“God’s first institution for society is the home. The home forms the character … it is the educational center of our nation.”
Rosalie Slater, The Family Program for Reading Aloud
Reading aloud is “stronger than iron in welding souls together” in a unity of ideals and character. It is a joyous activity for parents and children with a really good book.
The best choice is a classic that your child is unlikely to read for himself. Then, set aside a daily reading-aloud time to relax and have an adventure into new worlds.
Most classics offer opportunities to discuss moral lessons and Christian principles within an imaginative story, providing lasting impressions of character, conscience, wisdom, and life experience.
One classic that is a delight to children and adults is Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Written for his young son, this book so impressed President Theodore Roosevelt when over-hearing it read aloud to his own children, he urged an American printing of the book.
The Wind in the Willows is an animal tale of friends in the deep woods, Ratty, Toad, Mole, and Badger. In language that glows with the love of nature, friendship, and home, the tale is told with a joyous appreciation of individuality and fun.
Reading aloud is the best way to build new vocabulary, hone listening skills, and cultivate imagination. Rosalie Slater, author of The Family Reading Aloud Program, tells us, “Literature is one of the tools of learning which can help parents get at the soil in which Christian character is planted…the heart.” Literature deals with ideals, principles, purposes, choices, and affections—the real issues of life by filling the heart with the very best.
Teach the children:
- Listening skill is a tool of life-long benefit and enjoyment.
- Literature teaches how words create images of people, places, and things we never had thought of before.
- Literature allows us to go to many places where we might never go expanding the horizons of mind and heart.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Philippians 4:8