Read Alouds

I Love Read Alouds!

When I was in school, my favourite time of the day was when the teacher read aloud to us.  When I was in college, preparing to be an elementary school teacher, I looked forward to reading aloud to my students.  When I became a mother, I began reading aloud to my baby.  When I began to homeschool, I continued to read aloud to my children.  When I went to work full-time for a year, I didn't have the energy for daily reading aloud, and I missed it!  When I was able to cut back to part-time, I reclaimed read alouds.

Although they overlap somewhat; I differentiate our Morning Time Reading from our Read Alouds this way:

• MT Readings are chosen by me to be read and discussed.  I read them in small bits and bites, occasionally even using only portions of a book.  They are more often non-fiction, but not always.

• Read Alouds are simply me reading out loud while the children listen.  They are usually fictional chapter books which we read through, a chapter a day, with little or no discussion.  Some of them are assigned books from History Quest; some are chosen by me, and some of them are chosen by the kids.

I use picture books for both MT and RA; I firmly believe that there is no age limit for a good picture book!

Here is our current Read Aloud list:

• The Princess Bride by William Goldman ~ a request from my 12yo son
• Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder ~ we have been reading through this series over the past year
• Gilgamesh the Hero by Geraldine McCaughrean ~ one of our History Quest books
• God King by Joanne S. Williamson ~ another HQ book
• Spinning Worlds by Michael Carroll ~ to go with our astronomy studies at HQ this semester