How/When do you do "read-alouds"? (1st Grader)

[Xuzi]

How do you work "read-alouds" into your homeschooling day? (I'm thinking of chapter books like the "Little House" books and Charlotte's Web) Do you just do one chapter a day, or however many chapters your child will sit through? Do you just pick books from a list, or do you try to read books that tie into the history period you're studying, or whatever book WWE is using selections from.

 

Also, is it a part of your formal learning time (like between the math lesson and science), or do you do it as a bedtime story or when Dad gets home?

 

This seems like such a simple thing and yet it's got me stumped. :tongue_smilie:

[NanceXToo]

I think you're overthinking it lol. Do it however it works for you!

 

My daughter likes when I start out the day reading to her, while she eats her breakfast. So whatever book we're reading aloud together, I'll read to her then, and when she finishes breakfast, we'll usually move over to the couch to continue.

 

We might read anywhere from 1-3 chapters of a book a day, depending on how much else we've got going on and what her current attention span/mood is like.

 

Sometimes we'll read a bit at bedtime, too.

 

When we did the Oak Meadow curriculum last year, they 'assigned' a particular book like every three weeks, and that was what we would mostly read together.

 

But sometimes I'd pick something that I thought she would enjoy (and that I thought *I* would enjoy, too, and suggest reading that aloud together as well).

 

Other than that, she always picked whatever books she was interested in to read to herself.

 

I don't think of reading as formal or informal- well, I guess if it's one of the 'assigned' books it could be considered formal, but mostly we just read because we both like to read and enjoy having it part of our daily activity. I don't worry so much about when we read, where we read, if we miss a day, if we read one chapter or three chapters or whatever.

 

Fit it in however it works :)

[Classically Minded]

20-30minutes of reading that is challenging for the child to read and then 20-30m "fun" reading in the evening, which is at or below their reading level.

 

The read alouds are something that you would read to your child outside the time or at least that is how we do it. We read to her at night an hour or so before bed.

[Carol in Cal.]

At that age I read aloud intermittently a lot.

 

The times when I pretty much always did it were right after she finished her math and reading, and for about an hour or more before bed. Then I read aloud at other times as well.

 

I did Bible, FLL, and history as read alouds in addition to fiction. About a year later I also read Ms. Frizzle books pretty often.

[Guest]

Don't worry, the small things stump me, too. (As well as the large things...:glare:)

 

I had bought Sonlight K to do this year, but hated the schedule. It felt very choppy and I was reading out of too many books. I loved the books, though, so I kept those.

 

I've been thinking a lot about this and how we're going to do it. I ended up scheduling a chapter a day (I just did this for the first quarter to see how it goes, we'll adjust to more if desired.) so that there is a list of books that I write down that we have read. It is by no means an exhaustive list of our read alouds, but it will be the ones that I keep track of. My plan is to read aloud right after lunch, and that will include our "scheduled" read-aloud. I really like the Sonlight books, and that will be our schedule mostly for this year.

 

I keep my ears open here, though, as so many good suggestions are given.

[Xuzi]

Thank you for the advice so far. I know I'm totally overthinking this, but I'm a planner at heart. I don't do "on the fly" very well. :lol:

[Food4Thought]

Just do whatever works for you at the time!

 

Originally, I tried to do ours during "school time" so we'd do read-alouds at 10am. Then the kids wanted to read again at bedtime. So now we do the "academic" read-alouds (history, science) at 10am, and then bedtime is kids' choice. I usually have at least 10 different books from the library, everything from fluff to current interests to those same school books.

 

For longer read-alouds (we've almost always got one going - we just finished Alice in Wonderland) we read between 1 and 3 chapters a night, depending on the length. Then we read 2-4 of the shorter picture books.

 

Currently, the books we read are whatever has seemed interesting to me from about 30 different booklists and surfing Amazon. Next year, History & Science will be more scheduled, but I'll still be picking a lot of books just for fun. I want my kids to like reading at this age, so I don't get too rigid about it.

[LindaOz]

We meet in the lounge room after lunch and chores for read-aloud time. I start with the youngest while the olders finish off chores and make hot chocolates etc (it's winter here....) and everyone eventually arrives. Sometimes the youngest drifts away as I move upwards to the 'older' books, but that's OK :).

[Diana B]

If I have something I want to read specifically for the 'academics' I'd schedule it in. We also read a chapter (give or take) at night before bed ~ this is from what ever we are interested in reading (Right now its the Narnia series). We were also in the habit when I was working as a nanny to read a different book during lunch. This would often trickle into play time after lunch (I'd read, they'd play). We got through a lot of the Little House series that way.

 

We just have a basket of library books sitting out that my ds can choose from at any time for me to read to him as well. And sometimes he'll get his bedtime book and ask for it during the day. If I have the time, I agree. Can never have too much reading aloud!

