RAR #182: 5 Books I want you to know about, and answers to your questions about reading a book a day

Sarah Mackenzie (00:08): You're listening to the Read-Aloud Revival Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Mackenzie, homeschooling mama of six, and author of the Read-Aloud Family and Teaching from Rest. As parents, were overwhelmed with a lot to do. It feels like every child needs something different. The good news is, you are the best person to help your kids learn and grow. And home is the best place to fall in love with books. (00:33): This podcast has been downloaded seven million times in over 160 countries. So, if you want to nurture warm relationships, while also raising kids who love to read, you're in good company. We'll help your kids fall in love with books. And we'll help you fall in love with homeschooling. Let's get started. (00:59): I hope you've had a chance to enjoy the previous episodes here on Read-Aloud Revival, all about reading a book a day. If you missed any of them, go back and listen. In Episode 178, we talked about why it's worthwhile to read a book a day with our kids of all ages. And of course, we're talking about reading a book a day, we don't mean a novel a day, right? Nobody has time to read a novel a day with their kids. (01:27): What we're talking about are picture books. And one of the things we really emphasized in Episode 178 is that, picture books quite often have more sophisticated language patterns, better vocabulary, and in general just a higher level of syntax and language use, then chapter books or novels. This is something that isn't talked about very frequently. But actually, when we go from a picture book to a novel or taking a step down in the complexity of language. (01:56): So, yes, we're talking about reading a picture book with our older kids, and teens as well. But in Episode 178, we were just talking about why, why reading a book a day matters. What does it offer our kids that it doesn't offer if we decide to just read a novel, and skip picture books entirely, and which happens a lot, I think, as kids get older. We tend to prioritize the novels over picture books. (02:20): Of course, we also offered a free printable tracker for your own seven-day or 30-day book-a-day challenge. And you can grab those in the show notes of today's episode, readaloudrevival.com/182 as well. Then, in Episode 179, we showed you how to use the, I wonder statement. And also, some open-ended questions to look more closely at picture books. (02:47): We even showed you what that looked like with Mornings with Monet by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Mary GrandPré. And we talked about how you don't have to do anything extra, you can just read the book and have a good conversation. And that's beneficial in itself. But then, we also showed you how you can train yourself to look for things you might otherwise missed in a picture book. (03:10): Then, in Episode 180, we talked specifically about reading a book-a-day with older kids and teens, how to do it, why to do it, which books, which short stories we most recommend. And then, we also discussed how to get over resistance from older kids who think that being read to from a picture book is for younger kids, for babies, is below them, right? We've got ideas for that. That's all on episode 180. (03:32): And then, in the last episode, Episode 181, we got practical. We just talked about the nitty gritty with practical stuff on how to make a book-a-day viable in your busy schedule, in your busy home. So, if you missed any of those episodes, I encourage you to go back and listen. And you can send me any questions you have about the how or why of reading a book-a-day with your students. (03:57): Actually, you can send me a question about pretty much everything at readaloud revival.com/message. You can send me a voicemail question. And I'm about to start answering a ton of questions you've submitted. So, if you have submitted a question, a voicemail there, for me. I'm probably about to answer your question. Because coming up here on the podcast very soon, I'm going to be answering just a ton of those. (04:22): You can expect that to start happening here in two weeks. Starting with the very next episode. We are going to get into those questions you've been sending by voicemail. So, you can go ahead and feel free to send in any questions you have, about reading with your kids, about homeschooling, about any element of helping our kids fall in love with books and helping ourselves fall in love with homeschooling. Again, you leave those messages at readaloudrevival.com/message. (04:47): So, this is Episode 182 and in this episode, I'm going to answer some questions I've been seeing on Facebook, about reading picture books with our kids. But before I do that, I wanted to share five books, I know you're going to love. Books I've got right here next to me on my shelf, that I cannot wait to tell you about. I love highlighting books that our family is especially loving. (05:09): So, that's what I want to do on today's show. First five books I want you to know about, and think you probably want to know about. And then, after that, answers to your questions about book-a-day. Are we ready? (05:41): Okay. First up, let's talk about a middle grade novel I am head over heels for. This is, A Place to Hang the Moon, written by Kate Albus. You might have seen me gush about this novel on the Read-Aloud Revival Instagram. I am in love with this book. The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking, "Oh, my goodness, Read-Aloud Revival families are going to adore this story." (06:05): So, we've