The Read-Aloud Revival Jumpstart Challenge

!Build a Reading Habit in

5 Minutes a Day !!

by Sarah Mackenzie !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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!!!

Text & images copyright © 2014 Sarah Mackenzie

All Rights Reserved

!Design by Pam Barnhill

!Get free access to all of the Read-Aloud

Revival Jumpstart Challenge materials at readaloudrevival.com

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“The greatest gift you can bestow upon your children is your time and undivided attention. As the years advance, you may

reflect upon your life and see that in some areas, you have regrets about what

you took to be a priority. No one will ever say, no matter how good a parent

he was, “I think I spent too much time with my children when they were young.”

!— Jim Brozina,

The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared !!

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Welcome to the Read-Aloud Revival Jumpstart Challenge !You know the importance of reading aloud. You believe in it. No one has

to convince you that reading to your children every day will strengthen

your relationship, form happy family memories, improve your child’s

ability to communicate, and make a lasting difference in his life.

!But just knowing doesn’t make the doing any easier.!!If you’re struggling to make reading aloud the priority that you know it is,

you are not alone.

!We are all so busy! There are a million other tasks crowding our days

and vying for our attention. Adding anything to our to-do list seems like

a recipe for disaster- surely it will just be another thing we “should” do,

but can’t manage to make time for. We worry that it will be another

source of guilt, and who needs that?

!What if I told you that five minutes of reading to your children each day would be enough to change their life (and yours)? What if I told

you that five minutes is all it takes to build a family culture that you will

lean on and love for years to come?

!

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!!Eliminate Decision!!“Once started, a reading streak can be a hard thing to stop.”

-Jim Brozina, The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared

!A habit is a regular practice that is hard to give up. When something is a

habit, we don’t have to decide to do it. Thank goodness, because

deciding takes a lot of energy, and if we have to decide to start each

day, we won’t have the time or energy to follow through, especially

when the kids are crabby, the house is a mess, and you have no idea

what to make for dinner.

!The first task in forming a read-aloud habit is taking decision out of the

process completely. Don’t spend your precious time and energy

deciding to read aloud. Have it already decided.

!When pumping on a swing, the first few pumps are the hardest. Once

you get going, you can expend less energy and use your momentum to

help you go even higher. The same goes for reading aloud.

!The first step to forming any habit is the heaviest. Regardless of whether

you are trying to exercise more, get up earlier in the morning, or read

aloud to your kids every day, getting started is the hardest.

!

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When we’re tired, weary, or just overspent, our willpower fades. Having

the decision made- that is, having a well-formed habit- fixes that. You

don’t stand there at night trying to decide if you really should brush your

teeth before you go to bed, do you? No, you just pick up your

toothbrush and do it. Every day.

!Five Minutes is All You Need !Stephen Guise teaches a simple and

incredibly effective way to make

powerful change in your life. In his

book Mini Habits: Smaller Habits,

Bigger Results. He claims that the key

to building successful habits in your

life is to break each goal down into

the teeniest chunks possible. Every

journey starts with a single step, so the key to forming a habit is breaking

your own goals down into those very small, very manageable steps.

!Making the steps “stupid small” is the key to Guise’s habit formation

plan. Guise himself wanted to get fit and work out on a regular basis. His

stupid small goal? A single push-up.

!A single-push up? It’s such a small goal, Guise didn’t have to play mind

games to convince himself to head to the gym or lace up his running

shoes and go for a 30 minute jog. In fact, his goal was so “stupid and

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small,” it would have taken more energy to talk himself out of doing the

push-up than it would have to just hit the floor and do it.

!The real kicker, of course, is that once the original resistance is broken

through, momentum kicks in. Since Guise was already down on the floor,

doing his one push-up, it didn’t seem all that hard to do a few more.

Remember- starting is the hardest part! Once he had done a single push-

up, he was able to continue with more push-ups without having to invest

much more will-power.

!Harness Momentum !The Read-Aloud Revival Jumpstart Challenge is simple: read aloud to

your kids for five minutes every day. That’s it. It doesn’t matter if you

go on to read for half an hour or if you slam the cover closed at five

minutes flat and then rush off to your other commitments. Five minutes

is all it takes.

