Read-Aloud Resources

As the sole educator of my beloved offspring, I spend a good part of each day fretting over the best methods of making helping them learn. Should they do more worksheets? Memorize more facts? Spend more time staring at the squirrels?

On any given year day, I rarely get the "magic formula" right. I mean, if anything, I feel like I'm raising my kids to be monkeys in a zoo. Well, monkeys or dodo birds. I haven't decided which.

But one thing that almost ten years of experience has taught me, okay--one thing that research has taught me--is that reading aloud is one of the very best, super best, goodiest best things we can do for our kids. Why?

In reading aloud, we:

• Condition the child's brain to associate reading with pleasure;
• Create background knowledge;
• Build vocabulary;
• Provide a reading role model. (source)

Now here's the thing. I honestly believe you could read stock quotes and SpongeBob to your kids, but who wants to? Ugh. Eventually it's good to read something that both parents and kids will enjoy.

That's why I keep a copy of The Read-Aloud Handbook and Honey for a Child's Heart close by my side. Seriously. I spoon with them at night! And during the day, I refer to them for titles of quality, life-enriching books to read to my kids.

And here's something you'll rarely hear me say: I think you should own one of these books. I know! I use my copy of Honey for a Child's Heart too often to keep borrowing it from the library. And I also mark it up and make notes about the books we like best.

And now I'll end with a quote which, ironically enough, is from a movie. It's one of my favorites, as is this line by the character Kathleen Kelly, in talking about helping her mom run a bookstore:

I started helping my mother here after school when I was six years old. I used to watch her, and it wasn't that she was selling books, it was that she was helping people become whoever they were going to turn out to be. When you read a book as a child, it becomes part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your life does.

True dat, dearest and fictional Kathleen Kelly. True dat.

What are some other resources for finding good read-aloud books?


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