got three kids being evacuated from London during the blitz, to the English countryside, right? There's tea. There are siblings who work together to get themselves through a rough patch. And honestly, that's the whole siblings who are bonding together to get their family... For the good of their family. That's one of my favorite tropes for kid's fiction. (06:28): We used to see it a lot. We see it a lot fewer in a lot fewer books nowadays. But if you like books like, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Vanderbeekers, and The Penderwicks, where you've got siblings who are bonding together for the better of their own family, then this is a book you're going to like, get your hands on. (06:47): And speaking of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we have the eponymous illusion. That's a very fancy word, way of saying we've a character in this book named Edmund, who is absolutely an allusion to Edmund, from The Chronicles of Narnia. Yes, and there's a librarian that you'll fall in love with. There are bookish references got lower, so your kids would be on happy reading trails forever. If they were just trying to read the books that the kids in this book are reading? Seriously. (07:16): You couldn't read this one aloud, I think to all ages. My hunch is that, ages 7 and up are probably going to enjoy it most. Or, you can just read it to yourself like I did the first time I read it. It's a delight. It's a complete delight. One of the best middle grade books I've read in a long time. (07:34): Middle grade, by the way, technically, in publisher speak, means books that are geared toward ages 8 to 12. But this is one that I told you, I think you could read aloud to all ages. I think your 7s will like it. I think your 6s will like it. And I definitely think your teens will like it, especially if they happen to be bookish teens. They're going to find all kinds of references to their favorite books in there. (07:55): So, we invited Kate Albus to come talk to our kids in RAR Premium, because we made this book, A Place to Hang the Moon, our fall family book club pick. So, if you are in Premium, your kids will get to meet Kate. They'll get to find out her process for writing the book, how she gets ideas and turns those into a story. And of course, they can ask her their own questions. (08:18): And if you're not in Premium, you can join us before that happens by going to rarpremium.com. Okay. So, then, A Place to Hang the Moon. It's so good. Let's talk about some picture books, though. Because I've also got some picture books here that we are loving. Nobody Likes a Goblin by Ben Hatke. I have talked about this book on the podcast before. I don't know why kids love this book so much. But I have yet to meet a single kid who does not love this book. (08:49): So, Ben Hatke knows what he's doing. The first time I read it, I was like, "Oh, that's a good story." But I was not prepared for this book to become probably the most reread picture book and revisited picture book in our home. If it's not the most reread, it's got to be way up there. We read this book over and over and over. (09:07): Ben Hatke is awesome. He's got some really fabulous graphic novels as well. Graphic novels for younger kids, like robot. What's it called? I can't remember, something robot. But Zita the Spacegirl is a whole series. That's great. The Mighty Jack books are fantastic graphic novels. (09:25): So, I mean, he just makes books that kids gobble up. And he tends to be an author, illustrator, who I recommend a lot especially for kids who are not yet in love with reading, who haven't become voracious readers. Ben Hatke, he's one of those creators who can help them fall in love with books. (09:44): So, that's why we made this one our September family book club pick, Nobody Likes a Goblin. That's what we're reading for book club, because we wanted to talk to Ben. We want him to tell us how his brain works and his process for making his books. We want your kids to be able to meet him. So, that's what we're doing in RAR Premium in September. (10:04): Okay. Another picture book you don't want to miss is, Overground Railroad. Now, this one is written by Lesa Cline-Ransome and illustrated by her husband James Ransome. They are an absolute delight. By the way, we've interviewed them before in RAR Premium, and they're so fun, especially together. (10:24): Okay. But in Overground Railroad, this is a picture book that's basically a window into the great migration. So, the characters here were climbing aboard the New York bound Silver Meteor train, where the main character, Ruth Ellen, is about to find a whole new life for herself up north in those first years, following the Civil War. (10:49): It is lyrical. I mean, Lesa's writing is pretty much always lyrical gorgeousness, and then her husband, James, his illustrations are such a perfect pairing. And I think you're going to really like it. And I should have mentioned too at the top of this show, I should have mentioned that we will put links to every single one of these books I'm mentioning in the show notes, so you can go grab them, put them on hold at your library, or grab a copy for your own family shelf. (11:13): This one is worth owning. I mean, actually all the ones I'm mentioning, today, all five of these are worth owning. So, if you can't get them, I know that if you have a lot of RAR families in your area, it can be hard to get them from the library, because that whole list gets very long. (11:29): So, one way to know when a book is excellent enough to own for your shelves is, if we've chosen a book for RAR Premium, then it's a book worth