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| Even "the baby" is "reading" now. |
Like many families—especially homeschooling families – ours
loves books. I dare say we read (and
listen) to books for several hours or more a day.
Until now, I simply savored our time with print and
audiobooks. I saw no reason to track any
of the titles, beyond highlighting some of our favorites here on Training Happy
Hearts.
Now, as we enter into
Luke’s first grade year and Nina’s kindergarten one, I feel compelled to log
the children’s explorations with books.
Of course, doing so will help me assess the children all year long, as I note their growing skills with listening, narrating (re-telling) and self-decoding books. It will also come in handy at the end of the year when it comes
time to report the children’s progress to our local school department. More importantly, however, it will help me to
track, recognize and reflect upon the children’s strongest areas of interest.
I feel strongly that
one of my jobs as Mom is being attuned to where my children’s passions and
skills lie now, so that if they consult me about discerning their personal life
calls later, I will have sound insights to offer them.
Admittedly, I have not been as good as I would have hoped to
be over the past several years at noting the kids’ skills, passions and interests. Sure, I have done so sometimes here on
Training Happy Hearts as well as in my own personal notes, but not with consistency. One of my goals this year is to do so with
greater care. A step towards doing so is
tracking our family reading choices.
For, in our family at least, what
we read reflects who we are and how we wan to grow and learn.
In case you’d like to do similarly, I am sharing the simple Family Reading Log I made as a printable. It can be found here and is rather self-explanatory. Should you want details about how I use it
though, just ask and I will share them.
And, please, don’t worry about writing down every read aloud, audiobook
and read-to-self book that the family picks up.
Simply log a significant portion of them.
Do you log your reading? How do you find new titles to enjoy? What are your favorite reading list links or
books? Do share!
