Reading to your Children

Lately, I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of reading to my children before bedtime.  Life has just been so busy the last few months that I put this on the back burner and opted instead to clean or do homework at our usual reading time.  I’m picking this wonderful habit up again, though.  I’m making it a priority.  There is simply nothing like sitting with your children and enjoying a good story.  My favorite is when we read books that *I* read as a child.  The memories come flooding back, and it’s hard to believe that I’m reading a book to my kids that I read as a little girl. 

I’m also aware that if I make reading to my children a priority now, they will someday by God’s grace make reading to their children a priority in the future.  I hope so.  I want them to have a love of reading and of learning in general.  I want their imaginations and their vocabulary to be stretched as far as it can go. 

However, making time to read doesn’t always come naturally for me and maybe not for you, either.  So I’ve put together a few tips that might help us out:

1.  This is easy, but simply needs to be put in place.  Schedule a time to read to your children everyday.  Write it down somewhere you will see it and be reminded.  On your computer?  On your fridge?

2.  Let your kids know what time you will be reading to them each day.  This may be actually better than writing it on your schedule if your kids are anything like mine!  They WILL NOT forgot.  🙂  They will remind you.

3.  If you don’t have a big library of books at home, that’s okay.  Many times, kids enjoy reading the same books over and over (just hopefully it’s a story you enjoy, too!).  And there is always the library!  The public library is an wonderful resource.  We have checked out countless books from the library.  And they run great programs usually during the summer and winter months to get kids excited about reading too.

4.  If you haven’t been in the habit of reading to your children, start tonight and just do it.  I predict you will fall in love with the this special time with your kids.

Happy Monday!