There is something kind of tragic that happens when our kids become readers of their own right. It doesn’t always happen, of course, and there are ways for us to prevent it. But it’s awfully common. That thing I’m talking about? When reading starts to feel like school. It happens to all of us at one point or another, and it’s very common especially at this time of year when school is well underway. Parents will notice a significant drop in how much their kids are reading for pleasure…if they’re ...
Jan 25, 2024•28 min
What are fairy tales? Why do we love them so much? And why do these stories continue to capture the imaginations of countless generations? To help me answer those questions, I’m welcoming author Sarah Arthur to the podcast. Personally, I fell in love with Sarah’s writing through A Light So Lovely , on the spiritual legacy of Madeleine L’Engle. And when I found out she was working on a young adult fantasy, and that it was a sort of love letter to fairy tales? I had to have her on the show. She jo...
Jan 11, 2024•58 min
Today, I’ve got another Best Of RAR episode for you. I wanted to revisit this episode because it feels extra relevant this time of year as we’re thinking about setting goals and resolutions for the year ahead. Personally, I tend to feel a little overwhelmed by it and I bet some of you can relate. And when it comes to books and goals for our reading lives, one of the things we hear at Read Aloud Revival all the time is, “There are so many books and so little time!” There are SO MANY good books we...
Dec 28, 2023•28 min
Today we’re airing one of my favorite episodes from last year, all about Jolabokaflod, which is a Christmas “book flood,” in the Icelandic tradition. What if I told you this tradition makes your life easier, not harder? During Jolabokaflod, you gift members of your family with new books, and everyone drinks hot cocoa and spends the whole of Christmas Eve reading. If I didn’t get your attention before, I’ve got it now. There is so much that happens this time of year that adds to our to-do list, t...
Dec 14, 2023•22 min
I know that if you’re an RAR Family, you are raising kids who love to read, because that’s what we do around here! And with a love of reading often comes the inspiration to write. And those young writers will come to you looking for feedback on their stories. But what if we, as parents, don’t see ourselves as experts or writers and feel like we don’t have much to offer in the way of feedback? It happens for a lot of homeschoolers. We know that homeschools are fabulous places to grow young writer...
Nov 09, 2023•46 min
I want to introduce you to one of my new favorite authors. She's younger than most published authors. In fact, she says she decided to publish her first book at nine years old. When she was 10, she attended her first writing conference. When she was 13, she self published her first book. She was homeschooled. You probably could have already guessed that. And she has been on a roll ever since. Now she's 20 and she's making books I know your families are going to love. Millie Florence shares her j...
Oct 26, 2023•39 min
On today’s Best of Read Aloud Revival episode, I’m replaying one of our most popular episodes. Without fail, at every homeschool conference, at least one person comes up to me and says, “Dyslexia was not even on my radar until I listened to the episode with Marianne Sunderland.” And that’s because most of us don’t understand what dyslexia really is and the signals to look for in our kids. And we don’t know what to do when they do show signs of having a dyslexic brain. It’s important to remember ...
Oct 11, 2023•45 min
By far the most popular episode we’ve ever done here on Read Aloud Revival is the episode with my oldest daughter, Audrey, when we looked back together on homeschooling from her vantage point as a sophomore in college. We discussed what worked, what didn’t, and about our homeschool experience in general. And last spring, at the Great Homeschool Conventions, you all kept asking me when Audrey would be back on the podcast. She’s now about to start her senior year at Franciscan University, so it se...
Sep 28, 2023•44 min
There is one question that plagues us, that we all ask, and that we ask all the time: Am I doing enough? When we constantly ask ourselves if we’re doing enough in our homeschool, it makes it difficult to stay present and engaged and actually enjoy it. Whether you’re relatively new to homeschooling or a seasoned veteran, we all wonder. Today, I'm sharing the last of my sessions from The GHC Conferences 2023. This one is all about taking the overwhelm out of that question and practical advice for ...
Sep 14, 2023•48 min
Today, I’m sharing another session from the Great Homeschool Conventions in 2023 all about homeschooling with babies and toddlers. If you are homeschooling with babies and toddlers underfoot, this one's for you. Or if you have a friend who is homeschool with babies and toddlers, this one's for her, so please share it! Full disclosure: My favorite part about going to the Great Homeschool Conventions is all the babies I get to snuggle and hold. So I created a session that would ensure I got maximu...
