Why You Should Read Books That Are Too Hard for Your Kids

Have you ever picked up a book to read aloud to your kids, looked at the vocabulary, and thought, I don't know if they're going to understand any of this. In fact, I don't know if I'm going to understand all of this. Maybe the sentences are too long or the story just seems a little beyond what your kids are ready for. I want to encourage you not to put that book back on the shelf just yet. Some of the best books you can read to your children are books they probably couldn't read or fully understand on their own. As a mom of 10 children who's been homeschooling for 17 years, I've come to appreciate just how much our kids gain from books that stretch them a little. It's one of the reasons I read challenging poems to our kids every day. And why I pick books that a child might not pick for themselves. Today, I want to talk about why I think we should be reading books that are just a little too hard for them to read on their own. Reading aloud is a big part of our homeschool. If you're new here and on the channel for the first time, my name is Sherry. I'm a homeschool mom. I'm a Christian. I'm married to my high school sweetheart. We have 10 children ages 21 down to three, and I love encouraging other families in homeschooling here on my channel and on the blog, ourlifehomeschooling.com. You can also find me in Made to Homeschool. Made to Homeschool is an online community designed to equip homeschool moms so they don't have to figure everything out alone. Click on the link in the description box to check out Made to Homeschool, where you can ask questions from experienced homeschoolers, attend live workshops, and access a growing library of homeschool resources. One of the things I've always appreciated about the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education is her high view of children and what they're capable of understanding. In one of her works, an essay toward a philosophy of education, she wrote this about kids. Every modern educational movement tends to belittle them intellectually. She's talking about the tendency to underestimate children's minds and give them something watered down rather than trusting them with real ideas and good literature. She also wrote about the danger of bringing the world down to a child's supposed level. And maybe you've heard the word twaddle to describe this kind of watered down material that doesn't give children much to think about. She also wrote, it stultifies a child to bring down his world to the child's level. We don't need to make everything easier for our children in order for them to understand or to learn. We can give them access to wonderful ideas and help them along the way. We as parents bridge that gap between what is too hard for them to understand on their their own and What we understand and want to pass down to them. Now, I don't think that means that every book we read needs to be a classic or something super challenging or that we can never read something silly or just for fun. There's certainly a place for that. We do that all the time in our homeschool. I always pick a read aloud that's just for fun that we're working through. But I think it's worth asking ourselves, Whether we're sometimes underestimating what our children can take in. Kids don't have to understand every single word to benefit from a book. They can enjoy the story and follow the characters, picture the scenes, and pick up ideas even when some of the language is unfamiliar. Thank And I learned from our kids, when I read books to them that are just above their reading level, they move up to that level. you And they may not understand all of it, but they gradually can understand more and more. The vocabulary becomes... so Familiar to them, they're used to hearing some of those words that before they had no much. idea what they meant. And they're able to picture and understand deeper plots. So kids rise up to the level that you set for them. And that's one reason I love reading aloud, because it helps bring kids up to a higher level than they're at currently. I remember an experienced mom telling me one time, she had been homeschooling for several years, that when you're reading aloud to a group of kids, you should always read up to the oldest children in the room. The primary source I use when I'm looking for a good book to read to our kids is Ambleside Online. Now, you have to be careful because I do think that Ambleside is the cream of the crop when it comes to book lists. However, you can get overwhelmed at the feast and try to do everything, so I always try to caution moms to look at it as a place to start, but don't try to do it all. We spent some time today making some elderberry syrup. My neighbor grows elderberries. She gave us a huge basket full of them at the end of the summer. We froze them and so I pulled them out today because it's getting close to cold and flu season and this is something I brought the kids along for to help me make. Now as I was making it I actually made a mistake and added the raw honey. To the mixture that I boil, which you'll see here in a little bit, you're actually supposed to boil all the ingredients without the honey, add the raw honey last, and then you have that nice probiotic effect and it makes it more syrupy. So what I ended up with since I boiled the honey was more like elderberry juice, but we're going to still try it and see how it works. And then of course, now I know for next time. The sauce came from down there that I used for cooking. When you have older and younger kids, the challenge is balancing the different ages and abilities. But if you only read books that the youngest child can easily understand, you're going to miss opportunities to challenge the older kids. Reading up to the oldest child gives everyone something to reach for. Now, I still read picture books to my kindergartner and preschooler. That's still something we enjoy, but they sit in with us when I'm reading challenging books like Tales from Shakespeare or Pilgrim's Progress or Robin Hood. They don't leave the room. Now, a lot of times they're just sitting there playing with blocks or Thomas the Train. But from our 17 years of homeschooling, I can tell you that my younger kids pick up so much. And so that the younger kids in our family have a better place to start from than our older kids did just because they are surrounded with so much more. Quality literature and conversations simply from being around when I'm reading good books to the kids. As you read, your voice bridges the gap. So your child, think about when they're just learning to read. She may be able to sound out the words on a page, but that doesn't mean she can understand the meaning of what she's reading. But when you read that same sentence, adding tone, and my husband likes to add voices when he reads, you take away the challenge of decoding the words and your child can listen to the rhythm of the language, hear the emphasis in your voice, and follow the meaning of the sentence as you read it naturally. Your tone and expression help bring the story to life. Another reason to read books that are too hard for your kids to read on their own is that it stretches the imagination. When a child chooses a book to read for himself, he's naturally drawn to whatever he