#4 of 15 Ways to Teach Your Child to Write Using Books - Read for Fun!

This means you!


If you only read aloud -- what we call "reading around" -- taking turns -- for educational reading alone, then reading will not be considered of value by your children. Writing isn't fun because reading isn't fun -- it's a chore; it's school. How about its being cuddle time in front of the fire or on the front porch on a sunny morning? We do it with our preschoolers; why not with our teens?

But, before reading can be fun with your kids, it has to be fun for you. Do your children see you spending time reading? Maybe it's your favorite gardening magazine, maybe it's Danielle Steel, but if you make reading a priority -- not because someone is making you -- they will wonder what the big deal is and try it out for themselves. My mother spent most of my childhood in the corner of the sofa knitting, playing solitaire and, above all, reading. She tells us that as toddlers, we would crawl up under her book to see what was so absorbing.

I have many friends who insist they are not readers, others who have hardly a book in the house, who have not been to the library since their 3rd grade field trip. People don't all have to be readers. But, if you want your children to be moderately eloquent writers, you have to be a reader. Read cookbooks, manga books, magazines, atlases, "as told to" autobiographies, even your own kids' stories. Then, when you've gotten a taste of the enjoyment of reading, read with your kids for fun. Let them pick the book and enjoy the time with them.

#3 of 15 Ways to Teach Your Child to Write Using Books - Read Together

Reading aloud together is probably the most valuable educational tool you will ever have. I consider this to be of such importance that I am going to dismantle the subject and detail it further in later posts. But, why is this so important?

Well, quite apart from teaching your children to write, you are teaching your children that they are loved. You are teaching them that reading with them is something you are willing to take the time to do with them. When they pick the book, you are valuing their opinions. When you pick the book, you are showing respect for them, that you consider them worthy companions and intelligent enough to share your interests with.

Educationally, what does reading offer, particularly to the subject of writing? It exposes children to a greater vocabulary and to more difficult concepts than they have the capacity for on their own since they usually have a greater auditory understanding than visual understanding of language. It gives you all a chance to ask questions and pull apart meaning that can be applied in later experiences. My children love Shakespeare because I never have them read it. We watch it on DVD. Since the oldest were in their early teens, I would periodically stop the show and ask,"OK, do you know what's going on?" At which, they usually said, "No," and I would explain. That allowed them to "get" the story and really enjoy it.

Lastly, reading aloud gives your children a chance to use you as a sound board for digesting what they have read and applying it to their lives. And, that is the foundation of good writing.

#2 of 15 Ways to Teach Your Child to Write Using Books - Uninterrupted Silent Reading

Our family always had this informally because my brother broke the TV when he was 7 and, in a  house full of introverts, books were our entertainment. But, when I was 11, our Ogden Elementary School instituted Uninterrupted Silent Reading. From 1:05-1:25 everyone in the school, including the janitor and school secretary, read. There were 20 minutes of profound blessed peace. The only rule was that the book had to have words. There was some discussion at first but comic books were finally allowed. You could read anything you want except "Spy Vs. Spy" (a wordless comic strip.) You could read Hardy Boys, Little House on the Prairie (very popular among pre-teen girls at the time), or Judy Blume  (though there were some questions about the immorality of some of her books.) Personally, I went to the English teacher's glass-fronted shelves and, in 20 minutes a day, over a 9-month period I read Dickens's Oliver Twist and Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.

What did USR accomplish? It developed the habit of reading. The students saw that reading was valuable, not busy work, because even grown-ups did it. They were given the opportunity to start making their own choices in books. It brought a moment of rest to an inherently busy and chaotic institution. Students learned that they could accomplish something -- actually finish a book! -- in 20 minutes a day. They began to develop a fund of stories that gave them something to write about. Let's face it, no matter what the art -- fishing,computers, chess, figure skating or music -- you don't develop the desire to do it yourself until you see someone else do it, and that includes using words.

#1 of 15 Ways to Teach Your Child to Write Using Books: Talk About Stories

My adult son, Ben, is my writing club. Almost all of my kids have spent time writing but he is a natural. We still have his first story. At age 6, he wrote descriptions of the evil lord's castle with ugly dogs fighting over the bones and the happy castle with puppies in the corner. He studies writing and challenges me, partly by quoting me back to to myself. But what we do most is talk about stories, both in film and on paper.

