Reading...You gotta love it :)

I have written about reading before... but it is something very important to Paul and I. It is also something that we love to do and we try to share that love with our children. How...by reading ourselves and sharing about what we have read with them... by taking them to the library every week so they can pick out their own books,having magazines and newspapers for them to read ( a variety of reading materials), by making reading a priority in our school ( they read a minium of 1 hr a day), and by reading aloud to them books that we all enjoy. I have a collection of holiday books for each holiday that we bring out for those times. I buy at least one book that I read aloud during our Bible time in the evenings during the holidays- I am so looking forward to bringing out our Thanksgiving/Christmas collection... I love even children's books. I will often sit down with a pile of them beside me to read... we also do not watch much tv which encourages them to read other than the 1 hr time...some of our kids I have to "make" stop reading and do other activities :) Makes me smile to see them enjoy something that is so enriching and available to us for free... and we can dream, travel and learn so much from the books that we read.. not to mention the great vocabulary and ESL skills they learn thru reading... but most important is to love to read....developing that love for reading is something we value...each one of our children has their own Bible and they do their own private devotions in the am as part of their school... and they all read their Bible and journal...Reading words for yourself and letting the Holy Spirit into the words as you read your Bible are all part of growing as a Christian... actually reading the very words of God in the Bible is more than just seeing the words- They have a power to transform lives... and many of our children have already made that step of faith...praise God !