It was sometime around when Luke was 3-4 that we really started reading a lot. He had the attention span to sit through 5ish picture books at a time and we always had library books checked out as well as a fairly extensive home picture book library. That's when his reading really took off.
When Luke entered kindergarten last year we had read 1,167 different books together without it even seeming too difficult.
Then just 14 months later we hit 2,000 different books read.
Reading books together is a big part of our bonding time. And while looking at those number and thinking of all the out loud reading I have ahead of me for Sam, I still think, "How did we do that?". Because until about 6 weeks ago Sam was NOT interested in sitting still for even one board book that could be read in 60 seconds. Luckily, his attention span is increasing and now I read Curious George and the Bunny to him at least 5 times a day (another board book I now have memorized!).
Reading is hugely important to me and wanting to have a good reading culture in our home is also very important. I want my boys to be comfortable, eventually, reading to themselves and also able to occupy themselves with a good stack of books. And that starts with a whole lot of reading aloud. It certainly doesn't happen on it's own. Here's how we do it!
1) Always have GOOD books available
You can't read good picture books if you don't know which picture books are good. Janssen at Everyday Reading is my favorite resource for picture book lists and I will put on hold almost every single book she mentions. I've also made two {100} Picture Books to Read this Summer lists (2017 and 2019) that gives you 200 books to start with, as well as other picture book posts here. I have been posting a picture book recommendation on Instagram every Thursday for awhile now
Picture book authors are generally pretty prolific too so if you find a book you enjoy, chances are good the author has written some more. I get a monthly e-mail from Goodreads with new books coming out the following month of authors I've read. And since I've logged all the books I've read to my boys there, I get a whole lot of picture book recommendations there. My e-mail for October was over 50 books long and about 2/3 of them were picture books (and we will eventually probably read all those new picture books).
And, librarians are usually a pretty good resource. At least if you don't like a book you can always return it for free!
2) Have books in an easily accessible spot at home
All our library books as well as a decent amount of our picture books and all our board books are downstairs, in the room where we spend most of our waking, at home hours. Sam is VERY familiar with where his handful of favorites are (and thankfully has stayed away from the non-board books so far). All the library books are where we can easily grab them (and then keep all the "to be returned ones" together).
We also keep a lot of books in the boys' room, with book ledges we added across from Luke's bed to spotlight some recently favorites or seasonal picks. We don't read up there as much as we used to before Sam, since Sam is always in bed before Luke and nobody wants to wake the sleeping beast. But we do bring those downstairs to read too, just getting them before Sam is in bed!
I read either a stack of picture books or a couple chapters of our current chapter book to Luke after bath and prayer but before bedtime almost every night. It's just part of the routine - I am going to be reading him books. I do most of the picking out at the library but when we are picking which ones to read that night, usually he picks 2-3 and I pick 2-3. That way we both get to read what we are most excited about or what I know needs returned to the library soon.
I don't have to stress about getting reading time in in our already somewhat busy afternoon because I know, almost without fail, it will happen before bed.
Over the summer and over long school breaks (Christmas, spring) I will sit down and read with Luke as soon as Sam goes down for his nap as well as before bed. We got into this habit over the summer and it satisfied us both with some time together before I read to myself or worked on my computer.
4) Read books they are excited about too
I will read almost anything Luke picks out at the library (he's limited to 6, since he's 6, but doesn't always pick that many and sometimes just wants Spiderman graphic novels to look through but doesn't ask that I read them to him. Which is good because I find graphic novels very hard to read aloud). I don't let him check out things I find inappropriate or just don't like (Captain Underpants, SpongeBob, there are a few others). So some nights we read a lot of Marvel superhero or Lego City books, neither of which are my favorite but it lets him have some control over what we are reading together and if those are books that get him excited to read with me, then that's fine. (Although, most of the ones he requests over and over and over again are ones I've picked out or put on hold...)
5) Have the boys see me read
I read a lot. And the boys know I read a lot and like to read (not Sam as much). Luke mostly sees me read when he's home on breaks because I do most of my school year reading while he's at school or sleeping BUT on vacations, at the lake, and on those breaks, he sees me read, a lot. He knows that's what I want to do when Sam is napping and he might be playing video games with Dad. Or playing Legos or outside if we are home. He sees my books laying around and sees me checking them out at the library. He knows that books are a big part of my life. It is something I am very happy to model for him!
6) Track It
This doesn't help so much with a reading culture but does motivate me to keep going on reading to them! I record every book I read to the boys on Goodreads (Luke's shelf, Sam's shelf), largely by scanning them with the app on my phone. This is how I know I've read 2,000+ to Luke! Keeping track of them on Goodreads also helps populate that "new books by authors you've read" e-mail I get every month that I mentioned above.
But besides just tracking which books I've read to them, I also track the amount of time I spend reading to each of them. I've been using Toggl for over two years to track the time I spend on various activities (post here). That's how I know in the past 12 months I've spent 94 hours reading to Luke. I like seeing our time stack up through the week and I always want our total time spent reading to be more than I've spent on Instagram, which we usually hit.
I am very motivated to see both our book numbers increasing as well as the time we've read build up. And tracking both helps me keep track of what we read but also not feel like we are "wasting" reading time by reread books, which we should do more of considering how many books we own!
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Like many things, this comes down to consistent repetition. I have been reading aloud to Luke since he was less than a year old, gradually expanding it as his attention span has allowed. We read together, on average, 6 days a week (somehow it rarely seems to happen on Saturdays) and I really feel like our days are missing something if they don't have that read aloud time. Luke and I have spent countless hours on the couch together with a book and I have many fond memories of books shared together. I am doing my best to turn my boys into lifelong readers!
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