My mother and I did this. We read hours together and always stopped to go on a bunny trail sprung from the reading. My husband did this, stopping a movie to ask the kids, "Okay, what's happening here?" When we read stories with the children, we ask them what they see in the picture that gives them a fuller picture of the story. Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland was the first place this was done, even to the placement of the pictures and text on the page, and Little Critter books are nothing special at all if you don't look at the humor (where Little Critter is really coming from) in the pictures.

When my children want to talk about stories, I always listen, whether it is something they have written or read or even an online anime program they are following. I once listened to my 15 year old daughter, Becki, go through the complicated storyline of every single Eragon book over pancakes at IHOP.

We all learn from stories and talking about them helps us to process them and apply them to our lives. If we are interested in stories, our children will want to produce them. They will become writers.

Learning to Love God

The journey to heaven takes a person on an adventure. It wanders all over the spiritual countryside but takes us, with a certain amount of application, closer and closer to a better understanding and relationship with God.

Take me, for instance. For several years I have been on a road that focused on worship and I was looking specifically at God's throne room and how the throne room reflects His glory. Now, I can see the whole throne room of God in my imagination. God is so big, though, that I can't see very much at one time. I can see His Shekinah glory on his throne, so bright I can't see through it, with a rainbow over it like an emerald, but not at the same time I can see clouds of angels flying around it, singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" If I look elsewhere, I see the four living creatures. In another place is the lampstand with the seven spirits of God. On the other side of the throne room are the twenty-four elders, praising God. There is smoke filling the throne room. But, I can't see all those things at the same time I hear the thunderings, see the lightnings, and feel the earthquakes. But,I don't dare enter. It is all too much for me. I am convinced. God is great!

But, recently, God was convicting me that I needed to focus on His love for me. Our Ladies' Bible Study is studying Blackaby's Experiencing God. In that book, in addition to two other books that He led me to (literally - as I was looking for another book in the dark in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep), Hearing God (Peter Lord) and A Hunger for God (John Piper), I heard over and over again that I cannot hear from God or get closer to Him if I am not in a love relationship with Him.

Now, I am a fix-it person. I am more than willing to hear from God what He wants to do and then go and do it. Unfortunately, that is very self-reliant rather than God-reliant. I also have been focusing for years on loving God. I know that loving God is exhibited in my loving people. But, I have not been paying attention to the other side of the relationship - God's love for me. What this leg of my journey has been revealing is that Jesus is His best way of showing how He loves me. But, even now, I can hardly accept His love for me. I can picture myself weeping at Jesus' feet. I can picture Jesus holding my hand as if I were a little child. I can picture Him touching me the way He touched lepers. But, I cannot picture His eyes. Once again, I don't dare. I envy those people in the Middle East who have had visions and dreams of Christ, so they can see His eyes. I can't imagine them and I don't dare to raise my eyes to see what they might look like. I am just seeing, me, a Christian of 40 years, that He loved me enough to die for me. It is so easy to say and so hard to understand. My head understands that He loved me enough to die for me, but my heart is just beginning to understand that this is the most important fact of my life. Not just that God is. Not that He hears our prayers. Not that He answers them. Not that He gives me power beyond what is humanly possible to become conformed to the image of Christ. But, that He loves me. That much.

God's Answer for Stress

We just had Ladies' Bible Study on Friday and, during prayer requests, the subject of stress and worry came up. Many of us agreed that the worst thing about worry is that we are coming up with all the things that might go wrong and, most of the time, they don't ever happen. But, we have gotten into the habit of thinking that way. And the only way out is to change our way of thinking.

The biggest way I stress out is getting to church. Getting everyone up and dressed and out of the house to be on time for church on Sunday has always been the most stressful part of my life. For others, it may be worrying about what people will think of them or what will happen to their children when they leave the house with their friends.

When I would get up on Sunday mornings, I would start praying Philippians 4:6-7 over and over the whole morning till we got to church: "Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I would meditate on that while noodging small people and husband to the van. And I learned that, while family didn't necessarily move faster, I was at peace.

Another important word from God on worry is Romans 12:2: "But, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed through the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." It's only by renewing our minds that we can live in the knowledge of how great God is and that even the bad things that happen to us can work out for God's and our good.