one more thing to do.

How to Start Reading to your Kids

This might seem obvious at first, like the answer should be just pick up a book and start reading. While that’s not a bad way to start, for some of you, reading aloud hasn’t been a habit so I want to give you a few tips to get started.

Schedule it into your day

If reading to your kids hasn’t been part of your routine, try scheduling it into your day. You can make it part of your morning routine, read before bedtime at night, or even read while they eat lunch. You can even incorporate audio books while in your car driving. Even if you utilize audio books, I still recommend carving out sometime for you to read to your kids too.

Choose good read alouds

It can be difficult to figure out which books are worth reading aloud. What I do is look at booklists from Sonlight, Beautiful Feet, and the Mensa for Kids Booklist to find age appropriate books. My oldest feels like Sonlight chooses the best books, while some of my youngest’s all time favorites come from Beautiful Feet’s Teaching Character through Literature program. The boys gave me their top three favorite read alouds which I am linking below.

Carter

The Green Ember Series

A Castle with Many Rooms

Adventures with Waffles

Peyton

The Seven Silly Eaters

A Time of Wonder

One Cool Friend

Use Read Alouds for Content Subjects

This was mentioned before but is worth mentioning again. I love when a subject can be covered through read alouds. It’s the whole two birds, one stone thing. We have personally used read alouds to teach history, geography and cultures, science, music appreciation and more. Literature based curriculum is a great way to incorporate reading aloud into your day, especially if you are like me and need to have things already planned for you.

That’s a wrap on what I’ve learned from reading to my kids. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Do you read to your kids or is it something you want to start doing? Feel free to leave a comment or connect with me on social media.