owning. That's a pretty good standard. So, this book isn't necessarily a family, we're not really doing it as a family book club. But Lesa, the author is coming to RAR Premium in October. Because as you're probably familiar, we have a whole series of workshops. Hopefully, you're familiar. If you're not, I'm about to tell you about them. (11:58): We have a whole series of workshops called, WOW, Writers on Writing. And these are workshops for young writers that are taught by real writers, their favorite writer, so. And then, we have a whole library of these workshops by, Oh gosh, Kate Messner, Jonathan Auxie, Andrea Davis Pinkney, so many people. I can't even list them all off right now. (12:20): So, we have tons of these WOW writers on writing workshops, on different topics. Every workshop is like hyper focused on one small craft tip, one small skill that your child can learn to take their writing to the next level. And they're presented in a really fun way. We have activities and exercises that help your child practice what the author taught. (12:42): So, in this one, Lesa Cline-Ransome is going to come teach us point of view, which is actually, a hard thing to get a handle on in your writing. If you've ever tried to write new fiction, you might know, it is kind of hard to nail that point of view and stay with one point of view. (12:56): I am notorious for hopping around two different points of view, when I'm writing, I have to fix it. Anyway, Lesa is going to come teach our kids about it. And then, the kids will also get a WOW guide, their writers on writing guide and that guide has exercises and activities that take what Lesa teaches in our workshop, and help you extend that over six to eight weeks of great writing practice. (13:17): So, really fun. Anyway, that's happening this fall too. Okay. But I wanted to tell you about, let's see how many more books do I have? I'm sorry. But I want to say about two more. The Ox-Cart Man. Now, you guys know I love Barbara Cooney, right? I mean, in fact, if you have not listened to our special edition podcast about Barbara Cooney, you should do that right after this episode. You should. It's so good. It's so much fun to make. (13:40): I'll pop the link in the show notes for you. You could also just search for Barbara Cooney in your podcast app, and it'll probably come up. So, I love to revisit Ox-Cart Man every year. This was Barbara Cooney's second Caldecott Award Winning book. Basically, Donald Hall wrote a poem, the Ox-Cart Ma. And Barbara Cooney added pictures and it is a stunner of a picture book. It really is. (14:07): And then, this year, because I revisit this every year in my own home, and I love it so much, we're actually going to do a literary nature study around the Ox-Cart Man. So, Cindy West who is one of our favorite nature study people is coming, and she's going to teach RAR Premium kids how to some nature study stuff in this piece of literature. (14:29): And she's also go into... Also, their sheep, play an important piece in the Ox-Cart Man, right? So, we're going to learn about sheep from a nature study point of view. And Cindy is also going to help us learn wool, like the economic impact of wall. And so, it's going to be like a nature study and an economics lesson in one. So, good. It's going to be so good. (14:57): Cindy is teaching this. Like I said, we all just love her round here. So, we'll be able to enjoy the Ox-Cart Man, and then dig in a little deeper, take it to another level in RAR Premium. So, that's going to be fun. And then, I wanted to tell you... So, I've given you books for your kids, right? So, a couple of books, like I said, that you want to get your hands on, A Place to Hang the Moon. Highly, highly, highly recommend that novel. (15:20): And then, Nobody Likes a Goblin, hilarious picture book. Tell me what your kids think because I have a feeling they're going to love it. Overground Railroad, which is going to just expand your child's view of a history, and give them a window to a place in time. They probably are not privy too, yet. And then, Ox-Cart Man, which is worth revisiting every year. It's such a good book. Easily in my top 10 favorite picture books. Easy, easy. (15:47): But I also wanted to recommend a book for you. And I don't think I've said this on the podcast. I'm not sure if I have or not, but I just recently released a mama book list. So, if you have not seen that, go to readaloudrevival.com. At the top, you'll see book lists in the menu, click on that, and you should find the mama book lists. (16:07): These are just my favorites. Some of them are adult fiction. Some of them are nonfiction. I've got my favorite YA books. My favorite middle grade books. My favorite books to listen to one audio. These are just books that I love. My own reading, not necessarily reading with my kids. And one of the books that's on that list is, The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi. This book is so good. (16:34): Basically, Kendra teaches us 12 principles for being lazy or a genius. I'm going to say this wrong. That teaches us to be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about things that don't. We're going to apply those principles specifically, to homeschooling. So, we're basically going to lazy, genius, our homeschools. (16:55): We also do homeschool training in RAR Premium called, Circle with Sarah. And this is where I'm teaching and we're all thinking through how we can teach from rest and feel capable and confident in our homeschool because, as you know, one of our main principles around here is that, you should fall in love with your homeschool. I mean, if you think about it, you