!Guise says that for most people, breaking through the initial resistance

to start will be the toughest part. If you can minify your goal to the

smallest possible increment, you won’t have to work so hard to break

through that resistance. Then, momentum kicks in. Once you’ve cleared

the first five minutes, reading for another five doesn’t seem so hard- you

may even do so without realizing it. In addition, your children will likely

place natural pressure on you to read “just a little bit more, pleeeease!”

and there you have it- the chances that you’ll read more than five

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minutes a day by only

committing to five minutes a

day are pretty darn good.

!But it doesn’t matter if you go

beyond those five minutes or

not. Let me show you why.

!Reading aloud for just five

minutes a day (and not a

minute more!) would equal 30

hours of reading aloud over

the course of a year. That’s a

lot of reading aloud! In that

amount of time, you could

read the entire Chronicles of

Narnia, all of David

Copperfield, the whole

collection of Mrs. Piggle

Wiggle, or over a hundred

picture books.

!Five minutes a day every day, is enough to make a lasting difference in

your home. In fact, doing just a little bit every single day is far more

effective than an hour once per week.

!Why Less is More

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!Doing a little bit every day has a greater impact than doing a lot, more

infrequently. How much greater? Profoundly so, because doing a little

bit every day grows into a habit. Something you do every day, even for a

short period of time, begins to shape your rituals and regular

practices.Your day feels incomplete if you fail to brush your teeth, right?

Or how about brewing that morning cup of coffee- do you ever forget to

do that?

!The reason you don’t- the reason your day feels “off” if you don’t brush

your teeth- is because it’s a habit. It’s a regular practice that is hard to

break. Forming a read-aloud habit has the potential to make lasting

change in your life and the lives of your children.

!Reading a little every day is better than reading a lot once in a while for a few simple reasons: 1. Things we do every day shape our person. When we incorporate a

habit, it helps to form us and becomes an important part of our

identity.

2. It’s easier. We’re tired and busy mothers- we need easy!

3. It’s a built-in time and place for you to connect with your kids every

day. I don’t know about you, but I can go for days at a time without

making an opportunity to look into any one of my children’s eyes

and really make a lasting connection. Read-Aloud time allows this to

happen naturally. It’s like adding a little dot of superglue between

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two pieces of wood day after day

after day. Do that for years, and

the wood pieces are inseparable.

Permanent. We want reading to

become a permanent part of our

children’s lives, too.

4.It pulls us out of the struggles

in our own lives. Our daily

troubles can become so all-

consuming. When we read stories

of heroes, villains, martyrs, wars,

epic adventures, heartbreak and

triumph, we connect to ideas that are bigger than ourselves. We

gain understanding, compassion, and perspective on humanity, on

the world, and on our little place in it. It’s a healthy thing. It’s a

needful thing.

!In many ways, you don’t need to overturn your entire life to help your

children gain perspective, shed a bit of the entitlement culture, or gain a

heart of compassion for others. You can introduce your child to the

characters and story lines that have the power to transform hearts, and

you can do it in five minutes a day. When it’s such a small thing to do,

why not?

!Think about it: when you lay your head down tonight, will you wish you

had taken 300 seconds to do something that really matters? I think you

will. Now, let me help you get started.

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Quick Tips to help you make your own Five Minute Read Aloud Habit a reality: !

1. Keep it handy. I love to use baskets and other pretty organizers around my home, but

the problem with stashing our current read-aloud in a basket is that we

can’t see it. We do what’s right in front of our face. Good or bad- that’s

just the way human nature is. It’s why you’re more likely to turn on a TV if

it’s in your main living area, and why dieting books suggest keeping

fruits and vegetables cut up and ready to eat.

!Amateur photographers who are trying to improve their craft are

encouraged to keep their camera handy and visible. If the camera is

constantly returning to their line of vision as they go about the daily

hustle and bustle of life, they’re more likely to pick it up and snap a few

shots. The hurdle of Getting Out the Supplies has been removed, and

now they can focus on taking good photos.

! In the same way, if the book you are currently reading together is left

out in a high traffic and highly visible part of your home, you’re more

likely to grab it and get in your five minutes. After all, it’s just five minutes.!

!

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2. Do it early. It can be hard to read aloud earlier in the day when schedules are

crammed, but the earlier you get to it, the better. I love reading aloud to

my kids before bed, but sometimes fatigue or a crazy schedule makes

that difficult.

