Everyday Educator - Reading…Together (with Brittany Lewis)
00:00:00.000 | (gentle music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome, friends, to this episode
00:00:07.480 | of the Everyday Educator podcast.
00:00:10.240 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:12.000 | and I am excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:15.560 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:18.920 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:21.960 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:25.500 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:27.600 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:29.880 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:33.760 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:37.440 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome,
00:00:42.320 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:47.320 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:51.200 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:55.840 | Well, listeners, I'm super excited to talk to you today
00:01:00.360 | and to talk to my friend Brittany today
00:01:02.900 | about one of my favorite things to do, read.
00:01:07.280 | I love to read, I've always been a big reader.
00:01:12.120 | And I have one of my dear friends with me today
00:01:16.380 | that I know is also a big reader, Brittany Lewis.
00:01:21.320 | Brittany, thank you for being with me today on the podcast.
00:01:25.560 | - Oh, it's my pleasure.
00:01:26.720 | I love this topic and I love speaking with you.
00:01:29.400 | - We have so much fun when we're together.
00:01:31.480 | So you guys who are listening,
00:01:33.760 | it may seem like you are eavesdropping
00:01:36.600 | on a conversation between two friends
00:01:38.520 | 'cause we might really get to go in
00:01:40.080 | as we talk about reading.
00:01:41.840 | 'Cause I know that we're both pretty jazzed
00:01:45.000 | about what reading is and what it can do for us
00:01:49.320 | and for our families and for our communities.
00:01:52.920 | Listeners, I know that some of you are probably
00:01:57.280 | big readers yourselves.
00:01:59.880 | Some of you probably have kids who already love to read,
00:02:04.880 | but I'm also aware that there are lots of us homeschoolers
00:02:10.000 | who don't particularly enjoy reading
00:02:15.160 | or maybe who grew up not really loving to read
00:02:20.160 | like we hope our children will.
00:02:22.520 | And so the conversation today
00:02:24.620 | is gonna be all over the place.
00:02:26.600 | It's not just for people who love to read
00:02:30.080 | or have a whole row of books that they're waiting to read.
00:02:34.180 | It is for people who are wondering what reading together
00:02:39.180 | can do for our families and for our homeschools.
00:02:44.120 | So it really is for everybody,
00:02:46.480 | even if you don't think of yourself as a big reader.
00:02:50.040 | Brittany, let me ask you this question
00:02:51.880 | just so everybody can get to know you a little bit.
00:02:54.440 | Are you a big reader?
00:02:57.340 | - Yes, I am a big reader.
00:03:01.520 | But not everyone in my family is a big reader
00:03:04.420 | and there definitely been lots of areas of learning
00:03:09.420 | that I did not enjoy reading.
00:03:11.560 | Some I'm learning to enjoy.
00:03:13.720 | - Yeah, you mean like there are lots of different things
00:03:15.980 | to read and some of them you like to read
00:03:18.000 | and some of them not so much, huh?
00:03:20.420 | - Yes, yes.
00:03:21.800 | I think homeschooling's helped me become broader
00:03:26.060 | in my interests because I want to help my kids
00:03:31.060 | to be able to pursue those natural loves
00:03:35.560 | that are different than mine.
00:03:37.280 | - Oh, that's really good.
00:03:39.440 | Now you know what, that's a great point.
00:03:41.700 | That's a way that we can love our kids well
00:03:43.940 | if we are willing to read things
00:03:47.540 | that aren't particularly winsome or interesting to us
00:03:52.540 | because one of our children is bent in that direction.
00:03:56.800 | That's really good, that's really good.
00:03:59.320 | Were you always a big reader?
00:04:02.440 | Why did you like to read or why do you like to read?
00:04:06.540 | - I think when I was little my parents were great
00:04:10.520 | about taking me to the library
00:04:11.840 | and we actually belonged to a church
00:04:13.880 | that just had a fantastic kids section
00:04:16.880 | and I was really drawn to the fairy tales
00:04:19.380 | and the myths and the old stories
00:04:21.720 | and my parents were great about reading those things to me
00:04:24.620 | and encouraging us to pick up good books
00:04:27.840 | and so that did nourish my mind and encourage me to read.
00:04:32.500 | I think in spite of my education,
00:04:35.520 | which sort of tended to feel like dry
00:04:39.760 | and I was just a public school kid.
00:04:43.260 | Sometimes I would have a good teacher
00:04:45.060 | who would want us to read Charlotte's Web together
00:04:47.820 | and then other times we would be handed
00:04:50.820 | pretty dry canned reading comprehension things
00:04:53.300 | that I just wanted to fly through it
00:04:55.880 | so I could go to the library
00:04:57.820 | and find something worth reading, you know what I mean?
00:05:00.520 | - I so know what you mean.
00:05:02.580 | I had those same teachers.
00:05:03.900 | I had a teacher in the fifth grade who,
00:05:07.080 | and a lot of teachers I think believed
00:05:10.900 | that once you were in the fifth grade
00:05:12.580 | you were too old to be read aloud to.
00:05:15.340 | I blessedly had a teacher who did not believe that
00:05:18.820 | and when we came back from lunch every day
00:05:21.220 | she read us a chapter of Caddy Woodlawn
00:05:24.460 | and we had a double classroom
00:05:26.740 | and so she held Spellbound between 50 and 60 fifth graders
00:05:31.740 | just with her voice reading us that book
00:05:36.380 | and I absolutely loved it.
00:05:39.480 | It was great and I was lucky to have, like you,
00:05:44.020 | a parent who took me to the library.
