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It’s good to be reminded of encouraging and helpful ideas. So this week we’re bringing you a reprise of one of our most popular articles. We hope you enjoy this best-of post.
Have you ever watched a play or a movie in which the actors weren’t that great? They just didn’t do a very good job of delivering their lines or communicating what was happening inside and outside their characters. The actors didn’t write the play or the movie, yet they had an important role in making it enjoyable for the audience.
In some ways, that’s like reading a book aloud. The reader plays an important role in making that book enjoyable for his or her audience. Charlotte Mason told each reader to take up a book “with the certainty that the pleasure of the whole family depends on his [or her] reading well” (Formation of Character, p. 221).
In a Charlotte Mason education, the parent-teacher reads aloud often, especially when the children are in the elementary years; but the habit of sharing a good book together should not be neglected with older children too. If you want your children to look forward to those read-aloud times, here are some tips to help you improve your part. The author has already taken care of writing the lines, the “worthy thoughts, well put; inspiring tales, well told” (Parents and Children, p. 263). All you have to do is read them well.
So let’s talk about the parent’s part in reading great books aloud. I’ve been reading aloud to my children for almost thirty years now, and they seem to enjoy it. (Either that or they’re really good actors… No, they enjoy it!) Let me give you some tips—ten things that I have learned over three decades of reading aloud to my children.
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