Teaching the Classics, Reading Roadmap, Ready Readers?

[pocjets]

Can someone please explain to me how these work? Also, if you've used them, what do you think is necessary? 

Is it worth purchasing?

[Coco_Clark]

All I can say is that I purchased the Roadmaps book Nd it's fairly nonsensical without something else. I'm assuming Teaching the Classics? I was pretty disappointed.

[cintinative]

I own all three.

 

The core material is Teaching the Classics with the DVDs. This teaches you how to do (and teach) literary analysis.

 

Reading Roadmaps is essentially a series of schedules for discussing books. You can choose weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. and for each grade level it will give you a list of books to use and some basic info on the books (such as literary devices used, theme, etc.). It does have a list of learning objectives for each grade. I see this book as a tool to help implement Teaching the Classics, but not necessary to implement it.

 

Ready Readers take it a step further.  There are three levels. In each book there will be maybe eight books discussed.   For each, they go through many of the socratic dialogue questions in Teaching the Classics and also provide a completed story diagram.  This is "handholding" for those who need a little practice and help implementing the methods.  You would still need Teaching the Classics to use these, but you do not need Reading Roadmaps.  

[pocjets]

This is great. Thank you. Do you like the method/program and use it regularly?

[cintinative]

Like Coco Clark I haven't found Reading Roadmaps that helpful. We had already read some of the books and I just can't get myself organized to do a "schedule" for the discussion.  Maybe if we did a book club?  Otherwise, it's a glorified book list for me at present.  

 

Generally I just either pick a book from the Ready Readers or a book from our list that I read aloud and we discuss that. I have two kids on different reading levels so doing a discussion of a single book doesn't work that well unless I read it aloud.  Otherwise I have to wait for them both to read it and by that time the first may have forgotten something.  =) I am horribly inconsistent about doing this--I had hoped to do it once a week but I think maybe we have done it  12 times this school year. So, a little more than one book a month. I am counting it as a success.  =)
 

I did like the Ready Readers (we did the first book) because I felt like it gave me more confidence. Plus they picked some books without a clear conflict, etc. which helped me to see how they would handle those.

 

As far as the program as a whole, I like it.  I have little to no background in this and I really really needed help. 

 

ETA: Sometimes the "books" we discussed were chapters from a book.  Episodic type books like Pippi Longstocking, The Moffats, The Saturdays, etc. are good for that type of thing. 

Edited April 29, 2016 by cintinative

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I agree with the other posters.  

 

The DVD and workbook are the core and can stand alone.

 

Ready Readers will hold your hand through a group of books, but would not be enough for the entire age span they cover.  (That is, if you cover 1 book a month for the school year, you'd need to have approx 27 books for the time span the Ready Readers cover, and they only have 8-10 books in each level.)

 

I would probably not have purchased Reading Roadmaps if I'd known more about it.  I think it is an attempt to turn the method into a curriculum- it gives schedules and book lists for each grade, based on how often you'd like to discuss books.  There is nothing mind-blowing in the book lists, no hidden gems that I was unaware of, and many "gems" that I would have wanted to see on the lists were not there.  The book titles are arranged in a spreadsheet per year, with exactly one row of information about the book- title, author, theme, conflict, alternative title... maybe a couple of other tidbits, but certainly no analysis.  Honestly, I think the whole book should have been an appendix to the DVD workshop book.