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Comment by twodave | Hacker News Reader

Last year, I finished reading The Lord of the Rings to my girls. Before that I read them The Hobbit. It took about three years to finish it all, but it was a great for them as an opportunity to learn about a variety of topics (language arts in general primarily, but especially vocabulary). The experience was also good to me because, while I'm typically prone to skim through less interesting passages, it forced me to read every word.

I adopted voices for the different characters to keep them interested, and to give them something to look forward to, I would not let them watch the movies until we finished reading the corresponding volume of the series. We had so much fun with this!

I'm extremely thankful for Christopher's work because the movies (which were released when I was a teenager) were my first introduction to his father's work.

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I also read The Hobbit to my 3 daughters when they were younger. Whenever I read to my daughters, regardless the book, I would make up different voices for each character. I will admit that making 13 different voices for the dwarves pushed my dad skills to the limit! When they later watched the films, they would respond, "That's not what they sound like." It did my heart good.

I'll second the overwhelming thankfulness to Christopher Tolkien for everything he did to keep Middle-Earth alive. May his journey into the West be swift for I have no doubt that he would be welcomed into Valinor with open arms.

I'm not a girl but my dad did this and I had the exact same feeling when I saw the movies!

It's great to see so many reading parents here. I read The Hobbit and LoTR to my daughter starting when she was around 9. It must've been almost a year per book because we finished last year when she was 13. I had to explain some of the subtler passages and backstories, but she got much of it. We watched the movies together this year and she picked up most of the differences (though even I didn't pick up on the deep changes in Eowyn's character, as linked in another comment here).

I had read the books as a teenager in the 80's, 20 years before the movies existed, the same paperback books from my father that we re-read together. I was happy to re-read them, because I had missed much of the poetry (as noted in other comments here) and forgotten some of the story. I had seen the movies in between, but I'm referring to the deeper stories and in-book legendaria that the movies didn't cover. Despite the changes and omissions (and Hollywood effects), I still think the movies did a good job, as good as could be expected.

BTW, we started reading Little House on the Prairie when my daughter was 4, and also read all of Narnia and a few others before Tolkein. Reading with your kids is a great way to re-discover the books of your childhood (or discover, because I'd never read LHotP).

I started reading "The Hobbit" to my oldest son when he was about 4. He loved it. What astounded me, though, was that his little brother, who was only two at the time sat and listened with great intent. I didn't do the voices, but in retrospect, I should have. I realized later how much fun it was.

Of course, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. When we bought my second son the hard-bound original stories of Thomas the Tank Engine, which was filled with wonderful art, he literally sat and paged through it for like 45 minutes straight. And he wasn't even 2 yet at the time.

I also read my kids "The Wizard of Oz", all the original "Winnie the Pooh" books, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and many others, including the usual short-form kids books like Dr. Seuss and P.D. Eastman when they were really little. I miss reading to my kids, but eventually we couldn't all fit in the bed together... (Plus, they're all adults now.)

What ages did you do? Were they able to keep up with the story OK at those ages?

My daughter is about to turn 6 and I think that the hobbit would be too much for her. I too would like to hear what age he started and if they had any resistance at first. My big problem now is the only Barbie book they had at the library was in Italian and google translate makes me seem like I’m having a stroke when I read it to her but she loves it anyway.

I started reading The Hobbit to my son (5 years old). We read half a chapter every night, or even less before he falls sleep. He loves it, and asks me to read to him when I almost forgot to do so. He asks A LOT of questions about new words and differences with the movies (he is a big fan of them). Our pace is quite slow, but it is a great time together.

I read the Hobbit to my daughter when she was 4 and to my son when he was 6, both closer to 5 and 7. I aimed for 10 pages a night of a pocket edition we have, which meant 25-30 nights or so.

My daughter got really scared with the giant spiders in the forest and wanted to quit, but I managed to convince her to go on. She was happy we did because everything turned out fine in the end. She was bored by the battle at the end of the book, but we got through it.

It's hard to know how much of the story my son understood. I usually reminded him what happened last time every time we started ("They were walking through the forest, remember?" or "Last time, they just reached the mountain!"). The individual parts are easy enough to understand, I think.

They both loved the riddle game with Gollum, and it sparked (or fed) an interest in riddles in both. It's an excellent book when you want to take the step up from children's books.

I probably wouldn’t have attempted it when the oldest was that young, but my girls were 7 and 5 when we started.

IMO, differences between individuals in verbal skills at developing ages are so different that any anecdotal evidence is unlikely to be helpful.

I've seen 4 year-olds completely rapt while listening to a story like that and 8 year-olds unable to follow it.

We have four special needs kids and, while we might have just gotten lucky, I firmly believe that our determination to read aloud to them from birth and expose them to classic literature from an early age has directly contributed to their ability to sit through the works and comprehend them at an early age. They’re definitely all developmentally different, and have begun speaking and reading at different times, but they’re all able to follow along well.

We have four kids, but only three are special needs. Most of them were able to follow "adult" works from a fairly young age, but one of them was not until age 8; he struggled following simpler works (e.g. Gannett's My Father's Dragon series) in the first grade. Once it "clicked" though, he was great.

When I looked into it, I found similar stories from educators of verbal skills not clicking until the 3rd or 4th grade, followed by a rapid catch-up and then zero lag. According to most special-ed folks I talked to, if there are more specific issues at a younger age (e.g. problems with reading comprehension, but not auditory, or vice-versa) it can be indicative of a learning disability.

You are 100% true about reading to them from a young age (and not worrying too much about "hard" words; kids don't know which words are supposed to be hard unless you tell them) makes a big difference. Seeing kindergarteners from homes without a single book in them vs ones read to from an early age is rather eye-opening.

My daughter didn't really speak until she was 5. Just a few words at age 4. Was diagnosed as autistic. Always loved books and being read to. Had intense reading comprehension issues until 5th grade or so. Couldn't remember the word or sentence she just read. Was home schooled for 5th thru 8th grade. Somewhere in there her comprehension issues fixed themselves. She reads everyday, and is a straight A student. She's 15 now, and wants to be a writer. The brain is a wonder. She started slow, but finished strong. Some learning issues can sort themselves out, so never lose hope.

There were definitely times I had to remind them of past events and help them understand the more mature passages, but we started when they were 7 and 5 and finished when they were 10 and 8.

I've been thinking that I'm due for a re-read of The Lord of the Rings for a while now. This seems like a good signal to start tonight.

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