are going to be the person in your homeschool longer than anyone else's, right? (17:17): This didn't actually dawn on me, until my oldest daughter went off to college. And I'm still here, still homeschooling. In fact, my youngest ones are 8. So, still a little while to go, right? And I realized, "Oh, my goodness, she's done homeschooling. And I'm still here, obviously." But we are actually, mom, or dad or whoever is doing the homeschooling, we're the ones that are in our homeschool longer than anyone else. (17:37): And so, we should be able to fall in love with it, so that we can love our job, and wake up and be like, "I'm so lucky to be able to do this." And that's what we're trying to do here in RAR Premium, right? Is figure out, how we can fall in love with our homeschool? (17:48): And so, one of the things we're going to be talking about this fall is naming what matters, which I was so delighted to see when the first time I read lazy, genius way is a main principle of Kendra's. That you have to name what matters. You have to decide what matters, that you can make decisions based on that. And it sounds simple, but when we do it, it makes all the other decisions we make in our homeschool so much easier. (18:11): Whether to join that coop, or not, whether to get this curriculum or not, how much to do, when to pass. So many decisions we make on a day by day, quarter by quarter, term by term, year by year level in our home schools would be simplified, if we could figure out how to name what matters. So, we're doing that this fall. (18:30): And then, we're also going to have Kendra Adachi, come and talk with us, and spend an evening with us. So, we can talk about lazy, genius thing in our homes. So, anyway, that's happening in RAR Premium too. So, as you can see, the books that we're loving are the books that we choose for RAR Premium for our book clubs, because that's the way it works, right? And just everything you need to know about RAR Premium is that, rarpremium.com calm. (18:55): Just as a heads up, the price to join premium is going up on October 1st. Now, once you join RAR Premium, you lock in your rate. So, as long as your subscription is active, you continue to pay that rate. Price increases do not apply to you. And I can tell you that, our current rate right now, it's never going to be this low again in the future. (19:16): So, and you probably know by now, that RAR Premium is not discounted ever. So, if you want to get in on RAR Premium, where you've been on the fence, you've been waffling or thinking about it, now's a great time to do it. Now, is the time to lock in the lowest rate, it will ever be. And it's going up October 1st. (19:33): So, again, if you're currently a member, you don't need to worry about the price increase, that doesn't apply to you. If you're not a member, I'd suggest you get in there before October 1st, you can give it a try. There's no obligation, you can cancel at any time with a couple of taps on your phone, or a couple of clicks of the button on your account. (19:51): And also, we have a 30-day money back guarantee. So, you can always join and just see. This is going to be a good fit for us. But I would do it before October 1st because that's when prices are going up. Okay. So, I told you that there were some questions about book-a-day. And these questions came up on Facebook. So, I just grabbed a few that came up more than once, so I can answer them here for you. I figured, if they came up a few times on Facebook, they're probably questions a lot of us have. So, let's go ahead and answer a few of these. (20:30): The first question comes from Kristin. And she says, "How important is it to push reading aloud if your only child prefers to read to themselves? Mine is only six. So, I'd like to continue doing read alouds, but she's both a very advanced reader, and she's very visual. So, it's harder for her to understand when she listens. And she gets a lot more from the book when she reads it herself. I get it, since I'm the same way, and I can't follow audio books. (20:57): Okay. This is a great question, Kristin. And actually, how important is it to prioritize reading aloud? It's actually pretty important. Now, you know me, I'm always saying like, "Take your foot off the gas, relax, things are going to be okay." Most of us are overdoing it. Most of us are overthinking things, right? But there are actually some unique benefits that your child receives from hearing language through the ear. (21:23): So, for example, when we read with our eyes, especially the better the reader we are, which it sounds like your daughter's a great reader. So, the better reader as we are, we read quick and we skip stuff, small words like, the, and, then, of, those kinds of things, right? We actually skip those when we're reading. And that's why it's much faster for us to read with our eyes than it is for us to read out loud, or to listen to an audiobook. (21:49): Audiobooks always take longer, than if we were to read silently to ourselves with our eyes. But part of that is, because we're skipping those little connector words. And when that happens, we're not storing whole strings of grammatically correct sophisticated language patterns into our brains or into our kid's brains. And so, in order to do that, to store those grammatically correct sophisticated language patterns into our kid's brains, it needs to come in through the ear. (22:16): And so, I do think you definitely don't want to side... Side, I was going to say sideline, I guess, put on the table, shelf, whatever you want to say. You don't want to quit reading aloud to your child. But I wouldn't say that they