I'm improving my fluency and my accent in English. With the audio of this text, I will try to shadow our voice to practice. So please, don't speak too fast, but in a natural way.
Thank you in advance!
So, I’m going to talk about reading aloud, because I recently read an article that said that a child growing up in a home with at least 80 books will have a greater literacy and numeracy in adulthood.
Because, being exposed to books daily helps to increases cognitives competencies and also creates good habits towards the act of reading. This lays the foundations for a life-long love of literature.
So, it seems that having books around the house is an excellent investment in a child future.
But saying that, I would add that you actually have to read those books.
Sorry, but it isn’t enough to have them around! It's not like the more books you have the better you will be!
Well, after reading that, I counted my books. Yes, I did that!
And it took me a while!
I mean, we have 945 books in our home right now, and yet I often declutter our shelves to make room for new books to come.
You see, I can’t help buying books!
I have a love for books, for reading and for good literature that I want to pass on to my daughters.
To this end, in addition to having a lot of carefully selected books in our home, I read aloud to them on a regular basis.
Reading aloud to kids is a matter of importance, I may say. Don’t stop reading aloud to them, even when they reach a good reading level. Keep reading until they beg you to stop, and this may never happen!
Reading aloud is a gift for my family. I cherish those moments. They create bonds, and a strong cultural family background. The books we enjoy together, the books we talk about, stay with us for years as a family reference.
Reading aloud to children, gives them access to books they otherwise couldn’t read. This is important that they’re exposed to a better level of literature than their reading capacities.
It opens new horizons.
Reading aloud is like opening a window upon a world of great ideas, interesting events, and a wide range of emotions… it fills their souls, their hearts, their minds, with great ideas.
Well then, but how do we choose THE perfect book to read aloud ?
Charlotte Mason, an English educator proposed to have an education based on books, but not just any books. She originated a term to describe a specific type of books « living books ». So, What are they? Which books are the living books?
Charlotte Mason didn't give us a list of the best books, nor did she compose a checklist of what to look for in a living book.
In her writings, though, she dropped some clues for the careful reader.
For exemple, she said that "Education is a life. Life is sustained on ideas, thus we must sustain the child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food. And where can we find great inspiring ideas? In great literature of course.
Thank you so much! That perfect!