!Instead of relying on my 8:00 pm willpower (which is, admittedly, almost

non-existent), I try to read aloud as early in the day as possible. Many

times, I’m encouraged to have hit our five minute goal so early in the

day, and we’re encouraged to get in some bonus time! And often, we

leave our book at a cliffhanger and can’t wait to get back to it before

bed in the evening, anyway.

!3. Peg it daily Sticking to the same time every day can be a real challenge (and in fact,

an impossibility) for many families. Don’t let yourself get discouraged by

your struggle to read aloud at the same time every day. Reading at the

same time isn’t nearly as important as making sure that it actually

happens.

!Instead, peg your read-aloud time to something you’re doing every day

anyway. In episode 7 of the Read-Aloud Revival podcast, Melissa Wiley

talks about her family’s habit of reading poetry at breakfast.

!

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“I’ve always tried to pin read alouds to certain activities. I always used to

do breakfast and poetry, because breakfast happens every day, so poetry happened every day! That initiative can be the hard part for me, in deciding that now I’m going to do this thing, so if I’ve got it slotted into a certain time of day, and there’s a routine to it, that seems to work well for everybody.”

-Melissa Wiley

!In episode 10, Jamie Martin shares her family’s habit of reading aloud

during those final minutes before dinner, when life is crazy anyway and

everyone is around.

!“My husband, Steve, had the clever idea of using that five minute period

before dinner is on the table. You’re plating up or filling cups- it’s kind of a crazy time- so he suggested that he start reading then, and that gets everyone calmly to the table. We’ll start the chapter, which makes for a peaceful transition, then take a break while we eat, and then whoever finishes dinner first- him or I- will read some more when we’re done eating. It’s worked out really nicely.

-Jamie Martin

!Your family is unique, and what works for Melissa or Jamie might not

work for you. But something else will. What happens every day in your

home that you can use as a peg for read aloud time?

!

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4. Mark your progress It’s true- stress-relieving endorphins are released when we check items

off our to-do list. It’s a huge source of motivation to track progress. Use

the free printable 100-Day-Challenge tracker included with this e-guide,

if you’d like. Hang it in a place where you’ll see it regularly, like on the

fridge in the kitchen. Every day that you read aloud for at least five

minutes, color in a flag on the banner.

!If you’d rather keep track on your mobile device, the free app at Lift.do is

a good choice. A simple tap at the end of each day for meeting your

minimum 5 minute goal will start a string that you’ll be excited to

maintain.

!Search for the habit called: Read-Aloud Revival Jumpstart Challenge.

We can all encourage one another in our 5 minute read aloud habit!

!

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5. Read what you love When I am not enjoying a particular book, I have a hard time

maintaining enthusiasm to keep at it day in and day out. There have

been plenty of books others love that I have just not gotten excited

about. Instead of feeling insecure about why I don’t love to read The

Hobbit or Swallows and Amazons, I’ve learned that I need to focus on

reading books that I really enjoy.

!If you read what you love, your children will feed off that enthusiasm.

You’ll find a lot of momentum radiating from the fact that you are

enjoying yourself.

!Mindful mamas tend to put a lot of thought and care into what they read

to their kids. This is a good thing, but sometimes it’s important to just

read together- even if it’s not a tried-and-true classic. Relationships are

the most important part of this whole equation, after all. Don’t get

distracted by the task of finding the best booklists or choosing the just-

right title for your next read aloud.

!Can you remember a book you enjoyed as a child? Can you remember

one that was laugh out loud funny? Does the cover of a book at the

library jump out at you? Try it! Make this easy on yourself. We want

reading aloud to be a habit of joy. We aren’t swallowing cod liver oil or

eating our vegetables here. We’re simply training ourselves to get used

to sharing books with our children every day.

!

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You can do this. I know you can. !Five minutes is all it takes, and you have five minutes in your day

somewhere. Even if it means you don’t finish folding that pile of laundry,

the kitchen sink isn’t wiped down quite as well after dishes are done, or

your kids stay up five minutes later at bedtime— it’s worth it! This is a

habit you will not regret making a foundational part of your family life.

!You’re not alone. We’re all in this together. Let’s build our family

culture around books, five minutes at a time. I have no doubt we’ll be

happy we did.

!For support from others who are taking on the Read-Aloud Revival Jumpstart Challenge, join our private Facebook group by clicking here. This will be a place to toss around book ideas, share our successes, and troubleshoot challenges along the way. Let’s do this together!

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