In this blog post, we’ll unravel the secrets of choosing books wisely, finding that perfect balance between worthy and thrilling reads, building a budget-friendly, and creating healthy reading goals for our children. Get ready to revolutionize the way you approach reading in your homeschooling family.
As a homeschool parent, we already have so much on our plates. From sourcing the best curriculum, doing nature study, and all the other homeschool planning to-do’s we have as moms, sometimes the books our children are independently reading can fall by the wayside because we’re not vetting them enough. I mean, let’s face it— we’re all busy!
But by reading this blog post today, you will learn why and how your kids should and can read wholesome, living books and my #1 hack for sourcing these books without ever having to proofread.
Quote- “What we put into our minds is just as important as what we put into our bodies. Just as we should strive to fill our bodies with wholesome food, we should fill our minds with wholesome words, ideas, messages, and stories.”What we put into our minds is just as important as what we put into our bodies. Just as we should strive to fill our bodies with wholesome food, we should fill our minds with wholesome words, ideas, messages, and stories.”
– Jenny Phillips
Why Reading is Important
It wouldn’t be proper for me to write an entire blog post telling you to create a reading-rich year for your children if I didn’t hit on some of the reasons why our homeschoolers should be reading at home in the first place.
Let’s go over six reasons why reading is crucial for homeschoolers:
Language Skills:
Reading helps children develop strong language skills, including vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension. Exposure to various words in books enhances their ability to express themselves.
Academics:
Children who are exposed to reading at an early age often perform better academically throughout their school years. Reading regularly is linked to improved performance in subjects like mathematics and science.
Imagination and Creativity:
Books expose children to new worlds, ideas, and perspectives, fostering creativity and imagination. Through stories, children can explore scenarios beyond their immediate experiences, travel around the world, and live lives through others.
Social Skills:
Reading stories with characters and diverse situations helps children understand emotions, empathy, and social dynamics. It provides a foundation for better social interactions and relationships.
Concentration and Focus:
Reading helps improve a child’s attention span and concentration. (Does anyone else need to learn this skill?!) Focusing on a story, especially during quiet reading time, contributes to the development of sustained attention.
Lifelong Love for Learning:
Children who relish reading are more likely to carry that love for learning. Learning becomes an enjoyable activity, not a tedious chore.
Phew, okay. Now that we got that out of the way let’s dive into where things start to get juicy. I want to share how you can choose books wisely for your homeschooler.
What Kind of Books to Choose (and Not Choose)
Do you eat healthy? Feed your kids a healthy diet?
“Wait, Cherelle, I thought we were talking about books?!”
We are, but you see, I’ve created this excellent connection between eating a healthy diet AND reading “healthy” books.
Just as we should feed our families a healthy, well-balanced diet, as moms, we’re the gatekeepers to our children’s literary diet, and what we “feed” them through books can be a blessing or a curse. Therefore, we should strive to feed our children wholesome, worthy books.
So, let me ask you.
What kind of books have you “feeding” or allowing your children to “feed” to themselves?
No matter your answer, don’t fret. I’m here to seriously help you today.
How to Choose Books Wisely for Your Homeschooler:
1. Unworthy Books – Say No:
We should always avoid morally wrong and inappropriate books. But what does that actually mean?
Books that present disrespect to parents or others, contain lousy language, have horrible characters without any good characters to look up to, and the such like are the ones we are calling unworthy books. We need to avoid these books and should not want our children reading.
2. Rollercoaster Books / Cotton Candy Books – Exciting but Empty:
Thrilling and exciting, but lacking moral values. Like candy for the mind – tastes good, but no substance.
Think of these books as feeding yourself cotton candy when you’re starving. It tastes good but has no substance to keep you full and healthy.
Books that have a thrill are funny and exciting, but with no moral values taught are what we’re calling “rollercoaster or cotton candy books.” These books are neither good nor bad; however, they are just exciting and give you that thrill, like on a rollercoaster. These books aren’t entirely wrong, but they lack substance and should be limited since our children won’t learn or glean much good from them.
3. Twaddle Books – Yeah, No Thanks:
Charlotte Mason discouraged using “twaddle,” which referred to simplified, watered-down literature that lacked moral substance, intellectual writing, and storylines. Things like: “The ball is red. The sun is up. The sky is blue.” (This is separate from the books your homeschool phonics program would include when your child is learning sight words.)
Do your kiddos a favor and stay away from watered-down literature that’s lacking substance. No more “baby talk” books, even if you have younger children. Let’s help them grow and stretch their minds.
4. Worthy Books – Hooray! We want these!!:
Books with solid morals, respect, healthy family relationships, and intellectual writing are the meat and potatoes.
These books, dear homeschooling mama, are the books we WANT and NEED to embrace.
Books that have strong morals, teach worthy thoughts, show respect for others, portray healthy family relationships, convey good images and thoughts, use great language, give an increased knowledge of history/people/place/cultures, are living books, etc., are what we want. These are the books we WANT our children to read.
