Read aloud

Well we finished Great Expectations this afternoon. We really enjoyed the story. I had read the story previously, but had forgotten all the details, so it was all new to me. Sarah and I have discussed what to do next and it appears that Treasure Island is going to win out. We'll get started on that tonight (I hope!!!).

We met Sarah's third grade teacher today at the "getting ready for school ice cream social" (or something like that). I asked her if she reads out loud to the students and she said she does... everyday. Her master's work is in reading and she understands the important of Read Aloud, but has never heard of the Read Aloud Handbook. I'll be purchasing her a copy very soon. I wondered around the classroom and found the reading corner. She's done a very nice job of making it a cool place to be. It looked like she could use a little help building up the classroom library. I'm considering buying a set of these classics from Costco for her library. I'm also considering volunteering to come into class once or twice a week to read... perhaps at the beginning of the day or during lunch. I'm a little nervous about reading out loud in front of my daughter's class, but I'll just have to get over that.

We're a third of the way into Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and we are loving it. Sarah begged me to keep reading tonight even though it was well past her bedtime. We talked about what to read next and she said she wanted me to look for an adventure about a horse.

"I bet the public library has a whole aisle for horse adventures. They have 10,000 books there! Well, I guess they are all about science."

Anyway, this brings me to the point of this entry. For the last several months I have been wanting to read some of the classics. Remember those books that your teachers MADE you read in Junior High? Yeah... those. Unfortunately, I'm a very slow reader and I honestly thought this was just a pipe dream. But I happened across this series the other night (at Walgreens!!!) and it really got me excited. I did some Googling and found a huge desperity in the prices of these books. At Walgreens, they are $2.99 each or 2 for $5.00. Some searching on Amazon revealed the same editions for $14+ each. Very strange! So I continued to search and found 3 sets of 20 for $36 per set. One of the sets is labeled "for girls" and another "for boys." Presumably the third set contains the books that didn't easily fit in the gender based sets. I'm not a member at Costco, but I AM a member at Sam's Club. I wondered over to Samsclub.com and found the exact same sets... listed at $136.72 per set! My next task is to visit Costco and see if they have these in the store. If so, I'm going to buy one of them. In the meantime, I wondered back to Walgreens and purchased Black Beauty (remember the request for a book about horses?), Treasure Island, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Call of the Wild.

We finished Shipwrecked! I highly recommend the story. It's definitely a case of truth being stranger than fiction. This would make a terrific movie.

We temporarily moved on to Wind in the Willows, but we were really struggling with it. The language is just a bit archaic for me and I was really struggling with it. After two sessions we agreed to move onto something else.

A week ago, I happened across Great Expectations while in Walgreens. I remember reading this story in Jr. High and I've always wanted to read it again. This particular version is from the Great Illustrated Classics. We read two chapters tonight and I might have read ahead. It's a riveting story and the abrigement is very good. I'm already looking at the list of titles available to determine where to go next. Wind in the Willows is part of this series also, so we might give that another try.

We had settled into a nice routine with our reading aloud. However, some recent unexpected travel got us distracted and we went several days without reading. I missed it. Things are back to normal now and we're settling back in. We home to finish up Shipwrecked! today and move onto something different. I've been wanting to read some of the classics. I've had a difficult time finding versions that I can read to Sarah. While at the drug store the other day I ran across a set that might fit the bill. I picked up Great Expectations, a story I remember from my school days. I think we'll start that next and see where it takes us.

We're only a few days into our reading aloud and I'm already seeing attitudes change within our family. Initially Sarah (age 7) was a bit skeptical and she watched the clock a bit, wondering if our "10 minutes" was up yet. My first few sessions we done out of commitment rather than being something I wanted to do. Already we a both looking forward to the next session. I think the key is to find the right books. We're really enjoying Shipwrecked and since I expect to finsh it this week, we've started looking for the next one. Wind in the Willows is the current frontrunner.

Hannah (our 4 year old) is constantly bringing us books to read to her and she is REALLY enjoying it. Now I need to stop worrying about that time we've lost and make sure we don't fall back into our bad habit of being too busy to do it.

Upon returning from my business trip I shared my desire with my daughter to read to her regularly. She was very excited to hear this. We had periodically read together, but nothing regular... in fact, I could probably count on both hands the numbers of times I had read out loud to her.

I started with my 4 year old. I asked her to pick out a book and she excitedly came to me with The Big Book of Baby Animals. It was a bit of a struggle. I let her choose which animals she wanted me to read about, but she had a very hard time paying attention for more than just a few seconds before she wanted to move on to the next animal. I reminded myself that one of the key benefits of Read Aloud is that it trains children to pay attention and it increases their attention span. I will keep an eye on this over the next several months and see if that happens.

We read for about 15 minutes and we both decided we had enough. We took a short break and I decided to give it a try with my 7 year old. She was also very excited and said she wanted to read to me first. OK... who is this and what did they do with my kid? She has NEVER volunteered to read to me and my first thought was the I was supposed to be the one doing the reading. I quickly realized that having HER read was one of the main goals of this project and decided it would be best to let her go first. She read Bravo, Amelia Bedelia! to me and her sister for just a few minutes. We laughed together. When she asked to stop I said "SURE!" and she said she wanted to read about the weather from one of her Childcraft books. We read about where the wind comes from (which honestly had always been a mystery to me) and discussed it a bit. After 10-15 minutes, we both agreed to stop and continue tomorrow. It was a very enjoyable session and I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I think we will take a trip to the library and pick out some books to read aloud.

The purpose of this blog is two fold. First, I want to share the success and challenges our family has as we attempt to fulfill our commitment to read aloud regularly to our children. Second, this is one of the forums I'm using to keep myself accountable to this commitment. During a recent church service, the pastor stated that conviction and commitment are enough to truly change someone's lifestyle. In order to truly accomplish lifestyle change, you must be CONNECTED... meaning you must be accountable to someone who can remind you about the commitment you made. This blog is one of those connections.

While on a business trip last week I picked up the Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. I had heard of this book a year earlier when my second grader came home with a brochure about it. It piqued my interest at the time, but not enough for me to act on it. I grabbed the book, looked for an open chair at Barnes and Noble, and began to browse. Immediately I was grabbed by the claims that the author was making. Children whose parents read aloud to them learn to LOVE to read. This hit me hard, because for the past several months we've been trying to get our daughter to read. We've tried reasoning with her and even bribing her... to no success. I decided to buy the book and dig in a bit further.

As I read I was SO convicted. It wasn't to late to start, but I was ashamed that I hadn't started earlier. I commited to read aloud to my girls (7 and 3) regularly. Everyday is the goal, but I'm not going to beat myself up if we miss it once in a while. The results of the research cited by the author and the personal testimonies of families that have committed to reading aloud are too compelling to NOT do it.

I began to wonder where I should start. Fortunately, the author left me no excuse. He included a listing of hundreds of books with age classifications and short descriptions in the back of the book. I looked through the list and several jumped out at me including Shipwrecked! I'm not sure why this one caught my eye, but as I read the description it sounded like something by daughter would enjoy. I immediately placed it on hold at my local library and I'm waiting for it to arrive. Stay tuned for our thoughts on the book.