00:05:45.920 | I can remember my mom taking us downtown to Charlotte
00:05:49.800 | on the city bus to go to the big library
00:05:53.320 | and I loved checking out books there
00:05:55.640 | and at our church library so that's really cool.
00:05:58.720 | So I can see how that growing up
00:06:01.820 | might have made you a reader.
00:06:04.820 | Why do you like to read now?
00:06:08.140 | Now I like to read.
00:06:10.140 | I think the longer I have homeschooled
00:06:13.120 | I just get hungry myself
00:06:15.520 | and so as I'm teaching my students,
00:06:19.280 | I'm a challenge tutor right now
00:06:20.700 | or as I'm just wrestling through something
00:06:24.180 | with my youngest who I'm still homeschooling right now,
00:06:27.080 | I sometimes just feel like dry in my spirit
00:06:30.600 | and I read for pleasure to kind of fill that up
00:06:34.260 | or I pursue something I know I need to learn
00:06:37.520 | and picking up a book on a subject
00:06:40.160 | that I don't particularly love yet
00:06:41.640 | but the person who wrote the book loves it
00:06:44.720 | and sees all the beauty so just being able to see the world
00:06:48.560 | or a subject through their eyes helps me to love it too
00:06:52.120 | and be able to pass on that excitement
00:06:54.760 | of learning something new to my students or my kids.
00:06:59.460 | I like that.
00:07:00.560 | I was gonna ask you what is so great about reading
00:07:06.760 | and I love what you just said
00:07:09.560 | that you can almost catch the excitement from somebody else.
00:07:14.560 | If you are reading about a passion that's not yours
00:07:20.760 | but you can tap into the author's excitement
00:07:24.200 | or understanding or zeal,
00:07:26.720 | then you can catch a breath of that.
00:07:28.920 | That's cool.
00:07:31.540 | That's true.
00:07:32.380 | That's a good reason to read.
00:07:34.080 | What else?
00:07:34.920 | What else is so great about reading?
00:07:36.640 | What does reading do for us or teach us?
00:07:40.400 | I think it helps us.
00:07:43.240 | I mean, aside from, of course,
00:07:45.200 | reading the book of all books, the Bible,
00:07:48.040 | which is a living word.
00:07:51.040 | That is, I'm just assuming that we all agree that
00:07:54.040 | that's worth our time, spending that for ourselves
00:07:58.540 | and with our kids and then also just reading old books
00:08:02.360 | and new books helps us participate in that great conversation
00:08:07.360 | that's been going on between human beings for all time
00:08:11.880 | because the Lord created us.
00:08:13.720 | We're Christians.
00:08:14.560 | We are supposed to be people of the word
00:08:17.560 | and to be about words and learning.
00:08:19.640 | And so I think the more we read,
00:08:22.520 | the more we learn about his world
00:08:24.680 | and the better we're able to read his word too.
00:08:28.740 | And also to kind of govern our own words
00:08:32.640 | as we learn from others.
00:08:35.860 | Yeah, that's really good.
00:08:37.760 | There's a lot to think about there.
00:08:40.020 | And what you said, I appreciate that.
00:08:44.880 | You shared with me one time an Isaac Watts quote
00:08:49.880 | that reminds me about this.
00:08:52.340 | Will you share it again?
00:08:54.460 | Sure, yes.
00:08:55.300 | I've been researching him.
00:08:57.840 | He was a great hymn writer and pastor, Isaac Watts.
00:09:00.880 | And he also wrote a logic book
00:09:03.820 | and was the authority for lots of Ivy League schools
00:09:07.200 | and schools across the Atlantic too for many years.
00:09:11.180 | So that's interesting.
00:09:12.060 | I didn't know that about him.
00:09:13.380 | But he wrote a book called "The Improvement of the Mind"
00:09:16.240 | and in it, he was just expressing some general rules
00:09:20.280 | for the improvement of knowledge.
00:09:21.600 | And this book actually influenced
00:09:23.480 | the great scientist Michael Faraday
00:09:25.100 | and his development of the scientific method.
00:09:27.540 | Isn't that wonderful?
00:09:28.860 | That's cool.
00:09:29.700 | Who would have thought that a scientist
00:09:32.240 | and a hymnist would be connected
00:09:35.260 | in what they think about learning and reading?
00:09:37.720 | Right, and he begins his rules
00:09:41.000 | for the improvement of knowledge with this quote.
00:09:42.920 | So I'll read it to you.
00:09:44.060 | Yeah.
00:09:44.900 | He says, "No man is obliged to learn and know everything.
00:09:49.080 | This can neither be sought nor required
00:09:51.320 | for it's utterly impossible.
00:09:53.280 | Yet all persons are under some obligation
00:09:55.500 | to improve their own understanding.
00:09:57.820 | Otherwise it will be a barren desert
00:10:00.640 | or a forest overgrown with weeds and brambles.
00:10:04.460 | Universal ignorance or infinite errors
00:10:06.280 | will overspread the mind, which is utterly neglected
00:10:08.540 | and lies without any cultivation."
00:10:11.340 | So that image of that metaphor that he says,
00:10:14.100 | if we don't continue to learn that our minds
00:10:16.440 | can become a barren desert
00:10:18.760 | or a forest overgrown with weeds and brambles,
00:10:21.800 | I thought, wow, that sounds really biblical.
00:10:24.340 | I think I need to keep reading.
00:10:26.460 | That's been an encouraging thing
00:10:27.900 | to learn from someone in the past like Isaac Watts.
