Reading Aloud to Your Family
Many of the ideals expressed or implied in Self Reliance Works—self-improvement, self-directed learning, self-confidence, and effective parenting—can be promoted by one single activity: reading aloud.
The Zeiger family started reading aloud before we could properly be called a family. It played a role in Michelle’s and my courtship. One afternoon on our college campus, I laughed once too often at the book I was reading. Michelle had asked each time what was funny, and I’d read her the passage, until finally I returned to the beginning and read the whole book aloud. This very pleasant shared activity soon became a habit, particularly during long car trips. It’s very convenient to read a book in which we’re both interested together instead of individually.
Both of us are avid readers. When Aly arrived, we raised her as one of us. Besides reading to her regularly from children’s books, we included her in our oral reading. We didn’t worry about the complexity of plots or prose, trusting her to comprehend as much as she could. In this way, she first heard Richard Adams’s classic, Watership Downwhen she was 4 years old. She adored all of the story’s richly layered facets. If tension mounted, she cuddled close and helped pull the rabbits through to safety. Once we realized that she could follow the story through pages of adult prose and over many evenings of reading, we never worried again, other than perhaps to edit on the fly occasionally if the action took a particularly age-inappropriate turn. We tried not to “pull punches,†and made sure to stop and discuss when necessary. This led to some very meaningful family exploration of issues that everyone must face eventually. I’m sure it led to Aly’s ability to think critically about hard issues, to assess and express her feelings, and to weigh consequences.
We still read aloud, even though Aly is now a teenager, and a fast reader. Some titles are ones she’s read, and has asked that we share. If it’s new to her, she inevitably rereads it (sometimes repeatedly) after we finish.
Our reading list includes, among many others, “children’s classics†like C. S. Lewis’sChronicles of Narnia, George Orwell’s 1984, and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. We have perennial favorites, such as Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. One benefit has been exposure to (or remembering) some of the really excellent writing that has been directed at child audiences. Good “children’s literature†treats readers as capable people, trusting them to think, learn, and understand.
Behaviorists cite reading aloud as key to child development. It stimulates an interest in learning to read, facilitates the process, and teaches by example. From our experience, we feel everyone involved benefits, not only from the books we choose, but from the family activity itself.
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Mark Zeiger is a regular contributor to Self Reliance Works. He and his family homestead off the grid in Southeast Alaska. Visit them at AKZeigers.com.