A Rule-of-Thumb for Family Read-Alouds

I love this quote from Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook:

Here's a little rule of thumb for parents: If you can't squeeze your kids into the same size underwear, don't try to squeeze them into the same size book! In doing that, you end up watering down the reading material to accommodate the lowest common denominator - the four-year-old - and boring the nine-year-old. The solution is to read to them individually, especially if there is more than three years' difference in their ages...

A father in New Jersey, after hearing me suggest reading to children separately, interjected, "Excuse me, but doesn't that take longer?" Yes, it does, sir. Parenting is not supposed to be a time-saving experience. Parenting is time-consuming, time-investing - but not time-saving.

Jim Trelease, The Read-Aloud Handbook, p. 40.

My children are well-spaced in age: the oldest is six years ahead of the second, who is, in turn, three years ahead of the third. That means that their read-aloud selections can't always be combined. Much subject area reading we do together, with My Girl and Little Man reading from and listening to the same books on Ancient Egypt, for example. But then My Girl gets deeper content from books that are selected to challenge her more, both in their reading level and in the maturity level at which they address the subject. When I'm reading those more advanced books with My Girl, Little Man and Brown-Eyed Boy are usually off doing their own thing - usually playing 'dog and owner' or 'knights' in the basement. Sometimes they're still in the room with us, playing, colouring, etc., but these books are not the ones they are required to sit for and narrate. (And no, Brown-Eyed Boy doesn't do any narrations at all yet, and won't for a couple more years.)

This past month has seen a milestone change for us: Little Man and Brown-Eyed Boy no longer have the same bed-time. So, after Little Man is in his pj's, teeth brushed, clothes put away, and so on, he comes down to the living room while Dear Man finishes tucking in Brown-Eyed Boy. Then Little Man, My Girl and I curl up on the couch together and read until it's time for Little Man to head up for bed. We started this new routine with a book that I hoped would appeal to both children, although on very different levels: The Hobbit. At first I had planned to read it just with My Girl, thinking that it might be too difficult for the younger child, but a dear friend suggested that I try it with him, and, I'm now thankful to say, I took that advice. Both children love this story! I find I have to be very careful about where we stop the reading for the night, so as to avoid the scary parts being left hanging, but so far it has worked very well. (Once or twice we've had to do a little bit of reading at lunch to get through the intense scene and set it up for a good place to stop at bed-time - that's been an effective strategy.)

Two nights ago we had a late evening, so bed-time reading was put aside for the night. As I kissed Little Man good-night, he said to me, "I'm sad that we didn't get to hear The Hobbit tonight." "I know," I replied. "I'm really enjoying reading it with you, and I miss it too when we don't do it." "I wish it would go on forever. I love that story. I don't want it to end!" His face was alight with pleasure, even at the thought of the story!

So, in this instance I'm not following Jim Trelease's rule of thumb, but it seems to be working anyway. I know that there will be many read-alouds that we can't combine this way, but for now, I'm going to enjoy this shared experience.

That touches on the 'read-aloud' part of the quotation from Jim Trelease, but I hope to give a lot more thought and attention to the second paragraph - the 'parenting' part. Then again, maybe that's too big for me to tackle.