{"id":1146,"date":"2010-08-06T13:29:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T13:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-203-a-book-a-week\/"},"modified":"2015-03-12T02:37:59","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T02:37:59","slug":"day-203-a-book-a-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-203-a-book-a-week\/","title":{"rendered":"day 203: a book a week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><strong>&#8220;A good book should leave you slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.&#8221; ~William Styron<\/strong><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">Over a year ago, we established a good reading routine that I would like to share with other \u201cPositive Parents.\u201d My older kids read a lot; well, that is an understatement when describing my first two kids. Joshua and Kayla easily read two to three chapter books a week during middle school and continued that avid reading practice in high school with much more than just \u201cjunior fiction.\u201d (As adults, the two of them always have three to five books each going on\u2014audio books, fiction, non-fiction, research, etc.) While I was sometimes concerned that they read too much, I was pleasantly surprised when that \u201cjunior high reading habit\u201d grew into a more mature reading habit in which they read wide varieties of materials\u2014fiction, biographical, historical, devotional, and more.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">I found myself, however, with three \u201clittle boys\u201d who loved to listen to me read (practically anything)\u2014and who readily devoured their devotionals and sections of non-fiction books (like Usborne, Dorling Kindersley, Eyewitness, etc.), but did not enjoy sitting down and reading an entire book\u2014whether fiction or non-fiction. As a matter of fact, I could hardly get them to read fiction at all. Even though they loved devotional and non-fiction writing to a large extent, I knew that I would have to intervene to make true readers out of them\u2014to help them love all types of reading, see the value of varied reading, and enjoy the process.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">So well over a year ago now, I instituted the \u201cbook a week\u201d program in our home. Basically, this meant that each of them had to read a book every week at his level. To be sure that my goal of \u201cvaried reading\u201d was accomplished, I allowed them to choose one book, then the next week I would choose the book. If a book was especially lengthy for that boy\u2019s level, I would make it a two week book. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">At first, it was hard\u2014many a Fridays at 5:00, books were not read without good reasons. (Busy-ness in the family, a lot of work that week for TFT, or other logical excuses were always accepted as valid reasons for not getting a book read that week, of course.) I offered extensions at first\u2014until Sunday at bedtime but with the next week\u2019s book still due on Friday, regardless of when the next week\u2019s book was begun. (I like for them to start books on Friday as soon as the previous one is finished, taking it with them when we go away on weekends, reading in bed on Friday night or Saturday night when bedtimes are not so crucial.)<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">With our two oldest (of the youngest kids!), we fell into an awesome reading routine. They would stack books up to prepare for upcoming weeks, looking forward to the books that they would \u201cget\u201d to read. With the then-ten year old, a little more effort was needed, including loss of privileges many, many times when a book was not done, double book weeks when a book was left at a motel or Grandpa\u2019s, etc. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">This single practice of \u201ca book a week\u201d has been one of the best things we have done for our boys\u2019 reading development and love. They have been so challenged by biographies; changed by inspirational and devotional writings; moved by great literature; and entertained by fiction. Whether your child goes to school or does school at home, I highly recommend this practice. This summer I am trying to apply it to myself as well. And I, too, am enjoying my \u201cbook a week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;A good book should leave you slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.&#8221; ~William StyronOver a year ago, we established a good reading routine that I would like to share with other \u201cPositive Parents.\u201d My older kids read a lot; well, that is an understatement when describing my first two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[280,101,294,311],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.5.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>day 203: a book a week - Character Ink<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-203-a-book-a-week\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"day 203: a book a week - Character Ink\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;A good book should leave you slightly exhausted at the end. 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