00:10:32.900 | I've actually been sharing like one of his,
00:10:35.420 | I think it's 12 rules.
00:10:37.300 | And so I've been sharing one rule a week
00:10:38.860 | with my challenge students right now
00:10:40.820 | as we've been thinking about just being humble
00:10:43.780 | before the things we're learning
00:10:45.020 | and continuing to read and to learn.
00:10:48.180 | That's a great idea.
00:10:49.500 | I bet your challenge students,
00:10:51.000 | that gives them something good to chew on,
00:10:54.060 | too.
00:10:55.100 | I like that because it helps us.
00:10:58.740 | You know, Brittany, as homeschooling parents,
00:11:01.100 | when our kids are little,
00:11:03.180 | reading is all about giving them that skill
00:11:07.580 | of decoding these letters and these sounds
00:11:10.620 | so that they can read.
00:11:13.100 | And as home educators,
00:11:15.340 | we feel like reading is kind of the gateway skill
00:11:19.180 | that makes everything else approachable and open to you.
00:11:24.180 | But the whole idea that reading stays important,
00:11:29.640 | even after you learn how to do it, right,
00:11:35.100 | that it stays important because it's how your mind
00:11:40.100 | grows and flourishes and adds new ideas.
00:11:48.460 | I love the whole image of books tickling your mind.
00:11:53.460 | You know, when I was, you know,
00:11:58.980 | when children are ticklish, you know,
00:12:01.220 | you can just tickle them and it stimulates them
00:12:03.520 | and it makes them move and jerk and giggle or shriek
00:12:07.260 | or run or cuddle or whatever.
00:12:09.740 | It provokes you.
00:12:10.800 | And I think that that's why reading is like
00:12:13.700 | tickling my mind.
00:12:14.660 | It provokes my mind in new directions.
00:12:17.780 | It either provokes me to reject something
00:12:22.700 | or to grab a hold of it or to look at it
00:12:25.900 | or to laugh at it or to argue with it.
00:12:29.460 | I just, the Isaac Watt quote of the whole idea
00:12:33.440 | that your mind might become a barren desert
00:12:37.000 | without taking in new ideas is really cool to me.
00:12:42.000 | - It is.
00:12:43.060 | I was struck recently by one of my students
00:12:46.820 | said, what do you have to do to a garden
00:12:48.860 | to get it full of weeds?
00:12:50.620 | Nothing.
00:12:51.780 | And I went, oh yes, yes, that is right.
00:12:56.780 | That is right.
00:12:58.500 | - Oh wow, that's very profound.
00:13:01.620 | That's very profound.
00:13:03.660 | So listeners, you don't want to do nothing
00:13:06.280 | and let your precious gardens be ruled by weeds.
00:13:11.280 | And so don't just teach your children to read though.
00:13:17.200 | Read with them, read good things with them.
00:13:21.200 | Like Brittany said, old books as well.
00:13:25.120 | Think of the great conversations
00:13:27.120 | that have already happened in the world.
00:13:30.480 | I don't want to be left out of some
00:13:31.960 | of those great conversations.
00:13:33.520 | And the only way to get in on it at this point
00:13:37.080 | is to read those old books.
00:13:39.040 | That's cool.
00:13:41.400 | - That's right.
00:13:42.600 | So how do we get kids interested in reading?
00:13:46.320 | So we've taught them how to read
00:13:48.060 | and they become proficient readers.
00:13:51.520 | And some kids I think are like we were
00:13:54.300 | as little girls, Brittany.
00:13:55.500 | We were just into, I used reading and fairy tales
00:13:59.160 | and mystery stories and legends as escape literature
00:14:04.160 | and just the world of the mind.
00:14:08.680 | I lived in my imagination.
00:14:10.320 | I went on a thousand trips as a child just from reading.
00:14:15.320 | But how do we get kids who maybe are just learning
00:14:19.520 | how to read well enough that they could enjoy
00:14:23.560 | pleasure reading on their own or any kind of reading?
00:14:28.040 | How do we get kids interested in reading?
00:14:30.640 | What's been your experience?
00:14:32.880 | - Well, my experience has been rocky actually.
00:14:36.400 | I mean, like it's been difficult at times
00:14:39.760 | because two of my three kids are dyslexic.
00:14:42.240 | So reading didn't come as naturally
00:14:44.160 | as it did to one of my kids.
00:14:46.440 | And so it was extra challenging.
00:14:48.680 | And, but I also think it was,
00:14:52.080 | I'm so grateful for all of those extra days
00:14:55.400 | and hours of reading together side by side
00:14:58.960 | of me reading to them.
00:15:00.160 | And then for a much longer time period,
00:15:02.840 | way past the fifth grade, having them read to me.
00:15:05.540 | Even now, I mean, I love listening to my daughter
00:15:08.560 | who's in challenge three read out loud.
00:15:10.880 | And we do that regularly in seminar
00:15:12.820 | where we are reading something together
00:15:14.840 | and to listen to it out loud together
00:15:17.320 | and to practice reading together.
00:15:19.120 | I've found even with adults in book clubs,
00:15:22.880 | it's good to practice.
00:15:24.820 | It helps us get better as we read aloud together.
00:15:27.620 | But I think trying to set aside time each day
00:15:32.620 | where we give our students, our children at home,
00:15:35.680 | the best stories, sitting side by side,
00:15:38.700 | doing what we can to make it enjoyable.
00:15:41.980 | I know I did things in my house, like we did a morning time,
00:15:47.120 | which I know that a lot of our CC families
00:15:49.880 | are familiar with and Scribblers in particular
00:15:52.480 | does such a wonderful job of encouraging
00:15:56.200 | a morning time of reading.
00:15:58.880 | That was really foundational to my kids
00:16:01.720 | to help them love reading and love stories.
00:16:05.600 | And even though for some of my children,
00:16:07.580 | it was harder for them to,
00:16:09.960 | they could really struggle against just anxiety over reading
00:16:14.320 | or frustration or even humble feelings
00:16:18.880 | of I'm not smart enough to do this kind of a fear,
00:16:22.120 | which wasn't true, but something they had to battle.
00:16:24.680 | In spite of all of that, my kids would say
00:16:29.400 | that they don't regret any of it,
00:16:32.000 | that they're really grateful.
00:16:33.600 | They still love to read, but they went through times
00:16:36.680 | where they didn't want to read.
00:16:38.120 | And I worried about it, that they weren't naturally drawn
00:16:41.840 | to when they had time not studying to go read a book.
00:16:45.960 | I really worried about that,
00:16:47.200 | but I think their souls were just full.
00:16:49.700 | - Maybe it was time just to think about what they had read
00:16:54.940 | or what you had read together.
00:16:56.680 | - Yeah, or go play.
00:16:58.660 | I mean, just the mind continues to work on those things.
00:17:02.320 | - That is so true.
00:17:03.760 | That's really, that's good.
00:17:06.280 | That's very good.
00:17:07.720 | I know that I had one daughter who loved to read
00:17:12.720 | and she immersed herself in stories,
00:17:16.400 | and one who loved to read as a family.
00:17:21.160 | She loved reading aloud time and story time.
00:17:24.720 | And like you, we continued to do it well into high school.
00:17:29.920 | So we read aloud as a family.
00:17:32.300 | We still, actually we still read aloud as a family
00:17:36.000 | and my girls are grown and married
00:17:38.360 | with families of their own.
00:17:40.040 | But when they come home for holidays,
00:17:42.640 | we still read aloud together.
00:17:44.200 | So even my daughter who did not love reading
00:17:47.260 | as much as her sister found a lot of warm fellowship
00:17:52.260 | in reading together and it drew our family together.
00:17:58.100 | And I know that she and I read a lot of the challenge,
00:18:03.100 | upper challenge literature together
00:18:08.140 | because I had not done as much of that
00:18:10.060 | with my older daughter.
00:18:11.220 | And I felt like I had missed something.
00:18:13.380 | And so she was gracious enough
00:18:15.500 | to share the read aloud time with me.
00:18:18.220 | And it was a real bonding experience for us.
00:18:23.780 | I felt like I got to know her as I saw her reactions
00:18:28.780 | to things that we were reading together.
00:18:32.100 | And I wouldn't trade anything for that.
00:18:34.360 | - I agree, that has been our experience too.
00:18:38.880 | And I think it creates like a shared culture.
00:18:42.760 | There's jokes my kids say to one another
00:18:47.980 | because of stories we've read
00:18:50.560 | or audio books we've listened to or dramatized things
00:18:55.520 | that we've listened to and enjoyed together
00:18:57.780 | that just creates a whole family culture
00:18:59.960 | and those close relationships
00:19:01.560 | because you spent that time listening
00:19:03.760 | and imagining together.
00:19:05.720 | - Yes, yes.
00:19:07.800 | And asking the what if questions
00:19:09.940 | and why did this have to happen questions
00:19:12.960 | and why did that character do that
00:19:14.840 | and what else could have been said or done.
00:19:18.600 | - Yeah, I think that is one of the benefits,
00:19:23.600 | I think of reading together
00:19:28.200 | is that you get somebody to go back and forth with.
00:19:33.200 | And another big benefit to me of reading together
00:19:38.880 | is that you get the benefit of somebody else's point of view.
00:19:43.640 | I know sometimes I read something
00:19:47.760 | and it hits me a certain way
00:19:50.280 | and I will say out loud what I got from that
00:19:54.700 | or how that character seemed to me
00:19:58.040 | or what that argument either was persuasive or wasn't.
00:20:02.080 | And I'm always for some reason shocked to find
00:20:04.880 | that somebody else thought differently.
00:20:07.840 | Somebody else got a different message from that story
00:20:12.680 | or had a different problem with the logic used
00:20:17.440 | in an argument than I did.
00:20:19.840 | And so one of the benefits
00:20:21.600 | is just getting somebody else's perspective.
00:20:23.680 | Does that ever happen to y'all, Brittany?
00:20:25.920 | Do you like all the same things that your kids like?
00:20:29.800 | - No, I don't love all of the same thing.
00:20:31.700 | We're, interestingly enough,
00:20:33.960 | the Lord just really gives us children
00:20:35.520 | that are very different from us.
00:20:36.840 | And that's been such a gift. - Isn't it funny?
00:20:39.220 | - Yeah, yes, it has been a good thing.
00:20:42.620 | I have enjoyed learning about rockets
00:20:47.620 | and historical battles
00:20:50.780 | and things that I wasn't naturally drawn to with my son.
00:20:54.900 | I've enjoyed trying to become more of a lover
00:20:59.980 | of the natural world and science with my second born,
00:21:02.800 | my daughter who is going to nursing school.
00:21:05.180 | And I've enjoyed learning about all kinds
00:21:08.340 | of hands-on type arts and cooking and baking
00:21:13.340 | and things that maybe I was drawn to too,
00:21:17.800 | but it's been fun to experience that with my youngest
00:21:20.760 | who's artistic and loves to learn about all kinds of things
00:21:25.760 | that are drawing her as well.
00:21:27.640 | And that gives me a broader perspective
00:21:29.840 | and a way to love her better too,
00:21:32.140 | to participate in that with her.
00:21:34.160 | - I asked my kids like,
00:21:35.160 | "What are your favorite stories we read?"
00:21:36.740 | And they all had such a variety of answers.
00:21:39.460 | It was fun to hear that certain things stood out
00:21:43.200 | as their favorite and they were all different.
00:21:45.860 | That was really fun.
00:21:47.560 | - Isn't that great?
00:21:49.080 | I like that.
00:21:50.980 | I like something that you just said.
00:21:54.440 | I'd like to chase that rabbit for a minute.
00:21:57.480 | You said that reading with your children
00:22:02.160 | helped you to know them better and love them better
00:22:04.960 | and appreciate them more.
00:22:07.800 | In what way is that true?
00:22:10.520 | - Yeah, yeah.
00:22:12.100 | I think in reading things that my kids
00:22:18.100 | were naturally drawn to that I wasn't,
00:22:21.280 | I was able to figure out kind of their bent,
00:22:26.020 | like the way that the Lord had crafted them
00:22:29.140 | and always been praying and like looking for where,
00:22:33.760 | what is this child going to become?
00:22:35.440 | Where are they called to be used in the world
00:22:38.160 | and where will they go?
00:22:39.260 | What will they do?
00:22:40.100 | What will they love and pursue?
00:22:41.360 | And that's been a wonderful gift.
00:22:44.980 | My son is interested in all kinds of things that as a kid,
00:22:49.980 | he loved the old anything heroic hero type stories
00:22:54.840 | and often things that were really challenging
00:22:58.720 | and even frightening to me, he thrived on it.
00:23:02.760 | I remember him coming to me one day and saying,
00:23:04.400 | "Mom, give me a mission."
00:23:06.360 | And I thought, who is this child my son is becoming?
00:23:10.940 | But you could see it in the things that he was interested in
00:23:16.140 | and at the same time is very musical too.
00:23:19.800 | So that was just, our home is filled with guitars
00:23:24.800 | and piano and I didn't grow up in a house like that.
00:23:27.720 | We love music, but my youngest is following
00:23:31.100 | in her brother's footsteps and that,
00:23:33.200 | learning how to do those things.
00:23:35.500 | And yeah, I just think reading together,
00:23:40.100 | we start to have glimmers into our kids' souls
00:23:43.240 | that we wouldn't have known otherwise.
00:23:46.260 | So if we have sharp eyes and prayerful spirits,
00:23:48.600 | I think the Lord is good to show us that,
00:23:51.340 | to show where we need to encourage them.
00:23:53.700 | - That's great.
00:23:56.240 | That is great.
00:23:57.080 | That's a really good thing.
00:23:58.380 | That's something I'm gonna chew on for a while.
00:24:00.960 | Especially as I'm blessed now to have a grandson
00:24:07.720 | who when he was tiny, he would sit in your lap.
00:24:12.740 | As long as you would read, he would sit in your lap.
00:24:16.260 | Now he's about 15 months old now and he has found his legs
00:24:21.260 | and he likes to go, go, go.
00:24:24.620 | But he still likes to hear a story,
00:24:27.240 | but when he was really little,
00:24:28.960 | he was constantly bringing a book
00:24:31.240 | and he would just bring a book and hold his arms up
00:24:34.280 | and he wanted you to pick him up and read that book.
00:24:37.140 | And I am looking forward to knowing him
00:24:41.340 | through his story choices and getting to know him
00:24:47.120 | through what he might like to spend time
00:24:51.460 | learning about with me.
00:24:53.700 | And I kinda wanna, at this point,
00:24:56.340 | it just occurred to me that we've talked a lot
00:24:58.340 | about stories and fairy tales and myths and adventure tales.
00:25:03.340 | There are lots of other kinds of things that we could read.
00:25:08.880 | What are some other kinds of things
00:25:10.820 | that lend themselves to reading together?
00:25:14.060 | - I think history and explorations of nature.
00:25:23.520 | I think biographies are really helpful
00:25:26.880 | because we need examples of others.
00:25:29.940 | There's tons of wonderful missionary biographies
00:25:32.520 | and stories of heroes and leaders of the past
00:25:36.520 | that are worth our time together.
00:25:40.680 | I know that that can shape us and give us examples
00:25:45.120 | from which to draw.
00:25:47.060 | Poetry, there's all kinds of nonfiction.
00:25:54.080 | I know that we've, at my house, have a wide variety
00:25:58.280 | of things that my kids have naturally been interested in.
00:26:00.900 | So we've given them books for Christmas, for instance,
00:26:04.080 | that I thought were beautifully illustrated
00:26:07.280 | or particularly appealing to that particular kid.
00:26:10.280 | Some of those things we've ended up sharing together
00:26:15.120 | because they were excited to share those things.
00:26:17.600 | - I think that a lot of times,
00:26:21.340 | especially if we as an adult, as a child,
00:26:24.560 | if we loved reading fiction and we loved stories
00:26:27.840 | and we loved all kinds of adventures,
00:26:29.880 | I liked all kinds of stories.
00:26:32.080 | I liked historical stories.
00:26:33.780 | I loved biographies when I was a kid.
00:26:37.600 | I loved mystery stories.
00:26:40.700 | I loved adventure stories.
00:26:43.000 | I loved stories of children that were set
00:26:47.040 | in other countries, so I like to read about other countries.
00:26:49.560 | I loved stories, and I think sometimes,
00:26:54.560 | if that's what we loved when we were little,
00:26:57.660 | we don't think about other things to suggest.
00:27:02.660 | We have a bunch of maps.
00:27:08.620 | We have books of maps.
00:27:10.740 | We have at our house, 'cause my husband is a map-loving man,
00:27:16.320 | and so we have a lot of books that trace the history
00:27:21.020 | of the world through maps.
00:27:23.200 | So we have tons of map books,
00:27:25.500 | and one of my daughters was really interested
00:27:29.880 | in the presidents when she was little,
00:27:32.880 | and so we have a lot of biographies of the presidents.
00:27:36.320 | We have some kid books about the Constitution.
00:27:39.680 | So these are obviously all nonfiction things,
00:27:42.840 | but they were things that my girls really enjoyed,
00:27:46.740 | and that you mentioned poetry,
00:27:50.360 | and I can remember loving poetry as a child
00:27:53.800 | and reading it and reciting it to my girls
00:27:56.720 | when they were little, and I did more reciting it to them
00:28:01.160 | when they were little, and I don't think they realized
00:28:03.720 | for a long time that there could be a book of poems,
00:28:07.420 | and we could read these poems in a book,
00:28:11.080 | and so that was a lot of fun, but I have,
00:28:15.000 | for years I've been able to speak at practicums
00:28:19.720 | around the country, and I've had people come up and say,
00:28:23.460 | we had to really look hard to find things
00:28:27.960 | that our kids liked to read.
00:28:29.680 | Some people would say, my kids never liked to read,
00:28:32.840 | and I was opposed to it at first,
00:28:36.500 | but we've got some graphic novels,
00:28:39.280 | what we used to call comic books, and we've read those,
00:28:42.560 | and then I had one person that said,
00:28:45.120 | my kids were fascinated by names in history
00:28:50.120 | or in stories that we read, and so we got a book of names
00:28:54.800 | that told the history and the meaning
00:28:57.040 | of all kinds of names, and I thought,
00:29:00.480 | that's a wild thing to read aloud,
00:29:03.240 | but it gets your family reading together
00:29:07.280 | and talking together and thinking together,
00:29:11.240 | and so that's a great thing to read.
00:29:13.360 | - I agree, we've even had Calvin and Hobbes
00:29:17.920 | and joke books that were fun.
00:29:20.800 | I remember my kids have all gone through periods
00:29:23.260 | where they found the joke book pile
00:29:24.920 | and wanted to share those, which has been so fun.
00:29:29.500 | I gained a whole vocabulary for construction vehicles
00:29:33.480 | and space exploration for myself.
00:29:35.440 | - Yeah, I didn't think about that, yeah.
00:29:38.880 | - I had no idea, I was like, what's that thing?
00:29:40.840 | And he would know, I mean, he would just pop up
00:29:42.640 | and I had to learn that vocabulary with him
00:29:44.820 | 'cause he wanted to know what's that, what's that, what's that?
00:29:47.360 | - Isn't that great.
00:29:49.140 | I think it's really one way that parents
00:29:53.280 | can chase the read together is find the hobby
00:29:58.280 | that your child is interested in, and like Brittany said,
00:30:02.000 | find a manual of how to do that thing.
00:30:05.320 | If your child is all of a sudden,
00:30:06.720 | is a Boy Scout interested in camping,
00:30:09.160 | then find some camping books or find some trail books,
00:30:13.920 | some trail descriptions, some camping or hiking books
00:30:18.440 | that you could read together and pursue,
00:30:21.500 | that's you pursuing your child's love,
00:30:24.520 | pursuing their passion, and you're gonna read together
00:30:28.800 | will give you ideas of things to talk about together.
00:30:35.000 | - Let me ask you this, Brittany, 'cause you said
00:30:37.400 | you had some kids who like to read more than other kids,
00:30:40.240 | so I know that you've got some experience with this.
00:30:43.640 | Is there hope for parents whose kids
00:30:47.560 | just do not like to read?
00:30:50.500 | - Yes, I think it's one of those areas
00:30:53.560 | that we have to take on faith
00:30:55.000 | and keep sowing those daily seeds and try to do things
00:31:00.440 | that make reading together pleasurable,
00:31:03.200 | like reading out loud in morning time,
00:31:05.880 | or we used to do, my kids were like,
00:31:08.760 | "Poetry, I don't wanna read poetry,"
00:31:10.240 | so we did Wednesdays, Tea and Poetry.
00:31:12.580 | We would take a break from all of our studies
00:31:15.320 | and I would make it special, something to drink,
00:31:17.360 | it wasn't always tea 'cause they weren't into tea,
00:31:19.860 | some sort of snack we'd have together.
00:31:23.420 | For my child who liked to bake,
00:31:24.880 | she would often bake something for us
00:31:26.440 | and we would have just a few minutes together,
00:31:29.940 | finding, remembering that you can read with your ears
00:31:34.000 | is important, there's great audiobooks
00:31:36.940 | and dramatized versions of stories
00:31:40.700 | that might get your child interested.
00:31:44.660 | Reading outdoors, you don't have to read in a chair.
00:31:47.900 | Reading in hammocks, one year when I noticed
00:31:50.980 | one of my struggling readers kind of was
00:31:54.580 | starting to take off, well, they love to be outdoors,
00:31:57.040 | so my husband put a hammock in our front yard.
