Defeating a Dyslexic's Nemesis: Reading Aloud

“What’s the best way to defeat an enemy?”- Sensei Wu, Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu

It has been about a year since I intentionally decided to read out loud more.  Honestly, I would go weeks without reading a single book to my children.  We homeschooled.  I taught Math, and Science, and Spelling, and reading mechanics.  They did workbooks.  It was dry.  It was missing something.  I knew what was missing, but I didn’t know what to do about it.  I love reading.  I really do.  To myself.  But out loud… Shew. That’s another ballgame.  When I read out loud, dyslexia rears its ugly head.  I suddenly can’t remember how to pronounce a word I’ve said many times.  I find an unfamiliar word that I just skipped while reading to myself.  The words get jumbled up in my head.  On paper they sometimes magically rearrange themselves into a big hairy mess.

            Reading out loud has been my nemesis for years.  In college, reading aloud sometimes kept me from getting the parts I wanted when I auditioned for plays.  I was the kid in grade school who would count how many paragraphs until my turn to read out loud during reading circle.  Then I would read ahead, practicing the words in my head for the paragraph I knew would soon be mine.  I would be so focused on that paragraph that I would have no idea what was going on in the story, and I would miss my cue.  I missed a lot of recess because of this.  I remember visiting my cousin’s church in maybe sixth grade.  The Sunday school class was reading The Horse and His Boy, one of the Chronicles of Narnia books.  Each student took turns reading a WHOLE CHAPTER.  A whole chapter of British literature?  I asked if I could stop at after one page.  When studying teacher education in college, I sometimes had to read to different classes during my field experiences and internship.  It scared me.  One year a teacher asked me to read The Secret Garden out loud to her class.  Have you read The Secret Garden?  Some of it is written in Yorkshire.  Yorkshire.  I figuratively broke into hives.

            When my children were very little, I found the Five in a Row curriculum. It is a sweet way to introduce picture books to your littles.  I loved it. Each week we read the same book five days in row (hence the name…)  We read Madeline, and The Story about Ping, A Pair of Red Clogs, and so many other sweet stories.  We found the countries where they were located on the map.  It was easy and sweet. We counted and cooked. My children and I have many fun memories from that time.  Picture books are no big deal for me to read. Twenty-four pages with simple words? I can do that.

            Chapter books are a different hairy deal.  As my children got older, I wanted to introduce them to some of my favorites:  The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Holes, The Tale of Despereaux, The Secret Garden, Ramona and Her Father.  I just didn’t have the stamina or the confidence to do it.  We would start a book and then never finish it. 

            By the end of the day, I’m exhausted.  My dyslexia kicks in and words on a page look like an unscramble the word puzzle.  (I’m actually really good at unscramble the word puzzles, because that is how words look to me all the time.) Reading out loud at bedtime just won’t work for me about 80% of the time.

            I was beginning to feel like this was hopeless.  My children would never experience listening to chapter books with me.  Then I started to listen to Sarah MacKenzie’sRead Aloud Revival Podcast.  Sarah says that you should read out loud even to your older children.  I had never really thought about it, but I was worried that I was losing the window of opportunity to read aloud with my oldest child.

            Here is how I went from reading almost nothing with my children each day to reading for several hours each day.  It was a gradual process. 

            The first thing I did was try to identify why reading aloud was intimidating for me.  The main reason was that I was just too tired at bedtime to read, and for some reason I had it in my head that I had to read chapter books at night to my kids in order to be a good parent and educator.

I decided to implement a Morning Time. Your morning time probably won’t look like mine.  I started just with Bible, a history storybook and some poetry.  Last year, I used Our Island Story about British history.  This year we are reading A Child’s Story of America.  I also love James Baldwin’s anecdotal history stories, and the Story of the World.  Our Morning Time at the beginning was Bible and History, and Poetry.  Already I was reading more.  I’m most alert in midmorning, so we usually started 8:30 or 9:00 am.  Then the kids did their workbooks and math and we went on with our day.  After the children got used to a few subjects for morning time, I gradually added one more.  (I think I added 1 subject each month.)   Here is our Morning Time schedule after 14 months (on a day when we don’t have any appointments or anywhere to go. You can read about how I modify this when we have a busy day here.) Our current schedule includes Bible, Precepts, Storybook of Science, A Child’s History of the United States, The Blue Fairy Book, and a chapter or two of whatever chapter book we are reading.  I finish Morning Time by reading Life of Fred, our math curriculum.  Then we move on to our next part of the day.  When we are home, my oldest two children can listen for up to two hours. They play quietly, or draw, paint, or do something.  I love using “living books” as our source of information.  Our history, science, and Life of Fred are all living books.  Living books draw children into a story to help them remember details.  The term living books was made popular by Charlotte Mason, an educator in the 1800s. Mason believed that history is best learned when you study famous people by looking at their childhood.  George Washington and Cherry Tree is an example of an anecdotal history story.  (I know that is just a tall tale, but it does help children link a relatable story to a famous person). I’m much too eclectic to use Charlotte Mason’s method exclusively, but I do love living books, and her ideas about nature walks, and narration.  I don’t require a lot of writing or worksheets about what we read. But we do discuss.  Yesterday, I read “The White Cat” from The Blue Fairy Book.  My seven year old chimed in that the story reminded him of Repunzel because the white cat, who was really a princess under a spell, was locked up in a tower for years when a prince tried to rescue her by climbing the tower.  I didn’t prompt him to tell me that.  My children are used to making connections because we do this many times each week.  I continue to add things to our Morning Time.  I want to do some music and art appreciation.  I want to read simple biographies.  I want to add a Five in a Row picture book. 

Here are some benefits that I have seen in the 14 months we have made reading aloud the focus of our day.  I am a much more confident reader.  Many of the books I read were written in the 1800s, with a broad vocabulary and complicated sentences. That makes reading chapter books a piece of cake for me, and it strengthens my children’s vocabularies and sentence structures.  Also, not to brag, but my Yorkshire is en pointe now!

My daughter studying the art of writing in her Essentials class using Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW)’s History Based Writing Lessons.  When I read out loud to her, she is able to identify strong verbs, quality adjectives, -ly adverbs, different kinds of sentence openers, alliterations, and much more.  Reading aloud makes her a stronger writer. If you are familiar with the Suzuki method for learning an instrument, you know that a major part of Suzuki is that children listen to the pieces they will eventually play hundreds of times.  This trains their ears to play a piece like a master.  Similarly, reading out loud trains a writer’s ear to write like a master.

Another added perk of reading out loud is that my children have become better readers.  They read out loud for ten to fifteen minutes out loud each day.  They do it because they see me model reading out loud all morning.  My son is a good reader, but he has never really liked reading to himself.  In the past month, I have actually seen him pick up a book to read for pleasure. This is so encouraging to me.  I want my children to be vivacious readers, and I feel like we are starting to take a step in the right direction.  My daughter also has dyslexia, but she now reads above grade level, and her out loud reading is much better than mine was at her age.

Reading with friends on a cozy, rainy day

I have found that at bedtime we do read a little more now.  Like a snowball rolling down a hill, our reading amount is continuing to grow.  Picture books are my choice for bedtime, but my daughter and I recently took turns reading Flora and Ulysses (one of our new favorites) and last night, my youngest requested a chapter from Winnie the Pooh.

“What is the best way to defeat an enemy?”

“It is to make him your friend.”- Sensei Wu

Our family has made a friend out of reading aloud.  (Leave it to me to use a CARTOON to illustrate a blog post about reading.)