When I was 19 and my younger sister was 10, I moved back home for about 6 months. Although I had read the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy when I was about 14, I had only just read "The Hobbit". This grieved me a bit, as I knew how much I would have loved it when I was 10 or 11. So, I decided that it fit my image of myself at that time to read it out loud to my sister.
We didn't get to it every night, but about twice or three times a week, we would read a chapter. It was wonderful experience. She loved the book, I loved her reactions. It brought us closer in a way I had not expected - we had not been particularly close before, it's not an easy age gap. She is still one of my best friends, and it started that winter. It is one of the best memories of our lives, for both of us.
So,when we had our own children, we of course read to them, even when they were old enough to read to themselves. My son, in fact, got most of the books twice, as he got his own reading, and then would sit at the foot of the bed, or on the other end of the couch, for his sister's turn, a few years later.
I read books to them that I had particularly loved, but which were maybe a bit too old for their reading abilities, or which had confusing bits which we could talk about as we read. "The Hobbit", the "Narnia" books, "Five Children and It", "Charlotte's Web", "The Jungle Book" "Lassie-Come-Home"...... We kept it up, not on an every night basis, but as part of our lives, until the kids were about 10 or 11, and then it more or less just faded away, though my daughter (14) will still sometimes ask for a read, and we'll find a good short story (Saki is great for this).
Both my own kids, and my sister's stepson, plan on doing this with their own children - they are making their mental lists.

So - I know that all of you who have the opportunity read to little kids, but how many read to big kids, who are capable of reading the book on their own? Partly I'd like to hear your stories, but partly I'd like to encourage those of you who have a 9 year old at hand to give this a try - the rewards are enormous.

My kids and I read the first four Harry Potter books together, and they were older children at that point. I did most of the reading, but they would take turns every now and then.
We also read the Hobbit together that way, but beyond those, they didn't want to do it anymore.
I remember when my sister (6 years younger than me) had chicken pox, I started read Heidi to her. She loved it.

Actually, I wish my own 3 year old would sit still for that sort of thing. It's difficult enough to get her to go to bed, she won't stay IN bed if we're reading. Reading is an in-the-lap activity. And she simply does not have any interest right now of sitting in the lap to read a story with no pictures. (She likes pictures, because she likes to hear the story, then "read" it back to me, and she needs the pictures to remind her what's going on on what page.) When she was VERY young, I read Charlotte's Web and A Wrinkle in Time and other books like it. But these days it's her favorite picture books or not at all. (And sometimes she'd rather watch Jimmie Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan in concert instead.)

I always thought she'd be a reader like me and her father. I always envisioned myself reading to my daughter at bedtime like I was read to. (Tolkein and Lewis at that age.) But Kit is fascinated by music instead. She likes to read books, if they're short enough, but typically, she'd rather be listening to music. I really have tried reading The Hobbit, and a set of books my sis bought for her called the Spiderwick Chronicles, as well as others. But her favorite books seem to be The Spider and the Fly (the old poem illustrated beautifully in black and white tunr-of-the-century inspired art) and Stellaluna. I won't complain. At least she likes books.

But anyway... back to the question, I swear. I don't have many older kids to read to, but my husband's niece, who's been calling me Aunt Lothruin since she was 4, and that was LONG before Cory and I were married, is now almost too old to read to, as far as she's concerned, but she's come join Kit and I when I was reading to her. It's pretty special.

Well I've been told that I could read before I could talk! Dad and Mum always read to me, my best memories are listening to them reading my the Ladybird Rhyming books. Dad had a way of reading them! Of course when my nieces came along, the first thing I did, was to get the same rhyming series and read them to them.
I now have the pleasure of audio books, being read to me. Not quite the same thing but I don't think I'll ever grow tired of listening to audio tapes If your children ask for a story...read it to them!

Lothruin, I'd say that, at 3, your daughter is right on course.
Wait a few years for the "have to actually pay attention" books - it'll work out just the way you want it to, I bet.

By the time my son was about 12 or so, he also figured he was too old to be read to. However, while he was theoretically reading his own book in his own room, and I was reading aloud to my daughter in hers, there woudl be the occasional call of 'louder' or 'don't stop there!' coming from his room.

Skunkee - I had forgotten the "one chapter each" books - we read quite a few this way. In fact, during the first year or so my kids could read, we did this all the time, starting at alternating lines, then pages, and enventually chapters.

Sounds like a great way to read to kids! Wish I had some to read too!

