Hello, Sarah Mackenzie here with another episode of The Read-A-Loud Revival podcast,

the show that helps your kids fall in love with books and helps

you fall in love with homeschooling.

There is something kind of tragic that happens when our kids become readers of their own right.

It doesn't always happen, of course, and there are ways to prevent it, but it's awfully common. That thing I'm talking about, when reading starts to feel like a slog, when your kids start to equate reading with schoolwork.

Now I think this happens to all of our kids at one point or another.

Reading sort of shifts in our kids' lives

from being principally about joy and delight into something that has to be done for school.

Compare, you know, a three or four year old who climbs into your lap and begs you to read one more story

with an older school child who now associates most of their reading to be done with school,

so they associate it with school work, it becomes kind of a slog, and a lot of parents notice

a significant drop in how much their kids are reading for pleasure, if they're reading for pleasure at all, once the school years well underway.

And I think this becomes more and more true the older our kids get.

Now that's a problem because we know that lifelong readers are people who love reading,

who enjoy reading, who enjoy reading.

And we honestly, we want to guard against this slip

into reading becoming associated with the slog of school work.

But it's actually simpler than you might think it is. It's not that hard or

complicated. We just have to be aware of what's happening and then make a few little minor shifts

to help reading regain its joy. So on today's podcast we're talking all about what to do

when reading becomes a slog. This podcast actually aired several years ago.

I'm re-erring it today because I think it's just that important

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