[twoxcell]

We do are core subjects first math/phonics/reading, followed by read aloud time. After RA we do are other subjects.

[Lovedtodeath]

For formal learning time: We do it first thing while she is doing copywork, eating, or drawing, or we do it while she is playing on the swings in the yard. Other: We read between dance classes, we read them at bedtime.

[Tonia]

I try to keep it simple (or it won't get done!) so we listen to an audio book during breakfast and read aloud from another book in the evening. The morning audio book could be anything that strikes our fancy though we have been listening to quite a few of the recommendations in WWE 1. Evening reading is usually a chapter from a literature selection and a picture book or short section from our history or science books. My dd also has a free reading time each day when she can choose anything from a pre-selected book basket.

[FO4UR]

We often start the day with reading aloud, read aloud as a *break* from schoolish things, before quiet time, and before bed.

 

I make sure each child gets to pick atleast one book a day. I don't go crazy about trying to match every read aloud to other subjects. I do try and keep a healthy mix of genre, even for my smallest dc. (classic children's books, poetry, nature stories, non-fiction science, fairy tales & myths, biographies and a tiny bit of twaddle)

 

ETA: I like to go at a pace of 1 chapter at a time for longer books. I think "living" with them and "ambling" through them helps my dc to really internalize things. Books that we zip through in a week bring a general memory of "I liked that book or not." Books that we read over weeks or even months are remembered with detail. We often have a few books going at the same time.

Edited July 9, 2010 by 3blessingmom

[KrissiK]

We still have "nap time" around here in the afternoon. My read aloud time is the half hour before "nap time". Right now we're finishing up "Henry and the Paper Route".

[Mommyfaithe]

How do you work "read-alouds" into your homeschooling day? (I'm thinking of chapter books like the "Little House" books and Charlotte's Web) Do you just do one chapter a day, or however many chapters your child will sit through? Do you just pick books from a list, or do you try to read books that tie into the history period you're studying, or whatever book WWE is using selections from.

 

Also, is it a part of your formal learning time (like between the math lesson and science), or do you do it as a bedtime story or when Dad gets home?

 

This seems like such a simple thing and yet it's got me stumped. :tongue_smilie:

 

We read aloud for this age group at bedtime. Kids are less wiggly and if they won't keep quiet, I won't keep reading.

 

We usually read approx. 25 pages...which amounts to about 2 chapters and takes about 30 minutes for chapter books. If we read picture books we do 3 simple ones.

 

This year we read Little Pear by Eleanor Lattimore, (the entire series and loved them.)

 

Little House on the Prairie series

 

We also read Justin Morgan had a Horse, The Cabin Faced West, The Matchlock Gun, Charlottes Web & Mr. Poppers Penguins.

 

And now we are reading the Narnia books.

 

I read these to my 7 & 5 year old boys and they loved them.

 

Next year I have planned to read the books that Disney made into moves. I did this with my older kids and it was so much fun!

 

Good luck!

 

Faithe

[Joyofsixreboot]

We do the same read aloud at all times of the day~bedtime of course, at lunch, when we have downtime, while waiting for older brother to get done with soccer and on tape in the car. Of it all, I think they like on tape in the car the most. Our library has many on the shelf or offers others digitally.

[robsiew]

We do read alouds at bed. Also, when we're in the car for more than 10 min. we take an audio book with. We listen to an audio book over lunch. I read one science book twice a week, we read out of SOTW 3 days a week... then if one of the youngers asks for a book I try to oblige....

 

As far as choosing read alouds... I tend to choose classics for those. If there's something well written with a good story we'll do that as well. Sometimes we listen to something set in the time period we're studying... we just listened to Robin Hood and we're in the middle ages... but usually I just choose a classic. They all read history related stories for their official school reading time so I like to get the classic stories in another way.

[TracyP]

We still have "nap time" around here in the afternoon. My read aloud time is the half hour before "nap time". Right now we're finishing up "Henry and the Paper Route".

 

This works the best for us too. We have also done read alouds during lunch, before bed and during our "morning meeting". It is always changing as our situation changes. I read for about 30 minutes - usually 2 chapters. This is only for my older two, the two littles are already napping by this time.

[~Kirsten~]

Next year I have planned to read the books that Disney made into moves. I did this with my older kids and it was so much fun!

 

Faithe

What a fun idea! We're reading Pinocchio right now thanks to WWE, and we're all enjoying it so much! I love this! Thank you!

 

To the original question, I've found chapter book read-alouds work best during meals, usually lunch. Bedtime is often reserved for picture books aimed more at my 4-year-old. Probably twice a week we read some history on the couch in the afternoons. Other reading happens, too, but obviously, I don't really schedule any of it. My youngest has a CD player in her room for rest time as well. Not sure how helpful that is! :tongue_smilie:

Edited July 10, 2010 by ~Kirsten~
can't spell Pinocchio, it seems