have to do most of their reading through reading aloud. That's definitely not true. You just want to make sure they're getting some of their language through read aloud every week, multiple times a week, probably. (22:40): This is why actually, reading a picture book a day can be really helpful because you can let your daughter read all the books she wants with her eyes. And then, read one picture book a day with her. And then, this is especially excellent, because she's hearing it while she's seeing the words with a picture book, right? So, she can follow along with the word, so that's going to increase her processing when you're saying that she tends to understand and comprehend what she read better when she's just reading it with her eyes. (23:11): She can keep doing that with a picture book because the words are right there. But then, she's also getting it auditory. So, that's like ramping up all the benefits through all the different senses. This is multimodal reading, when our kids are reading with their eyes and their ears, and they're looking at illustrations. (23:25): So, if your 6-year-old wants to read all of her novels on her own, or a bunch of books on her own, but you read aloud one picture book a day, and maybe just one picture book, a school day even, you're going to get the best of both worlds. So, I think that's how I'd go about it. It's just a picture book-a-day read aloud, and let her get her novels over their eyes, if that's what's best in your family. (23:44): Okay. So, here's another question. This one comes from Natalie. And she says, "Is it okay if it's the same four books being read over and over? My kids are 4 and 2, and they really just have their own favorites?" Absolutely, yes. If you haven't yet, Natalie, I would suggest you listen to Episode 141. Because on that episode, I talked about the benefits of rereading. (24:11): So, this is really interesting. We know that kids acquire their vocabulary, and they retain language patterns. And they improve their reading comprehension better when they're revisiting a book, than when it's brand new to them. So, it's actually, better for you to reread a small pile of books to your kids, than it is for them to always have a new book. Reading the same small set has advantages then, over always reading something new, right? (24:38): So in our house, we mix it up. We read new books a lot, but we also revisit favorites over and over, and it's a really healthy super beneficial thing. So, if your 2 and 4-year-old just want you to reread their favorites again and again, that is good stuff. Lots of good is happening there. You can throw in maybe one new picture book a week, and then that way they can find some new favorites, right? Expand their genre, and their exposure to different genres and points of view, and story types, and everything, illustration styles. But if most of your reading is rereading, that's good stuff. So good. (25:12): All right. This is a question from Zo Raster. And she says, "How do you stay awake while you read aloud?" I was like... When I saw this, I thought, "Oh, my gosh, everyone wants to know the answer to this question." Zo, you are not alone. There is nothing like reading aloud to make your eyelids feel like they're each a 100 pounds. (25:31): Okay. So, let's talk about this. The book-a-day approach is really excellent for this because you're reading aloud a picture book and not a novel. And that can help just because it's shorter, because you have to turn the pages, so you're naturally more engaged in staying more alert. It's easier to fall asleep, or get really tired when you're reading aloud a novel, than it is when you're reading a lot of picture book. (25:55): So, let's stick with this picture book a day idea. And try that and see if just reading one picture book a day, which is only 10 or 15 minutes, might help you. And just shelve the idea of reading aloud novels for now, you can do those on audiobook. In fact, I do want to say this, if you're tired, let's say, I mean, anyone who's listening to this, let's say you have a new baby, or you're getting over being sick, or the kids have been sick, so you're tired. You just haven't been sleeping well. And you cannot keep your eyes open during read aloud. (26:25): My suggestion is to pick a time of day, probably, I don't know, early afternoon, often time works well. And turn on an audio book for everybody. And then, you just lay on the couch in the room with the audio book going. And if you fall asleep, would you very likely will, that's great. Then, when you wake up, or when the audio book ends, and the kids wake you up. That's a great opportunity for your kids to narrate what they heard, right? Just ask them. Oh, I fell asleep, what did I missed? (26:52): So, stop fighting the fact that you're tired, because you got a lot going on. You're doing a lot of things. And so, and understand that your kid's hearing language read aloud, even if it's not being read by you, is equally beneficial to them. I hope that helps a little bit, Zo. (27:07): So, Jaime wrote in and said, "If you're doing this, book a day, as part of homeschooling, do you require anything of them other than just being present while reading the book? Do you require they respond to questions, write anything, et cetera? I feel like reading would be more enjoyable for my voice, if I was just reading. If it was just reading, maybe some informal talking about the story, but not anything that feels like, "work?" (27:35): Okay, Jamie. No, I do not require anything of them other than being present when I read the book. And I'm going to be talking about this more here on the podcast very