I usually make it my goal to read between 130 and 150 books every year. I don’t know that I’ll make that goal this year, because I’ve started doing some online courses to learn more about building a writing career, and that eats into the time I’ve set aside for reading and improving my craft (because everything I read, whether it’s critically or for pleasure, improves my craft).
Still, when people hear the number of books I read every month, they always express shock—probably because I’m the mom of six boys, and who has time to read so many when you’re a mom AND you work?
Well, here’s how I do it (and you can, too!):
1. Read aloud to your children.
We have multiple read-aloud times in our home. I read aloud to my twins and the baby while they’re having lunch (usually two picture books and a section from a middle grade chapter book). Right now we’re reading A.L. Sonnichsen’s The Red Butterfly. I read aloud to all my boys right before bed (right now we’re reading my Fairendale series—almost done with Episode 5).
Children love to hear stories, and this is a great way to not only introduce kids to longer reads but to fall in love with middle grade literature yourself. Middle grade books are great read-alouds most of the time.
2. Listen to audio books in the car.
Whenever we go on trips with our children, we bring a bunch of audio books. It’s super easy. Most libraries now have an e-audio book option, where you can download the book right to your phone and play it over your car speakers while you’re traveling. That way you don’t have to mess with CDs getting lost (which is always a plus in my house. Because we live in a house that includes a black hole).
We also listen to audio books when I’m fixing breakfast in the mornings and the boys are getting ready for school, and when I’m preparing lunch for my younger boys and they’re cleaning up their toys.
3. Get a shower speaker and listen to audiobooks while you get ready for work in the morning.
I usually do this every day (or at least when I get showers and actually find the time to put on makeup or brush my hair). (I use this shower speaker. It has great audio, great tone, and the battery lasts forever. And (best of all!) it’s affordable.Which you can’t say about every shower speaker out there.)
Some people say they’re not that great at listening to audio books. They don’t retain the story all that well. What I tell them is that they haven’t had enough practice. Listening to audio books well takes practice. I remember having a bit of a hard time at first, but after five years of practice, I’ve gotten really good at it—can even analyze books while I’m listening. My mind wanders every now and then, but audiobooks are also a great practice in focus.
4. Read while waiting in line…anywhere.
I find all kinds of little moments to read, because something I’ve learned is that I don’t need a whole lot of time to read a page or two. So when I’m waiting in line at the boys’ school to pick them up after the bell has rung, I have a book (usually poetry, because you can read in short snippets). When I’m sitting in the car waiting for my husband to get back out of the grocery store, where he went for that one item we needed and we didn’t have the energy to unpack all the boys for a “family outing,” I read. When I’m walking to check the mail, you guessed it, I read. I always have a book at the ready in my purse.
Now. This takes practice. You have to know your streets, because it’s easy to miss a step when you’re reading while walking. I know. I’ve tripped before, and it’s not pretty.
The point is, I read every moment I get. There’s always time to read, if we don’t have expectations for what it should look like.
5. Institute a Silent Reading time in your house.
Our family, in addition to its read-aloud times, has a Silent Reading time every afternoon following lunch (one hour) and every night before bed (15 minutes). All of us sit together in our library and read silently. This is a great way to flex kids’ reading muscles and help them prepare for reading their own books. We’ve had three early readers and are now working on our 4-year-old twins. They all pull out their books and read during these designated times. Our twins take a bit of redirection, because fifteen minutes is a long time for a 4-year-old to sit silently, but with practice, it’s become something we all really look forward to at the end of a busy day.
And (bonus!) it helps everybody go to bed much easier, because no one gets riled up during Silent Reading time.
6. Look for other places to read.
Sometimes we can cut out our social media time, because we know we spend entirely too much time playing on it. Sometimes we can cut out the amount of time we watch movies instead of opening a good book. Sometimes we can read with our kids at other points in the day.
I’m not saying that we should use every possible moment to read. It’s good for us to watch movies together (we’re still learning story!) and play around on social media, because it’s good to have community. But there is always time we can find in our schedule that we could spend with a good book.
Books and stories have a magical effect on us. We’ll certainly be glad we traded a bit of unfocused time for time spent within the pages of a story.
Week’s Prompt
Write as much as you can about the following word:
