Reading Resolutions: Encouraging Your Family to Read More in 2017

It’s almost that time of year again! After the festivities of Christmas morning and the slow afternoons of the post-Christmas haze in which we wander around in pajamas through piles of wrapping paper, we finally find ourselves counting down to another New Year.

Whether your plans for the 31st are cozy or elaborate, if you’re like me, you don’t think about New Year’s Resolutions until halfway through the countdown. And usually, those hasty promises are fiscal or physical: we want to pay off debt in the New Year, or be more wise in our spending. Or we want to finally run that 5k or renew our gym memberships.

But what if our resolutions were more about our minds than our wallets or waistlines? This January, I’m making a resolution to read more. My goal is to read one book a month, twelve books a year. This works out to be about fifty pages a week if the book is about two-hundred pages. But a weekly page count goal isn’t the only way to make a reading resolution this New Year’s. If that goal seems too daunting in this current season of life, what about a resolution to read aloud with your family?

Growing up, some of my sweetest memories were reading with my mom before bed (her voice reading Charlotte’s Web is one of my earliest memories) and as my sisters and I got older, she read aloud around the dinner table after we ate. We had fun picking the next book together (after we exhausted the Narnia series) and this culture of reading out loud made a great impression on how we lived. One Christmas, I gave my Dad a CD of my voice reading Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners— a book I had begged him to read all year.

The emphasis of reading in my home growing up was mostly due to the fact that I saw my parents reading. They made time to read and talked about what they were reading. And, we went to bookstores and libraries together.

Whether it’s a personal resolution to read more yourself, or a resolution you make as a family to enjoy a story together, reading is an excellent way to bring your family together as you talk about stories, characters, and ideas.

Other reading resolutions:

• Encourage children to make a resolution to read chapter books. Chart their progress by encouraging them to keep a reading journal (record the date finished and the titles, and try letting them rate the book with star stickers).
• Make time to read as a parent and to let your children see you reading.
• Have bookstore dates with children one-on-one or as a family (try Barnes and Noble in Lancaster, DogStar in Lancaster City, the Ephrata ReUzit, or the Ephrata Library Bookstore).
• Have conversations about what you’re reading as you ride in the car or eat around the table.

Books to read aloud as a family:

The Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis

Wise Words - Peter Leithart

The Penderwicks Series- Jeanne Birdsall

 James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, or Fantastic Mr. Fox - Roald Dahl

Charlotte’s Web - E. B White

The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

Five Children and It- E. Nesbit

The Tale of Despereaux- Kate DiCamillo

100 Cupboards, Leepike Ridge, The Dragon’s Tooth - N. D. Wilson

Twenty and Ten- Claire Huchet Bishop

Snow Treasure- Marie McSwigan

All of a Kind Family- Sydney Taylor

The Willoughbys- Lois Lowry

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