soon, about how we do literature without a curriculum. But I'll give you the sneak peek right now. Because it's very simple. The heart of it is just that we read and read aloud in our house. And we talk about books. And that's what you're saying here. (27:58): I don't make my kids write about books. I don't make them do anything to prove to me that they were listening. We read and we read aloud and we talk about them in a very conversational way. I'll tell you, this is how we pretty much always approached literature in my home. And although, I worry when my oldest was younger, and I thought, "Well, I hope this is enough." (28:19): She's now a sophomore in college, majoring in English. And she's one of the highest scoring kids in her class actually, and continually gets comments from her college professors saying, how, what a good English student she is. And I never required her to write about the books she read. So, I'm going to talk about that more soon here. But the short answer is, no. I don't require anything of my kids, other than that they are present. And they're listening. (28:51): Courtney. Courtney Craig wrote in and said, "My kids are 13,11 and 7, what picture books would you recommend for those ages? We often do picture book biographies, but I'm looking for other suggestions." My favorite question of all, what books do you recommend? I love this question so much. Okay. Picture book biographies, you're already doing which is excellent. That's always my first recommendation, but I've got some others for you. (29:16): Picture books by Patricia Polacco come to mind for me right away. They are longer form. They tend to have more words than most picture books do these days. They're beautifully illustrated and their top quality stories. So, if you come to mind, The Junkyard Wonders, Chicken Sunday, Babushka's Doll, The bee tree, Mr. Lincoln's Way. Mrs. Katz and Tush, I love that one. Just Plain Fancy. I mean, I could probably keep going on. (29:47): Anyway, we'll put all those in the show notes to this episode. Check out Patricia Polacco. Just like read the description first to see if it's a good fit for your family before you bring it home. And your library probably has them all. The libraries tend to carry Patricia Polacco. So, those are some really good ones for older kids. (30:04): Folktales and fables can also be a really good pick here, Courtney. The Talking Eggs by Robert San Souci. I don't know if I'm saying his name right, but it's S-A-N S-O-U-C-I, San Souci. That's my guess. (30:21): The Talking Eggs, that one is illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. And that's basically a folktale retold. And then, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe is another really good picture book for older kids. And then, the picture books by Torben Kuhlmann. Oh, those would be good here too. These books are Edison, Armstrong, Lindbergh. They take these big moments of invention and breakthrough from history, and they put them in the hands of a mouse. (30:53): So, they're beautifully illustrated. They're long form picture books. They're usually, I don't know, at least 60 pages, maybe 90. I don't have one right next to me to tell you. But they're not too young for your 13-year-old, but your youngest kids will love them. So, those are huge recommendations from me, the books by Torben Kuhlmann. (31:12): Okay, I got to stop here. Our show notes are going to be 500 pages long. So, that's to get you started, Courtney. I hope that helps with picture books for older kids that are not picture book biographies. (31:23): Okay, let's do one more question. This one comes from Alyssa. And she has questions about narration. She writes, "How do you make narration enjoyable, not like drilling? And how do you keep from adding or prompting your child's narration?" I have a 6-year-old and a 3-three-year-old. I just started trying to get the 6-year-old to tell me one thing about the story and she always says the last thing that happened. (31:45): When I asked for something else, she gets anxious and frustrated and overwhelmed." Also, I feel like their attention span is so short, not surprising for the 3-year-old, but a bit short to me for the 6-year-old. If I'm not reading a picture book with a short, snappy sentences, my 6-year-old won't remember any of the story. Even when I read for only five minutes. I do voices, I do animation. I've tried puppets and coloring while listening. It helps for a little while. And then, it seems like she tunes me out. (32:14): Okay. Alyssa, let's talk about narration. I can relate to this. My oldest was very, very similar. I started trying to do narration with her when she was about 6. And she was so anxious about remembering, trying to keep track of what she needed to remember or figuring out what she needed to remember that I noticed that when I would say, "Okay, you're going to narrate this, I'm going to read to you and you're going to narrate." She would almost listen less well. It was just very anxiety producing for her. (32:46): It was very difficult thing. It ended up being like I felt like I was failing in this very important piece, especially in the Charlotte Mason world. You hear people say, "Narration is key." And then, at my house narration was enough to cause a panic attack. (32:58): So, I'm going to tell you what we do instead. In our house, we don't do narration in the classic style. Instead, we use open-ended questions and we use some discussion prompts to just chat and have a conversation with our kids about what they're reading, or about what I've just read to them. (33:15): Now, one of the key principles I use when I think