Finding and Keeping Track of Read Alouds (with giveaway & printable) - Day 2
Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 5:00AM
Welcome to Day 2 of the Ten Days of Reading Aloud.
Have you made the commitment to read aloud to your children? If so, I hope you decide to link up this Thursday and next Thursday with what you are reading aloud! I've challenged some friends in our homeschool co-op to read aloud to their children and I'm challenging my readers, too!
The most frequent questions I hear about read alouds is where to find them, or what inspires what we read aloud?
There are three big ways I choose read alouds: Correlation with History Studies, Word of Mouth, and Read Aloud "Handbooks"
Let's go through each of these. Then, I will provide you with a free printable log for keeping track of what you read aloud to your children and you will be able to enter a giveaway, too!
Correlation With History Studies
- We use The Story of The World. In the activity guide there are recommendations for read alouds. I also find myself researching the time period we are in and inevitably read aloud suggestions appear.
- If you are a Classical homeschooler you might be interested in the correlation of Sonlight read alouds with the cycles in the Well Trained Mind. LOTS of great information here.
- Ambleside Online provides excellent booklists as well. You have to do a little research to figure out what year AO your studies coincide with, but we use many AO recommendations so it's easy once you get started.
- Heritage History - We have been using these eReader ready living history books this year and they are wonderful! (you can get a discount by using the code MARYHOME at checkout) Best of all, they coincide with time periods in history. At the end of this post you can enter to win either a Library or a Curriculum. I will be able to choose FOUR WINNERS!
I'm sure there are many other resources to correlate your read alouds with your history studies. These are just the ones we use in our homeschool.
Word of Mouth
I listen and talk with other homeschoolers a lot. I like to get to know librarians and teachers. You can find read aloud suggestions in your every day life.
- Librarians - Get to know your librarians!! Many times they have a huge wealth of knowledge and can instantly suggest books for you. Our local librarian knows me by name and always greets me with, "So, what are we learning about this week?"
- Homeschool Moms - When I sit at co-op and eat lunch with my friends I learn so much! (My sweet friend Hope blogs and gives me many suggestions!) I also like to solicit advice from our local homeschool group via our email list.
- Blogs - Oh my goodness... I could get lost forever on blogs. My favorite read aloud blog is Hope is the Word. Just look at her chapter book read alouds page and you will get many ideas. Good Reads also has an extensive list of read alouds, as well as Simply Charlotte Mason.
I'd like to think that we've read aloud A LOT in our homeschool. Maybe you can find some suggestions and ideas in some of my read aloud posts! I think my favorite might be when we read a book in a day.
Read Aloud Handbooks
It's good to have at least one of these books in your personal library. You will NEVER be at a loss for what to read aloud.
- The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease
- Read for the Heart by Sarah Clarkson
- Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt
There you have it. I hope this post has answered the question about how we choose read-alouds.
Now, for keeping track. I've created a simple printable for you. There is room for you to log ten books on this one sheet, so print a bunch and put them in your homeschool binder. Better yet - post it on your refrigerator or bulletin board so your children can see the progress!
Printable Read Aloud Reading Log
As promised, I am giving away either a Library or a Curriculum from Heritage History. I can choose FOUR WINNERS. Please use the widget below to enter... no need to specify which you would like now; when you win you can choose!
This post is a part of the iHomeschool Network's Homeschool Hopscotch... you can access many great blog series by clicking on the image below!
Reader Comments (57)
I am looking for read aloud recommendations for an active boy. Something that will keep his attention and want to hang with me while I read even if he is reading on his own. Thanks for the opportunity.
I'm starting to integrate them into our read alouds. /in fact, I pre-ordered one of the new larger Kindle Fires to use for this purpose :-)
I love to read. I always have. I can read an entire book in a day. I raised my children to love books and now I am raising my grandson to love them. We read every day. We get books from the library and we own a small library of books. He loves for me to read the Bible to him at least once a day. I am so happy to have found your page. Thank you
I don't often use eBooks as read alouds, only short passages. But I do plan to get my son a tablet for his birthday so that will most likely change :)
We want to start with read alouds first.
I do not use ebooks at read-alouds.
We are read aloud junkies here :)
Oh, yes. My son loves being able to pick out his books and watch as they are loaded onto our e-reader. And there's so many children's books available for download for free or under a dollar.
Thanks for sharing all of your hints (and the mention =)! Reading aloud is so important and I'm thankful that you don't mind sharing your great finds!
I'm hearing more and more great things about Heritage History in the bloggosphere, lately. Definetly something I'm going to check out.
I love your read aloud log, too.
So far I have not used e-books as read alouds.
the girls pick several short books that we read throughout the day and at night we are reading them classic chapter books. we don't use ereaders with our girls though we do listen and follow along to books on YouTube.
LOVE having new read aloud ideas! Thanks!
Love to read aloud to my kids. Even the teenage boys enjoy it! In fact they beg for more :-)
We do use ebooks as re alouds once in awhile. I think its good to change it up. However when we do that I never get my kindle back..lol jk
I haven't used ereaders yet but we o a lot of reading out loud together for a big part of our day.
We don't use an eReader yet, but as the kids get older we definitely will be using one!! We have experimented though!!
We do read aloud, however would love to explore the ereaders as well for those who are able to read on their own.
I haven't used e reads yet I have always liked the feel of an actual book. but would love the possibility of opening up more books then my limited library.
We love to read aloud all the time and constantly look for inspiration, so thanks for this. We often use ebooks as we are missionaries and so can't carry many physical books around with us.
I try to do read alouds but would love to get some more History related ones.
Yes we use ebooks. Right now, though, we read them on my laptop, my phone, or my daughter's netbook. Hopefully, this Christmas, "Santa" will bring our family an e-reader, to make it a little easier to read the e-books aloud :) (that's the plan anyway)
thanks so much for this chance we can't get enough books to read
I have not ventured into the world of ebooks for my read alouds yet.
Thanks for the chance and printed off the log sheet!
I am starting to use the Kindle on my ipad for read alouds, but sometimes I forget that I have dowloaded books to it. :-I