already enjoys and understands. And that's okay. Independent reading should include books that kids love. But when we're reading aloud, we can introduce them to stories they might never have picked up themselves. We can take them into another time period, another country, or a world of ideas that they haven't encountered before. We can introduce them to people who think differently from them, or maybe someone who Unfamiliar circumstances, we're reading a great book this year about Gladys Alward who faced, I couldn't believe some of the challenges she faced. It's been really such a great book to read together. And so when we read these kind of books to kids, it takes them somewhere that they couldn't go on their own. As we're reading to them, they don't have to figure out every Every unfamiliar word. They don't have to navigate each complicated sentence. They can just settle into the story and let their imagination follow along. I think that's one of the great things about reading aloud. We can gently stretch our kids' minds beyond what they're accustomed to without requiring them to do it all by themselves. This is honestly one of the... Biggest appeals about homeschooling is how much time, how much freedom we have to read aloud to our kids. I'm such a believer in reading aloud good books to kids. When I was a public school teacher, this was something I really wanted to do with the kids in my classroom because I could see how beneficial it was. But I just was not able to do that based on the constraints that are put on teachers by the standards and by the testing. It's something that we have complete freedom to do with our kids at home. Sometimes they won't love a book right away. That's how it's been when I've been reading Winnie the Pooh. I started this with my daughter and I could just see she wasn't really paying attention, wasn't really engaged for the first couple chapters, but the more we got into it, the more she really liked it and she understood the characters, she knew their personalities, and now she's able to sit for longer periods of time and she does understand what's going on. So we don't need to force every difficult book to work, but I wouldn't give up on a book just because the language is challenging or because my children wouldn't choose it for themselves. Give it a little time, read with expression, and let the story do its work. You may find that the book you almost put back on the shelf becomes one of your children's favorites. This was exactly the case for us when we picked up The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. This was something that was on the Ambleside list, so I wanted to read it to my kids. But when I opened it and looked at some of the old English words, words like murren and yeoman and quarterstaff and cudgel, all this archaic language, I was wondering myself if I'd be able to read it. But once we got into it, the wit and humor won us all over, the language became more familiar, and we just absolutely love this book. This week on the blog, I have free copywork from Robin Hood available to you. I'll leave the link to that below if that's something you'd like to use in your homeschool. Now, one challenging book that we read to our kids from the time they are very little is the Bible. If you're not reading the Bible in your homeschool, you're missing out on the best curriculum available to you. Proverbs 2.6 says, The Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth come knowledge and discernment. Isaiah 40 verse 8 says, The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. When our kids are young, we read, From Catherine Voss's storybook Bible for breakfast, and then every evening we read from the Bible. My husband reads, or we'll go around and do round robin where every child reads two or three verses. Our kids have become good readers from this small habit that takes us about 10 minutes morning and night. And I've learned, too, that when kids understand a basic framework of the Bible, when you read it to them, the chronology comes together and they understand it better. For example, this year we're learning the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 judges of Israel who came next. And then next would be the 39 kings of Israel, with Jesus being the 40th coming king. Those are the northern and southern tribes. And then as you're reading through the Bible, if you know these things, you know exactly where to place them and where they fit in. These lists that we're memorizing As part of the Simple Morning Time Notebook that we're using this year, you can find it on the blog. If you click on the Simple Morning Time Notebook page, you can go down to the blog post and find the song for the 12 tribes of Israel, the judges of Israel, and the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. And the great thing about songs, my kids will play it once during morning time and they're singing it throughout the day. But understanding a basic framework helps them to understand more of what they read. And the Bible is full of rich vocabulary, history, poetry, wisdom literature. Don't be intimidated to read the Bible to your kids. So how do you put this into practice without making your homeschool reading time overwhelming? Well, first of all, I would choose a book that interests you because if you're excited about the story, that enthusiasm will help carry the reading along. And secondly, just start small. You don't have to begin with the most difficult book on your list. You can choose something that stretches your children just a little beyond what they would normally be comfortable with on their own. And then read aloud consistently. It's something we do every day from the time our kids are born. And I don't do it for a long period of time. We're just consistent at it. You don't have to read for an hour for your children to benefit from a good book. When I read aloud to our kids and we come to hard words, sometimes I'll just stop and repeat the word and ask if anyone knows what it means. If nobody has an idea, then I'll help give them a little understanding of the word. And then when they hear it again, they have a little bit better idea about what it means. And they're also reading it or hearing it in context. So don't worry about explaining everything to your kids. Let them simply enjoy the story. But you can use good judgment when it's a good time to stop if they're just totally lost. Sometimes I'll just stop and say, no, what's going on? And we'll talk about it. Pause for questions and conversation when it feels natural. But also remind your kids not to interrupt to the point where others can't focus or understand what you're reading. We went on a nature hike this week, and one of my kids' favorite games is playing Pooh Sticks, where you drop your sticks on one side of the bridge and go over and see whose stick wins. One of the very first books I read aloud to our kids in kindergarten. I'd love to hear from you. What's a book you've read aloud to your kids that was more challenging than you expected, but it turned out to be one of your favorites? Share it in the comments. I hope this encouraged you to pick up a good book and read to your kids. Thanks for watching. I do one video a week on homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms. I'll see you next week.