00:31:59.780 | Between the only two trees that were close enough
00:32:01.860 | to hold a hammock and they were constantly
00:32:04.120 | in that hammock reading and it became a thing of pleasure.
00:32:07.660 | Inviting others in, I know our campus, our littles have,
00:32:12.520 | our young learners have had a book club of their own
00:32:17.240 | that moms have made really pleasurable.
00:32:20.520 | But I think most of all, oh, and for little kids,
00:32:24.760 | I mean, some of my children haven't enjoyed sitting still,
00:32:29.660 | so giving them something to do with their hands
00:32:31.820 | and being really generous with the kinds of things
00:32:36.520 | that they would enjoy and just being,
00:32:38.300 | if it gets a little noisy, it's okay.
00:32:40.120 | Just trust that they're listening anyway,
00:32:44.180 | even if they're actively moving.
00:32:45.660 | In fact, one of my kids needed to move
00:32:47.580 | in order to listen. - Yep, absolutely.
00:32:49.280 | - I think the more you can just kind of encourage
00:32:52.140 | their natural event and just be patient,
00:32:55.320 | try to give them books so beautiful and so good
00:32:58.280 | that they'd wanna eat them.
00:32:59.380 | I think is what one publisher said about their books.
00:33:03.540 | But that can be, it might just be that the child
00:33:07.020 | needs to grow and learn or come upon a subject
00:33:10.700 | they're hungry to learn about and they,
00:33:13.100 | because of your example, they know how to do it.
00:33:15.140 | So they might leap off on their own at some point
00:33:18.100 | and start using all the tools of learning
00:33:20.260 | to learn about that thing.
00:33:21.560 | And that can be just so encouraging to us as parents
00:33:25.900 | to remember the days of, "Oh no, what have I done wrong?
00:33:30.500 | "My child doesn't like to read on their own yet."
00:33:32.660 | - Yes, oh, Brittany, you have been so encouraging.
00:33:37.060 | All of those seem like such inspired suggestions,
00:33:42.060 | but they are also very hopeful.
00:33:45.540 | They are, I love, love that you said,
00:33:48.500 | "Make it pleasurable and be regular."
00:33:51.700 | And then all the good ideas that you have offered
00:33:55.220 | our listeners, changing the venue and let them move
00:33:59.040 | and most of all, be patient, be patient
00:34:03.140 | and keep building the relationship.
00:34:05.400 | I think some of the things that my girls remember the most
00:34:09.980 | about reading together is not what we read.
00:34:14.980 | It was how it made us feel.
00:34:17.760 | It was warm and we were together
00:34:23.260 | and they felt special and they had my full attention.
00:34:27.920 | And we built, like you said earlier, a family culture,
00:34:33.780 | lots of inside jokes and lots of joint memories.
00:34:39.700 | And that to me is one of the beauties of reading together.
00:34:44.920 | Before I let you go, 'cause I always get good ideas from you
00:34:51.180 | and I've got my pen at the ready.
00:34:53.740 | Tell me what are three books that you are reading now?
00:34:58.740 | I know you're reading way more than three,
00:35:01.420 | so I'm just asking for three.
00:35:04.420 | - Yeah, well, I try to read old books and new books
00:35:08.820 | 'cause I remember C.S. Lewis said,
00:35:11.060 | "It's a good rule after reading a new book
00:35:13.300 | "to never allow yourself another new one
00:35:15.100 | "until you've read an old one in between."
00:35:17.300 | - Kinda like that too.
00:35:19.280 | - Yeah, or if that's too much, read one.
00:35:22.300 | He says read one, old one, to every three new ones.
00:35:25.020 | So an old book I'm reading is,
00:35:28.240 | it's called "The Annotated Alice."
00:35:31.840 | It's "Alice in Wonderland."
00:35:33.820 | And the second book, "Through the Looking Glass,"
00:35:36.100 | and it's beautifully illustrated
00:35:37.980 | and has all kinds of interesting footnotes.
00:35:40.660 | I've always been fascinated with her
00:35:42.040 | and my youngest loves "Alice in Wonderland" too.
00:35:45.140 | So "The Annotated Alice," the definitive edition,
00:35:48.560 | it's by Lewis Carroll and Martin Gardner,
00:35:51.380 | who's a Lewis Carroll expert, edited that.
00:35:56.380 | So that's been fun, it's helped,
00:35:58.260 | it's been fun to figure out those mysteries
00:36:00.860 | that are in that book and the funny parts,
00:36:03.340 | the jokes that I don't get all the time.
00:36:05.320 | I'm reading, I just finished "The Inklings"
00:36:10.740 | by Humphrey Carpenter.
00:36:12.300 | It's about the, all the groups, the writers,
00:36:16.260 | C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and Charles Williams and others.
00:36:20.780 | Yeah, and kind of their, how they were educated
00:36:24.580 | and how they grew up
00:36:26.520 | and then how they encouraged each other's work.
00:36:28.760 | I just thought, what a good thing to learn about community
00:36:31.780 | and learning in communities.
00:36:32.940 | That's been really helpful because they did,
00:36:35.580 | a lot of them receive a classical Christian education
00:36:38.460 | and we're trying to recover that.
00:36:39.660 | So that's been interesting.
00:36:40.640 | I listened to it on audio book.
00:36:42.260 | That was good.
00:36:45.200 | And then my last one has just been super fascinating.
00:36:47.580 | It's really short.
00:36:49.020 | It's called "Lifting the Veil, Imagination
00:36:51.540 | and the Kingdom of God."
00:36:53.060 | And it's by Malcolm Guy.