about this, is that, we want to raise kids who read well into adulthood, right? And so, one of the questions you can just ask yourself, as you're doing your homeschool with your kids, regardless of whether it's about reading or something else is, is this how we approach this topic in adulthood? And when it comes to reading as an adult, I don't know anybody who narrates back. (33:39): So, if my friend calls me and says, "Sara, I just read this book, you're going to love it." And I say, "Okay, tell me everything you remember about the story, or tell me back the story in your own words." So, just think about this. Think about the last book that you read. Got it in your mind? Okay. If I said, "Tell me back that story, or tell me that story in your own words." Is that overwhelming? That's not a question that we ever ask or answer as adult readers. (34:11): So, it's just a weird question, and it's overwhelming. So, instead, if I asked you, "What's one thing you want to remember from that story?" That's a much easier question to answer. You could probably even think of something right now, about the last book you read. What's one thing you don't want to forget? (34:30): So, it's helpful to think about what the goal is. What Charlotte Mason was going for when she taught parents and teachers to practice narration with their kids, was an alternative to basically a standard comprehension question. Because when a teacher is coming up with comprehension questions that are answering what happened in the story, in what order for example, the teacher is doing all the thinking. She has to actually, sift through the story through think through, everything that happened in the story, to come up with those questions. (35:00): Therefore, your teacher is actually, doing the work for the student. When we have kids have to think back through what they read or heard, to tell us something, they are doing the work. But we can help them by asking an easier lower bar question like, what's one thing you want to remember? And then, here's the other thing is, when you ask that question, you don't want to ask, what's the most important thing from that story? Because now, that's a much harder question to answer. Or, what was your most favorite part of it? (35:30): That's also very... It's superlative. The most favorite or the most important. Instead, just what's one thing you want to remember is a much easier gentler way to ask, but it still requires that your child revisit what they heard or read, in their mind to be able to pull something out and tell you, it requires them to make connections and to think. So, we can make it simpler. (35:54): And then, the other pieces that if your child goes, I don't know, which happens a lot, a lot more than a lot of people who talk about Charlotte Mason admit their kids go, "I don't know," and they can't answer. So, if your child freezes and can't answer, I suggest you just give your answer. That's what we're doing. We're trying to teach them how to read well, so teach them, model it, right? (36:14): So, if I asked my child, what's one thing you don't want to forget? And they go, "I don't know." I can say, "Oh, you know what? One thing I want to remember is the expression on the goblin's face, in that last spread, or the way that this character did this kind thing for another character, or whatever it is. Make it simple, so that if you make it simple and obvious, then that permission for your child not to be super profound, take so much pressure off. (36:43): I have a feeling if you started doing this, you might notice that your child is listening better and actually reading better because this is the stuff good reading is made of, paying attention and thinking about it. And we want to make sure the tools we're using to help our kids do that, are helping them. Actually, pay attention and read better, rather than the opposite, which is like clamp up and get nervous. They're going to get something wrong, because that's the opposite of what Charlotte Mason was going for narration. (37:09): So, I'll step off my narration soapbox right now. But yes, see if this spin on it. We'll help you, and see where it gets you. Also, in the show notes, I will put a link to where you can grab for free our open-ended question's guide. This is a guide that helps you have... It has a whole bunch of questions and discussion prompts, that you can use with your kids. Questions like, what's one thing you don't want to forget from this story? Questions just like that. (37:37): And how you can use these kinds of questions with absolutely any book that you read. And they're great as narration prompts and discussion prompts to get that going. So, I'll put that in the show notes, readaloudrevival.com/182. And you can grab that free guide that will help you a lot. (37:52): Okay. This is a much longer episode than I anticipated. And I have to go get my haircut in a few minutes. So, thanks for hanging in here with me today. This episode is, in a little way, it's a preview to what's coming next. Because so many of you have left me voicemail messages with questions to answer on the podcast, and that's what I'm going to be doing a lot of in the coming weeks. You can send your question in to just go to readaloudrevival.com/message to leave me a voicemail, and I will answer them on an upcoming episode of the show. (38:28): Okay, let's hear from the kids about the books they've been loving lately. Carlson (38:40): My name is Carlson and I am six, and I like Wild Zoo a lot, because she just keeps escaping. And then, the island is just so cool. And I love to live in here. Henry (39:00): Hi, my name is Henry. I'm seven