Saying No to Reading

My daughters are obsessed with reading. My 6yr can read quite well, often frustrating her 5yr sister by choosing a book rather than an interactive activity. Her poor sister, who is still in the process of learning how to read, is left alone to entertain herself. Yes, my kindergartner can read simple words, although it still requires a lot of effort for her, and my 1st grader reads at a 4th grade level. They see me read books to myself and hear me read aloud to them once or twice a day. Right now we're enjoying the Chronicles of Narnia together (the 6yr steals each book after I finish so she can reread it to herself) and have read numerous picture and chapter books since the oldest was old enough to sit (mostly) through a board book. Yet I have strict rules about reading and it's actually not our highest priority.
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1. No books before breakfast. First things need to come first. Getting dressed for the day, spending time together as a family (breakfast is our family meal), completing morning chores, prayers and Bible study, all take precedence over an enjoyable story. Our sometimes exception to this rule: when someone has woken up early and we don't want her waking her sister, we have sometimes allowed her to look at a picture Bible in another room until it's time to dress and start the day. Now that our older daughters are being homeschooled, on school days they also need to finish all their schoolwork before they can read whatever they want.
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2. No repeat picture books in any given day. I cannot read the same story over and over again, 20 times a day. I would hate it and try to distract the child toward some other activity, possibly quenching a budding love of reading. We have enough picture books that there's no reason for me to either. So early on when the same book was brought to me to read again, I simply told my daughter, "We already read that one today. Bring me a different book instead." No fuss, no dread, and I happily read that book again to her the next day.
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3. Limit story time. As the picture books got longer, because my daughters' interests expanded and attention span increased, and as I began to read chapter books to them, it became necessary to establish which books I would read at any given time and how much of them I would read aloud. One child gets to choose the book for story time each day (alternating by day), and if we have enough time I may read both a picture book and a portion of our current chapter book. I will not read other chapter books aloud and I will let her know when she brings a particularly long picture book to me if time will prevent me from reading the whole book. She then has the option of hearing just a few pages or of choosing a different (shorter) book.
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4. Say no to certain books. If I really don't like (personal taste) a book we own, it will quietly disappear. We own enough that my daughters don't usually notice. Certain genres of books I tell them to simply read on their own (brain candy fairy books, for example). I prefer higher quality reading material, or at least stories that aren't quite that cheesy. My daughter who is still learning to read will sometimes convince her older sister to read them aloud to her. That's fine as long as 1) I don't have to read it and 2) it's a matter of personal taste, not crossing our line of immorality in books.
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5. People take precedence. Christ didn't say the Greatest Commandment or the Second (or any) was to be a bookworm. God comes first, people come second, and books...are much further down the list of priorities. Books are good; reading is fun; but loving God and loving neighbor need to take priority.
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I sometimes hear from people that "as long as they're reading" as if the time they spend in a book (any book) is always time well spent. My husband grew up believing that if it was printed, it must be good to read. Both of us have discovered that is not always the case, and there are things printed and published which are just as horrible as anything on tv. I'm afraid I'm not as strict as Auntie Leila (just one of many areas of my life I need to work on more) but we do take away books that don't meet our criteria, we do limit when books are allowed to be read, and we do enforce the idea that certain other activities are more important than reading. These rules bring peace to our lives, help us in raising our children to become the godly women we want them to be, and increase the quality of the time we do spend reading.
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Linked with Works for Me Wednesday, Fellowship Friday, Modest Monday