Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Read Aloud Challenge: October 23

I used to do a weekly read-aloud post, where a few other people linked up too.  I loved doing that, and it made me more committed to actually doing my reading aloud.

So I'm starting again.  Only I'm going to post on Tuesdays instead.  And I need help with some type of a name for this.  And I'll even come up with a button.


I think reading aloud is critically important.  Andrew Pudewa, of Institute for Excellence in Writing, does a talk called Nurturing Competent Communicators that I think every adult who loves a child ought to hear at least once.  He makes a strong case for reading aloud being the most effective way to get 'reliably correct and sophisticated language patterns' into our kids' brains. 

Anyway, I'll expand on that in later weeks, I'm sure.

Rules for this linkup - if you are blogging about things you are reading aloud to your children, or just blogging about reading aloud in general, feel free to link up.  Audiobooks count too.  I would very much appreciate if you link back to this post.  I'll leave the linky open through Monday at midnight. 

So what have we been reading aloud this past week?


Anne of Windy Poplars by L. M. Montgomery.  We've been working through the Anne of Green Gables series since sometime over the summer.  My boys (and my daughter) are all loving it.  We're now in "year three" of this book, which means we are nearing the end.  We already have the next book waiting for us at the library.

Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff.  I am listening to this along with my "middle group" (William -8th grade, and Thomas -6th grade).  This takes place in England right after Rome completely leaves, so we are reading about the Saxons and Vortigern, and oh, just all kinds of great stuff.

King Arthur by Don Nardo.  This is also with my middle group.  This is a bit textbook-y, but lots of fascinating information.


Unfortunately, that is pretty much it.  Well, no, I've been reading various other short books about the middle ages for the middle guys.  Nothing to Connor.  Richard & Trina have been fairly neglected this past week.

So I confess here -- I've been wanting to start this back up, but I've been waiting until I had a good reading week so I'd start off not looking bad.  <sigh>  Determined that I just need to do it. 

Goals for next week:  Finishing up all of the above books.  Get back to actually reading aloud to my youngest two.  I'll worry about something else with Connor later. 


So, what are you reading aloud?  Why do you read aloud? 



4 comments:

Rani said...

This was fun and I have linked up with what we are reading aloud this week.

Karen said...

I linked up with what we are reading right now. I'm so glad you're doing this...it will help keep me accountable!

Laura O in AK said...

I doubt I could get my boys to listen to Anne of Green Gables, but the other ones you are doing would be more up their alley!

Thanks for getting this going again. Now that Sonlight is a core for us, I'm doing more read alouds. Although, I do grab audiobooks when at all possible!

the Mcclanahan 7 said...

Thanks Debra! I read a lot to my kids, so this should be fun.