and it came to pass

This year E has become a reader. It's been so exciting to see him decode words and learn how to put them together. Every night okay, Most nights we gather in the living room and read the scriptures out loud as a family. We have tried many, many methods of doing this. Some successful, some sadly not. Right now we are doing two verses each and going around the room with everyone reading. We have to help Lu, but not E much anymore. He has gone from shouting out "it came to pass" every time it was his turn regardless of how the verse actually started :) to now reading most words fluently. We still help him but I am surprised with the ease that he reads things like commandments, repentance, diligence and other big words that many 5 year olds probably stumble on. Even with these few verses a night we still manage to have some meaningful conversation and in depth doctrine taught, which is wonderful. A side benefit is I know it has made both E and H better readers as they are routinely exposed to language that is beautiful and complex, and which teaches truth. Lastly it has given DH and I a real window into which we can peek and observe his fluency grow.

One of the joys of mothering is reading with your children. Fortunately (for me) even when my kids have become independent readers they still like to read with me. J even still likes me to read out loud to her :) Right now E and I are reading "How to Train Your Dragon" which is a delightfully fun book staring a very unlikely hero and is full of funny stories, rich language, a bit of peril and of course dragons. We are enjoying it a lot.

I am reading The Child That Books Built by Francis Spufford. It's about the importance of reading in children's lives. The New York Times says it's "a brilliant book, beautifully written, it's insights hard-earned" and I agree. I think the study of language is very interesting and this looks at that a lot. He also quotes and analyses some of my favorite children's books. It's great fun.
Here's a fun insight about the great bond that is built between mother and child while reading aloud. The voice and the hearer if you will.
"But at four I was only a hearer of stories. It isn't until we're reading stories privately, on our own account, that story's full seducing power can be felt. For the voice that tells us a story aloud is always more than a carrier wave bringing us the meaning; it's a companion through the events of the story, ensuring that the feelings it stirs in us are held within the circle of attachment connecting the adult reading and the child listening. To hear a story is a social act. Social rules, social promises, social bonds sustain us during it. Which is a kind of defense, when defense has been needed in reading. Yeshiva students turning the dangerous pages of the kabala would do so in groups, around their rabbi, so that the authority of the rabbi entered into the reading, and each was protected from the intensity of a solitary encounter with wild knowledge.
It is when, instead, we read it stumblingly for ourselves, when there's no other voice to link us into the web of relationship, that we feel the full force of the story's challenge: You are alone, in the dark wood. Now cope."

I loved this, this idea of attachment, of always being a part of the magic of childhood by being the voice that brings stories to life in my children's ears and hearts. Also I love the image of reading together around the rabbi (which we don't have of course) but we can gather our families and read together and learn together and share together the knowledge and the experience. Wow.

I'm looking forward to seeing what else he has to say as I finish the book :)