Aug 31, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Are you struggling with how to tackle reading in your homeschool? Maybe you have a child who’s a later reader or is having a tough time connecting with reading. Or maybe you have a kid who’s an advanced reader and they’re outpacing books that fit their emotional and social development. Either way, it can be hard to know what to do to help your child build a strong relationship with reading that they’ll carry with them throughout their lives. Today, I’m sharing a session from the Great Homeschool...
Aug 17, 2023•1 hr 13 min
During my hardest year of homeschooling, I had a 12, 10, 8, and 1 year old, and twin newborns. Life was… a little chaotic. One week, a friend of mine who had homeschooled all three of her kids asked, “So how's homeschooling going?” And naturally, I burst into tears. I’m not sure she saw that coming. But then, maybe she did. Anyway, she asked me how I was keeping the kids on track for their schoolwork and how much they could do when I wasn’t able to lead them, and when I looked at her with a blan...
Aug 03, 2023•32 min
Imagine that your child is grown up, and his or her reading life looks a lot like yours does right now. How do you feel about that? Is your reading life something you want your kids to emulate when they’re adults? What if we built for ourselves the kind of reading life that we’d be delighted for our own kids to imitate? Novelist Katherine Paterson once wrote that “a fondness for books is catching.” I think she’s right. It’s much easier to be drawn into a reading life when the people around you a...
Jul 20, 2023•35 min
Today, in this Best Of Read Aloud Revival episode, we’re revisiting a conversation about a series I absolutely adore: The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall. The Penderwicks follows the escapades of four spirited sisters, Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty. The books are a modern nod to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and they’ve won tons of awards including the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, several ALA Notable Children’s Book Awards, and the Massachusetts Children’s Book Award....
Jul 06, 2023•54 min
In this episode, I’m answering more of your questions. You’ve sent in some fabulous messages and I’m going to tackle them rapid-fire for you and answer as many as possible today. Today I’m sharing about when to use Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) or teach composition, when and how to start using the library, and what to do when a teenager doesn’t enjoy reading. In this episode, you’ll hear: Why you don’t need to rush your kids into composition, and what I do instead Strategies for hand...
Jun 22, 2023•41 min
Full show notes can be found here: You Don't Need to Make the Most of Your Summer Get RAR Premium HERE>> 📖 Order your copy of Painting Wonder: How Pauline Baynes Illustrated the Worlds of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by Katie Wray Schon.
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 9 min
In today’s episode, I’m answering your questions! Listeners have sent in some fabulous questions for me, and I’m going to attempt to tackle them rapid-fire, including about where I get my favorite art prints, what to do with late-night readers, what to do if you don’t feel like you read aloud well, and more. In this episode, you’ll hear: My favorite places to find bookish art What I do if my kids stay up too late reading How I handle assigned reading in my homeschool Find the rest of the show no...
May 25, 2023•38 min
Two weeks ago I shared the first 5 of 10 mistakes I’ve made in my homeschool -- believe me, I’ve made many, many more than that! But I’m highlighting 10 that stick out most prominently to me. So in the last “Best of Read-Aloud Revival” episode, I shared the first 5 and today I’m sharing the next 5. Hopefully, hearing these will keep you from making the mistakes I have. Homeschooling is a joy and a gift and it’s hard and wonderful and messy and effective -- it’s all of those things at once. I can...
May 11, 2023•25 min
I’ve been homeschooling for a long time, and just like every other homeschooling mom I know, I’ve made a ton of mistakes. When I was new to homeschooling, I craved the insight of people who had been doing it for a while: What do you wish you did more of? What do you wish you worried less about? What would you do differently if you were starting over again? These are the kinds of things I wanted to know. At the time I’m airing this particular show, I have two college students who were homeschoole...
Apr 27, 2023•24 min
Why do we make things mean more than they actually mean? We all do it. We realize a kid doesn’t know how to tie their shoes at age 12, and we tell ourselves we’re forgetting to teach SO MANY IMPORTANT THINGS. We feed our kids frozen pizza for dinner twice in a week and think it means we don’t care about their health. We sleep late and tell ourselves we’re lazy. We have a late reader and think it means we’re not good at this “teaching reading” thing. We make things mean what they don’t mean ALL T...
Apr 13, 2023•29 min
Today, I’m sharing a conversation with my friend and colleague, Cindy West. Cindy teaches at No Sweat Nature Study, a homeschool nature study program that takes the guesswork out of nature study by teaching your kids directly. Cindy is also the host of the No Sweat Nature Study podcast, which features short episodes about nature. (My kids absolutely love it!) Cindy and I recently had a conversation for her community about how to use picture books to teach nature study and today, I wanted to shar...
Mar 30, 2023•44 min
I have a theory that if I were to ask a hundred of today’s children’s book authors and illustrators to name a book that had a profound impact on them, I bet an unusually large number of those authors and illustrators would mention the work of E.B. White. I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard authors say that E.B. White’s books have made such a huge difference in their lives and writing. I’m a big E.B. White fan myself, and while I love Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, my absolute favor...
Mar 17, 2023•44 min
Every year, the Read-Aloud Revival team watches the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards together. This is the award show where the medals that are considered the most prestigious in children’s publishing are given. Today I’m joined by Kortney Garrison, our Community Director, Kara Anderson, our Creative Director, and Harmony Harkema, or brand new Managing Editor at both Read-Aloud Revival and Waxwing Books. We are going to talk about the winners that were announced on January 30, 2...
Mar 02, 2023•49 min
Oh boy, do we have a treat for you today! Our team here at Read-Aloud Revival has been hard at work on a brand new booklist for you and I’ve invited Kortney Garrison and Kara Anderson from the RAR team back to this side of the podcast to tell you all about it. Nature study can be an intimidating subject that carries a lot of expectations in the homeschooling world. It’s something we want to do, but it can get pushed to the side because we don’t always have the energy to tramp around the woods wi...
Feb 16, 2023•37 min
What do you do if you notice that your child isn’t finishing books? How can you get your kids to widen their reading taste outside of a single genre? How can you describe what you do for literature on a high school transcript when you take a more relaxed Read-Aloud Revival approach to the subject? And what can you do to help boost your child’s emotional intelligence and reading comprehension while reading? Today, I’m answering listeners’ questions about their kids’ reading habits, from bouncing ...
Feb 02, 2023•43 min
I want to help you think about what’s most essential in your homeschool. I’ve invited Kortney Garrison and Kara Anderson from the RAR team to chat with me about a favorite book when it comes to essentializing. We've been talking and thinking about the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown a lot here at Read Aloud Revival, especially as it relates to homeschooling. We're reading the book in our Mama Book Club in RAR Premium in January and I will tell you this book is easily one of the books I can say...
Jan 19, 2023•1 hr 2 min
The Long Winter is the sixth book in the Little House on the Prairie series. It was first published in 1940, and is an autobiographical novel. Laura Ingalls Wilder based the series on her actual life as a child, settling the west. This particular story, The Long Winter , was set in the southwestern Dakota Territory during the severe winter of 1880-1881 when Laura was 14 years old. Even if you haven’t read the rest of the Little House books, I think you want to read this one. You can read any of ...
Jan 05, 2023•36 min
In this bonus episode, you'll hear: How Sarah's Jolabokaflod really went Can we actually fall in love with the homeschooling lives we already have? All-new for 2023 -- Circle with Sarah: RAR Premium Homeschool Coaching For the full show notes, head here. 📖 Order your copy of Painting Wonder: How Pauline Baynes Illustrated the Worlds of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by Katie Wray Schon....
Dec 27, 2022•25 min
What if I told you that there’s an Icelandic Christmas tradition where you spend an entire day (or evening) reading books and sipping hot cocoa? And it’s what you’re SUPPOSED to be doing. Yes, this is a real thing! It’s called Jolabokaflod, and in this episode, you’ll hear: Where the tradition came from 3 super-simple steps to your own Jolabokaflod How other mamas just like you have made the tradition their own During Jolabokaflod, you gift members of your family with new books, and everyone dri...
Dec 01, 2022•17 min
By now, most of us are knee deep in our homeschool year. And no matter how far into your year you are, and no matter what’s happened that you either did, or didn’t, expect to happen, I’m willing to bet that something funny has happened: You’re carrying around a lot of pinecones. What on earth do I mean by that? In this episode, you’ll hear: All the ways we end up with a metaphorical 56-pound backpack of homeschool curriculum What are these pinecones (and why do I keep picking them up?) How to de...
Nov 10, 2022•28 min
