One more question about reading that I need your input on

[plain jane]

I was wondering how you choose which books you will read aloud and which ones you will assign to your kids to read independently.

 

For example, here's a small sampling of the books I'd like my rising grade 4 to read next year:

 

The Lost World

Swiss Family Robinson

Swallows and Amazons

The Secret Garden

The Princess and the Goblin

Around the World in 80 Days

Otto of the Silver Hand

 

 

There's more, but those are some of them. I know she won't be able to read them all independently so I want to read some aloud so we get through the books. How do you choose which to assign and which to read aloud?

[Nestof3]

I usually end up reading aloud the books Nathan doesn't read to himself or listen to on audio/librivox. He has read or listened to a couple/few hundred books.

 

Nathan listens to or reads all of the L. Frank Baum he can get his hands on, so I thought that I would read one of his to Ben at some point to see if I can get him hooked. He is not a big reader. This poses a problem for me.

 

If the library has it on audio book, I tend not to read it -- instead, we listen to it in the van or while eating lunch or such. We just listened to The Double Life of Pocahontas and loved it. Narrators do such a fabulous job!

 

I also tend to read more history and science chapter books than regular literature. Bad mom! We are working our way through The Phantom Tollbooth, and because of the many plays on words, I have chosen to read this one as opposed to listen to it. I got sick of trying to pronounce the words in The BFG, so I decided to download the audio book from the library. And, we still need to finish listening to Finn Family Moomintroll. I am not a huge fan of these sorts of books, but the boys love them, so we listen to them on audio. Sometimes, I just don't enjoy reading a particular book aloud.

 

Some of the top of my head that I would like to read aloud that aren't in direct correlation to history are:

 

Red Sails to Capri

The Twenty-One Balloons

Mr. Popper's Penguins

an E. Nesbitt book

 

Some of our favorite books that I read aloud (aside from history and science) are:

 

Mountain Born

Rabbit Hill

The Tough Winter

Abel's Island

The Search for Delicious

[SailorMom]

I tend to read the books aloud that I want to discuss frequently. When we are reading aloud, I know my sons will stop me for questions and explainations they would not normally ask (or remember to ask) if they were assigned the book. For example, while The Diary of Anne Frank was certainly within their reading abilities, I wanted to engage in conversation with them about the ideas and conflicts being introduced.

Also - we read A Seperate Peace, The Once and Future King, and (a self-edited version of ) 1984 aloud, and I know they were able to learn far more from reading with me than they would have alone

[NanceXToo]

My daughter just finished up fourth grade. So far, I have never assigned her a book to read independently. If it's something I'm going to "assign" (or if it's something I have an interest in or that I think will raise issues or questions we should discuss together), we have always read it together.

 

The books she reads independently are books she picks out to read on her own.