00:36:55.040 | He's a living poet, used to be a '70s rocker.
00:36:59.000 | The Lord converted him through poetry
00:37:01.080 | in a similar way to C.S. Lewis.
00:37:02.620 | And he's just a wonderful gift to,
00:37:06.700 | I think, the Christian world and the academic world.
00:37:11.400 | He's a sonnet writer, but he wrote this lovely,
00:37:14.940 | it's really small.
00:37:16.660 | It's called "Lifting the Veil, Imagination
00:37:18.260 | and the Kingdom of God."
00:37:19.100 | And that's just been encouraging to me to think about
00:37:22.100 | how the Lord gave us both reason and imagination
00:37:24.460 | and how they kind of have a Lord bridge those.
00:37:27.080 | - Wow. - Himself.
00:37:28.540 | - Yeah. - So those are three
00:37:29.800 | I'm reading right now.
00:37:31.540 | - That is cool.
00:37:32.380 | And I like it that you and I have talked about this before,
00:37:36.020 | that we're hardly ever anymore
00:37:38.560 | just reading one book at a time.
00:37:40.720 | I was saying to you earlier, Brittany,
00:37:44.140 | that I feel there are different parts of my personality.
00:37:48.080 | And so I need to feed all those pieces of myself.
00:37:51.820 | And so it takes different kinds of books to do that.
00:37:55.340 | And so parents, listeners, we encourage you to read,
00:38:00.100 | to minister to yourself, to grow and to learn
00:38:03.860 | and to keep learning yourself
00:38:06.800 | so that you will not become a barren desert.
00:38:10.420 | So don't read only to encourage your children,
00:38:14.020 | but read to embolden yourself as a lifelong learner
00:38:18.740 | and as a grower.
00:38:19.940 | And in that vein, Brittany, I want to ask you the question,
00:38:23.900 | what makes you an everyday educator?
00:38:28.900 | - I think because I'm a human being, we're learners.
00:38:35.140 | I'm a parent, soon to be a grandparent.
00:38:38.140 | I'm an ambassador for classical Christian education renewal,
00:38:41.660 | a CC lover, an advocate, and I've learned that
00:38:46.140 | what we learn is meant to be shared.
00:38:48.420 | And so when we share it, we gain new friends,
00:38:51.980 | we get to see the world a new way,
00:38:53.620 | and we encourage others to do the same.
00:38:57.060 | And that helps us all to know the Lord and to make Him known.
00:39:01.340 | - I love that, that is lovely.
00:39:03.540 | That's a great reason to be an everyday educator.
00:39:08.460 | If you listeners want to keep learning,
00:39:13.300 | to keep educating yourself as you educate your children,
00:39:16.760 | reading is a great way to do that.
00:39:18.780 | And I know that Brittany has been a blessing to you today
00:39:22.300 | as you have thought about the whys of reading together
00:39:26.700 | and the what could we read and even how can I encourage
00:39:30.340 | my children to keep on reading.
00:39:32.380 | Thank you, Brittany, this has been a great time together.
00:39:37.120 | Listeners, I want to encourage you to look toward
00:39:41.960 | another great time that we could all have together.
00:39:45.920 | This is gonna sound like I'm telling you something
00:39:48.160 | that is so far ahead, you're gonna wonder
00:39:50.820 | why I'm even mentioning it.
00:39:52.440 | Our national events weekend for 2024 has already been set.
00:39:59.260 | So you could mark your calendar now
00:40:04.840 | for the annual national events weekend on May 2nd
00:40:08.500 | through the 4th in Southern Pines, North Carolina.
00:40:12.500 | And why am I telling you about this now?
00:40:14.900 | Well, it is because registration is opening November 1st.
00:40:19.900 | So if you are interested in attending
00:40:25.620 | the national events weekend in Southern Pines,
00:40:28.340 | you can check that out
00:40:30.460 | at classicalconversationsfoundation.org.
00:40:35.460 | This is a conference that's put on
00:40:40.160 | by Classical Conversations Foundations.
00:40:42.480 | It's a great time, families from all over the United States
00:40:46.840 | come and have three full days of events
00:40:49.600 | and learning about classical education,
00:40:52.240 | but also celebrating the hard work of students.
00:40:55.540 | Some of the things that happen at national event weekend
00:40:58.880 | include national conference
00:41:01.440 | where you get to hear lots of great speakers,
00:41:03.800 | but also national commencement.
00:41:06.480 | It's our official graduation ceremony
00:41:09.540 | for challenge grads and their parents.
00:41:11.920 | And this year you will get to see
00:41:13.760 | the National Memory Master Championship
00:41:17.240 | where 16 foundation students compete
00:41:20.760 | for the esteemed title of National Memory Master
00:41:24.920 | and a grand prize of $10,000.
00:41:28.120 | There's tons of stuff to do.
00:41:30.040 | There are food trucks, there's a celebration party,
00:41:33.560 | there are outdoor adventure camps for kids.
00:41:36.080 | If you're interested, go, like I said,
00:41:40.400 | to classicalconversationsfoundation.org and check out.
00:41:45.400 | Registration opens on November 1st.
00:41:49.520 | The conference is May 2nd through the 4th.
00:41:52.080 | Brittany, thank you again for being with us.
00:41:56.720 | Listeners, I hope you will go and read something together
00:42:00.240 | with your family today.
00:42:02.440 | See you next time.
00:42:03.800 | Bye-bye.
00:42:05.160 | (gentle music)
00:42:07.740 | (music fades)
00:42:10.240 | [BLANK_AUDIO]