Lothruin, I agree with agony. Your daughter sounds like she's right where she's supposed to be. Mine is 3 1/2 and at the same stage. She's just now starting to enjoy longer stories, ie those with more than a sentence or two on the page. We go to the library every few weeks and get her 8 or 10 books. She picks out a few, and I pick the rest. (My choices are frequently ones that I remember fondly from my childhood, or books about cleaning up and potty time )

One thing that we do to keep her attention longer is to tell a story rather than reading it, and let her make up parts of it, like the names of characters or colors of things, etc. We have our own versions of classics like The Three Little Pigs and also "originals" like the fish who likes to go out swimming every day and meets lots of fun friends. My daughter loves doing this, and she's learning the "long story" concept by continuing the stories where we left off the previous night.
Also, my husband, since he frequently forgets his reading glasses when he goes to read to her, uses the pictures in the book and makes up his own story to go with them. The results are rather...interesting. . But she loves it.

On the original topic, I never had anyone to read chapter books to, except myself. I always wanted to though. Although my husband and I sometimes do this with eachother. I'm looking forward to those days when I can do this with my girls and fervently hope that I can read the stories that I like and that they'll enjoy them too.

I've never read books to big kids, but for a while in middle school I read aloud to my mother. Sainted woman that she is, she spent a fair bit of time driving me about to and from various appointments, and there were some amusing books I wanted to share with her, so I read to her in the car. We both enjoyed it greatly and were closer for it.

I read a lot to my kids when they were little, and they are quite capable of reading in both their languages, French and English, however, they don't really love to read like I used to.

It galls their father that they don't read enough, but I'm sure if you asked his sibling, she'd say, 'he never read for pleasure' and you'd be right.

My parents read to each other out loud when they drive or listen to tapes of books.

Well, Lothruin perhaps your child is like mine, they both write a thousand times more than they read, poetry, stories messages etc.

I remember when my dad read to me and my older sister, one kid on each leg of his lap. I recall these large picture books of classic fairy tales such as Repunzel and the Pied Piper. They were quite large books, I would say at least two feet tall, so they were fun to me at the time. Heck, those books would probably be fun to me now. I remember being able to read at around age four, about the same time as my sister who was a year older than me.

My younger brother is dyslexic, so our family spent a lot of time reading to him to try to get him to be interested in books. He was never much of a reader, but he became interested in Harry Potter.

I read to my younger sister a lot, which she loved, and I helped her with her spelling words from school by playing various games with her. I still read to her (she's eight right now). It's odd thinking about it now, but I enjoyed helping my younger siblings learn to read.

My parents stopped reading to me and my brother around the time we started reading chapter books, though my mom and I tried to read the Hobbit in 4th grade. That somehow didn't work out (I don't think we ever got past the halfway point). My parents never were very good at reading out loud (everything got confusing and boring) though, at least not compared to my babysitter (who read to me everyday until I was 9. Ah well. I think most parents would rather not read aloud some of the more adult parts of the books I read, and everything would be really awkward.

I still unashamedly read to my 9 and 10 year olds, and they make no apologies for still enjoying listening in on my nightly readings to my almost-4-year old (Even though they've heard the books many times over in the past). I love to read, as does my husband, and nighttime stories are sometimes the only reading we can fit in to a packed day.

When we lived in Belgium we often spent a lot of our day in the car, and at that stage I played audio CDs on the car's system for them. We progressed rapidly from the 'turn the page at the beep' stories to complete books with chapters etc etc. The kids were hooked, and still listen avidly to audio books whenever we get a chance to play them.

Unfortunately, like Bruyere, I'm disappointed that my own kids have not yet discovered how enthralling it can be to enter into the world of the written word all by themselves. Whilst reading to them I can conjecture up an image of what the tale is telling, but they don't seem to have the vision or imagination to do so for themselves. I still hope that it will all fall into place one day.

I read to my daughter until she was about ten, at which point we began reading to each other. We still do so, and she is twenty. Of course, we can only read to each other when she is home from college. Plays are especially fun because we read at the same time, each taking some of the parts. Usually we time it so that my wife can listen to the books. When my 23 year old son is home, he listens in as well. A perfect time for us to start is when my wife begins making dinner. We halt for dinner but resume as I do the after dinner clean up and dish washing. Often we read for hours after the clean up is over, stopping only when too hoarse to keep reading. The last book we read, over spring break, was "The Annansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman. We also keep rereading our favorite "old" books such as Patricia C. Wrede's dragon books that Kristie first read to me when she was about ten.

You are, as I have long suspected, an amazing man UB. What a wonderful family you have!

That sounds wonderful, uglybird. I hope I could do that when I have children, one day ...

I love reading to people. My Aunt had her children late and I was ten years older than the eldest and fourteen years older than the youngest. I loved to read them story's and I read them quite a lot of Harry Potter. They are both teenagers now, one seventeen and other thirteen. The eldest, the boy, isn't really keen on me reading to him anymore but I know he listens in when I read to his sister.

I have also read to my Mom. I read her the whole Belgariad and most of the Mallorean and I started but never finished Belgarath the Sorcerer. I have also read her most of the Harry Potter Books. We are busy on OOTP now but since I have started working I haven't had much time to read to her. She loves reading historical novels and stuff about the British Royal Family and so on. One of her favourites is Cathrine by A. Seyton.