Eight Ways to Salvage the Bedtime Story
My friend Annie and I were having one of those homeschooling parent conversations the other day, the ones where, among people who know and and live the highs and lows of this model of education, you can drop the carefully worded justification and pedagogically couched assurances that yes, the kids are learning and socializing and otherwise turning into fine samples of humanity, and instead talk about the tough parts that you actually need some support with, the hours and struggles that make you wonder why you decided to do this whole-life thing in the first place.
My hard thing was the fact that my older two kids are fighting something fierce these days. Her hard thing was that bedtime reading wasn't going so well.
I'm a little too close to my own issue at the moment to process it well publicly, so I gave some thought to Annie's struggle instead. (Aren't we glad we have friends for this kind of thing, to distract us from our own problems?)
Almost all the homeschoolers I know, and many school families, too, rely on the bedtime read-aloud routine to enjoy quality time together, to share great stories with one another, to facilitate the winding down of the day, and to model a love of reading as our children gain skill and practice with it.
There are days--weeks, even--when it feels like there's so little life left in the routine that you're tempted to flush it. Fighting, whining, distraction, and general difficulty can make it seem impossible, or at least not worth the rise in blood pressure that can sometimes ensue.
When bedtime reading is more struggle than story, here are eight suggestions for making the most of the moment:
Eight Ways to Salvage the Bedtime Story
1. If your child is a reader, get two copies of the book from the library, one for you, and the other for your child to read along with you. They will absolutely love to correct you if you skip a word, and they can help you guess at the pronunciation of foreign words. Alternatively, if there is an older child or adult partner in the house who is willing and able to help, you could take turns reading passages, each dramatizing as you go and trying to mimic the other's character voices.
2. Give your child a small sketch book and pencil to draw or doodle as you read, maybe even illustrating a particularly interesting character or passage. Magnetic doodle pads are good for this, too.
3. Give your child a related, image-rich book to look at as you read. For example, right now we're reading Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord. It takes place in Venice. My middle child looks at pictures in Olivia Goes to Venice and This Is Venice as we go.
4. If you can plan ahead a bit, shop around for a little handheld object that is specific to the book and can act as something of a fidget toy for the time that you read. We recently finished reading the Guardians of G'hoole series by Kathryn Lasky, in which the main characters were owls. These finger puppets were quickly named Soren and Otulissa, the main characters, and became part of a much bigger homeschool-wide examination of owls.
5. Ask a question at the end of each reading session. Make them real questions, though, not quiz-type questions. Ask what might happen next, if your child felt worried when _______ happened, whether the character seems friendly or a little suspect, if the setting reminds them of somewhere you've been before, why it seems like the parents in kids' chapter books seem to get killed off or are otherwise absent, etc. Be willing to share your answers, too. Some kids might like these types of questions throughout, but some kids find that distracting.
6. If read-aloud is getting a little tiresome for you, see if your library has one of those audio book apps that you can download onto your smartphone. If so, take turns with the audio book narrator in reading chapters, or hold the book open so you and your child can both simply listen and read along. Audio books are also a great way to get inspiration for doing different voices and using dynamic inflection and pacing as you read aloud.
7. Build an interesting cue into the routine that signals it's time for the bedtime reading. Make a fort by throwing a sheet over everyone piled on the bed together and read by flashlight. Or string up some holiday lights in the room and flick them on when it's time to start the read-aloud. Get a small bell to call everyone in to the room at the designated hour. Every once in a while, do something unexpected such as hiding a treat under their pillows and announce it during a break between chapters.
8. Sweeten the storytime pot. Curl up with some cocoa, golden milk, late-night lemonade, or whatever other sippable might help everyone switch gears from play time to reading time.
Finally, this doesn't really count in the list, but if your child is balking completely at the idea of bedtime reading, be their partner and see if you can figure out ways to still share the time enjoyably together.
If your child doesn't like your book suggestion, could you bring home three or four selections from the library and let your child choose the next one, or go together to pick one out? If you're really sold on them hearing a particular book or story, and they're not all that interested, consider letting them have their own choice of bedtime story, and then reading the book you chose another time of day, maybe for fifteen minutes at a time in the car together as you're running errands, or during lunch.
Would switching genres help, such as going from a novel to a joke book, or from fairy tales to wordless picture books? Or maybe take a break from bedtime reading entirely and do bedtime word searches together, or bedtime tarot card reading, or betime Uno playing.
Be eclectic and generous in your reading selection. Try anything once, reading cookbooks or Minecraft crafting recipes or Disney princess movie summaries. Let your child choose often.
And if none of the above makes a dent in the resistance to the bedtime story, let your child know how much the time means to you, and then let it go. Check back in with them in a week or two, maybe a month, or when you find out that there's a book that inspired a movie you both like that might be fun to read together. Remember, the end goal is enjoyable time spent doing something interesting and edifying together at the end of the day; if the bedtime story isn't able to flex to fit into the newest evolution of your homeschool, trust that its time will come back again when you're both ready.
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