Then, I read this:
"We hear of 'three books a week' as a usual thing and rather a matter of pride. But this, again, comes of our tendency to depreciate knowledge, and to lose sight of its alimentary character. If we perceive that knowledge, like bread, is necessary food, we see also that it must be taken in set portions, fitly combined, duly served, and at due intervals, in order to induce the digestive processes without which, knowledge, like meat, gives us labour rather than strength." (vol. 5 of CM's educ. volumes)
Now, I probably would have never listened to such advice, but living in Turkey has its drawbacks. I had no library and no bookstore with books available in the English language. My children, out of necessity, were going to have to spread out their books. I could never keep the supply up with the demand. I decided to try this with their most important books, the books that I considered ' the cream of the crop', over a several week period. So, instead of reading a book or two a week and then going on to the next one, my children started several books at the same time but read them slowly over a 10 week period or longer.
I began to notice that my children were talking at the supper table about the characters and episodes in the books they were reading . They were acting out those stories with each other and including them in their playtimes. They even began to write their own stories, without my prompting, by copying the main idea and style of the book they were reading. Wow! My children were enjoying their books much more since they had time to ruminate and live with the characters and ideas expressed within the pages. Not only that, they remembered, and still remember years later, little details about those beloved stories. I realized that deep and lasting learning was taking place in a delightful, non-hurried manner.
If you are hesitant about trying this, maybe you could test it with just a few of your children's books this year and watch for interesting results.