Balancing Act: Audiobooks and Read-Aloud Books
I should mention audiobooks here because they’re so wildly popular, especially in homeschooling families, so let’s chat about them for a second.
Audiobooks are great; they’re lovely, and we love them. They make great companions for car rides, family nights, or private listening, but hear me out….
Balance is critical here. Let’s not replace ALL physical books entirely.
Yes, they are great for kids who are auditory learners; however, we should only partially replace all physical books with audio versions. We need our children holding the physical books, looking at the words/grammar/punctuation, aka, another easy way for our kids to do their language arts.
And this is all so important, so be sure to find a nice balance! But remember to rate your audiobooks as well. (Unworthy, Rollercoaster/Cotton Candy/ and Worthy books).
Read-Alouds
With read-aloud books, let’s face it— we’re busy homeschool moms and cannot fit everything into a single homeschool day. With that being said, having an excellent read-aloud here and there is absolutely necessary and wonderful. It helps build family connections, but on the other hand, we need to allow our children to take some ownership and read independently on their own as well.
So again, balance. Balance, balance, balance.
Since we’ve been making this fun little connection between feeding ourselves healthy food and feeding our minds with healthy books, let’s use this analogy.
Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule for eating healthy or dieting? Yeah, let’s apply that The 80/20 Rule for Books as well.
Eating healthy 80% of the time is acceptable when it comes to dieting, leaving the other 20% for more unhealthy treats.
With books, let’s fill our children’s minds and hearts with at LEAST 80% worthy books and reserve 20% for thrilling roller-coaster reads. Unworthy books have no place in our mental diets; thank you.
All in all, find a nice healthy balance with your children as you begin helping them read better literature.
How to Build a Book Collection on a Budget
Okay, okay, I know what you may be thinking…
“Cherelle, I have 8 kids, and I can’t possibly purchase books for all of them every time; that would be too pricey.”
And you’re right; plus, I wouldn’t expect you to.
As homeschool mamas, we have to learn to be frugal, so here are my best tips for building a family library on a budget:
- Check your local library (free)
- Used books (eBay + Thriftbooks)
- Thrift stores (usually under $1 each)
- Yard Sales (hello, 25-cent books!)
- Borrow from Friends (free once again!)
- Have a book swap with friends or your homeschool group
- Visit used bookstores
- Check your library for books they sell (these are usually super cheap as well)
There you go. Getting books on a budget has never been easier for us homeschool moms.
Setting Reading Goals For Your Children
Let’s chat a bit about setting some reading goals for our children because, let’s face it, everyone loves a bit of an incentive, especially when they may not like reading that much.
I love this quote:
“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.”
– Kate DiCamillo
And isn’t that so true?
So, remember, we never want to shove books at our kids as a punishment, a chore, or made out to seem like a negative thing. We want our kids to fall in love with independent reading!
So here are a few ideas you can choose from to help your kids set a reading goal for themselves:
Goal Idea 1: They can earn points for every book (or chapter) they finish. Points can be redeemed for special treats, outings, or privileges. Have fun with this idea!
Goal idea 2: End of the month book celebration (Family Book Club). Celebrate the children who read and completed their books (or at least made significant progress) and turn it into a fun time as a family. During your family book club, you can chat about the books everyone read, what they liked, didn’t like, what happened in their story… etc.
Cake and pizza, anyone!? We can now have some unhealthy food, ha!
Goal idea 3: Reading Bingo: Every time they finish a book (or a chapter), they can mark off an area on their Bingo card. When they get a BINGO, they can get a special prize, outing, or treat. Reading will be turned into a fun game with a Bingo card. Finish a book or chapter, mark a spot, and aim for that Bingo. Prizes await the winners, woohoo!
Here’s a free Bingo card download, ready for you to fill in however you see fit!
My suggestion: write in things such as historical fiction (and other genres), chapter books, picture books, chapters read, pages read, finished a book, etc., to give plenty of opportunities for them to hit BINGO easily.
Free Reading Challenge Printables
Lastly, here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for.
I’m going to share my Hack For Choosing Wholesome Books and figuring out which ones aren’t wholesome…without even proofreading!
And let all the homeschool mamas say, “Amen!”.
My Greatest Hack for Sourcing Wholesome Books is This Amazing Resource:
Want to see how I use this incredible resource in action?
Sign up to get the tutorial recording to see this fantastic homeschool mama resource in action.
Yep. That’s it!
They rate books, AND they have an entire list dedicated to books that didn’t make their list, and they tell you why, which I love.
If you’d like to see how I use this free resource in action, again sign up above, and I’ll send you the tutorial showing you how I use it more in-depth.
Woohoo! You are officially equipped and ready to start a diet of rich reading for your children.
Again, if you need great book suggestions, check out my tutorial on how you can source wholesome books without even proofreading yourself this school year.
Now, create your own book list of worthy, good books, give your child a beautiful, living book, and let’s foster in our children a love for reading that turns into a lifelong passion for learning!