years old. And I like Pokemon because it makes me feel like I want to... I'm longing to be in that world. And I am from Michigan. Charles Richmond (39:15): Hello. My name is Charles Richmond, I'm nine. I live in Mississippi, and my favorite book is Encyclopedia Brown because you can solve mysteries. Elias (39:25): My name is Elias, I'm eight years old, and I come from Pennsylvania. And the book that I like is, Adventures with Waffles. I like it because I like the setting of it in Norway. It has funny stuff that happens. And I like the waffles being a big part of life. And I love the book. I just like it. Leslie Maia (39:51): My name is [Leslie Maia 00:39:57], I'm four years old. I live in Pennsylvania. I like the book, Baby. You can see babies so cute. It reminds me of Ruby, my little cute baby sister. Khloe (40:07): My name is Khloe, I'm six years old. My state is Alabama. My favorite book is, Dragon Masters. I like it because there's dragons, and I really like dragons. I love all animals. The person who wrote Dragon Masters is Tracey West. Lucy (40:26): Hi, I'm Lucy. I am 12 years old and I live in Alabama. I want to talk about one of my favorite books, Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinare. Cilla Lee-Jenkins is a girl who writes to be famous because she's worried that the new baby sister will take all the attention away from her. She really, really, really wants to be an author, and her awesome stories lead to awesome friendships. Olive (40:58): Hi, my name is Olive. I'm age nine and I'm from Alabama. The book I'm going to talk about is, The Ever Afters, Of Giants and Ice. It's about a girl named Rory Landon who discovered she is a character. A person who reenacts the Grimm's fairy tales. But when her friend gets her first tale, it's very dangerous and hard to finish. Will her tale in the book fail or happily ever after? Read to find out. The genre is adventure and fantasy. Bye. Kate (41:32): Hi. I'm Kate and I'm nine years old, and I live in Alabama. I'm going to tell you about The Way to Rio Luna by Zoraida Córdova. This book is about a boy named Danny Monteverde, who has lost his sister Pili and believes so strongly in magic. That special book chooses him to go to the magical land of Rio Luna, and along the way, he meets a girl named, Glory and a Pomeranian pup named Orion. And a Jackalope Prince named, Llewelyn the Fifteenth. This book is about how Danny finds out that the evil shadow queen is wanting to take over Rio Luna and how he tries to get to his sister. Sarah Mackenzie (42:42): Excellent. So good. Thank you, kids. Hey, your kids can leave messages to be aired on the podcast as well by going to readaloudrevival.com/message. On that page, you'll see a button where the kids can record their book recommendations, and also a separate button where you can record any questions that you have. (43:00): So, that's where you leave me a voicemail, either for your kids to be featured on the show, or for you to ask a question that I can answer on the show. You are an important part of the Read-Aloud Revival community, and we want to hear your voice. I definitely want to hear what your kids are loving to read. And I want to hear your questions as well. (43:18): Remember, that if you want to lock in our current low rate for RAR Premium, you've got to join before October 1st. RAR Premium won't ever be this low of a price again. So, you don't want to miss that. If you've been on the fence about joining, come on in and see what it's all about. And we can't wait to see you there. (43:36): There's details and answers to your questions about premium all at rarpremium.com. I'll be back in a couple of weeks with lots more answers to your questions. In the meantime, go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books. (43:59): So many of us feel overwhelmed in our homeschool. There's a lot to do and it feels like every child needs something a little different. The good news is, you are the best person on the planet to help your kids learn and grow. And home is the best place to fall in love with books. (44:25): I'm Sarah Mackenzie, I'm a homeschooling, mother of six, the author of Teaching from Rest, and the Read-Aloud Family. And I'm the host here on the Read-Aloud Revival Podcast. This podcast has been downloaded over 8 million times. And you know, I think it's because so many of us want the same things. We want our kids to be readers, to love reading. We want our homes to be warm and happy havens of learning and connection. We know that raising our kids is the most important work of our lives. (45:02): That's kind of overwhelming, right? You are not alone. In Read-Aloud Revival Premium, we offer family book clubs, a vibrant community, and circle with Sarah coaching for you, the homeschooling mom. So, you can teach from rest, homeschool with confidence, and raise kids who love to read. (45:26): Our family book clubs are a game changer for your kid's relationship with books. We provide you with a family book club guide, and an opportunity for your kids to meet the author or Illustrator live on screen. So, all you have to do is get the book, read it with your kids, and make those meaningful and lasting connections. They work for all ages, from your youngest kids to your teens. (45:55): Every month our community also gathers online for a circle with Sarah to get ideas and encouragement around creating the homeschooling life you crave. They're the most effective way I know to teach from rest and build a homeschool life you love. We want to help your kids fall in love with books, and we want to help you fall in love with homeschooling. Join us today at rarpremium.com.