SL Core 2, Could this be done more independently?

[rafiki]

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[siloam]

I have done polls over on the SL forums, and yes there are people who have their kids do all the cores independently, and generally they do so two cores below grade level, which is what Core 2 would be for a 4th grader.

 

I really don't know how it would work out practically through.

 

Heather

 

[Donna T.]

My fourth grader used Core 2 this year. He read alot of it to himself but I had to be careful not to overload him. He loves to read and is a strong reader. It was still alot. There were certain books that he wanted me to read to him and some that he was fine reading for himself. I read all of the Bible readings, he read about half of the history readings for himself, and about half of the read-aloud plus all of the readers. We didn't finish Window on the World. It's scheduled so frequently, I just got tired of it. That was one book that he wanted me to read to him and I needed to because there were issues that came up that we needed to discuss together. That's the thing with SL - even though the child may be a strong reader and perfectly capable of the reading, there's just some content that really needs to be filtered through a more mature reader.

 

I don't think it was too much for him since he wasn't doing all of the reading for himself. I was comfortable being flexibile about it... so one day he may have read much more than another day. We just took it one day at a time. We also added in Story of the World 2 and I did all of those readings. I really prefer to do the reading as SL intends but there were days when it just worked out better for him to work independently. I would not have done that with any Core higher than Core 2.

 

Anything that he read for himself had to be orally narrated to me the same day. We started out doing written narrations of some of the readings but we were not consistent. I did use the questions in the IG, but not everyday. Because we were not consistent with the written narrations, we are going to have to play catch up in the fall. Next year, he will be reading A Child's History of the World (the whole book, not split up like SL has it) for himself (I read most of that one, he read some for himself, but it was mostly a read aloud) and will be doing written narrations. He loves CHOW, so he does not mind reading it again. If we had had less material and been more consistent with the narrations, he would probably be better off but we did what worked most days and he enjoyed the core very much. It is alot of reading though.

Edited May 26, 2009 by Donna T.

[Mom0012]

My oldest would be going into 4th in the fall. He devours books and loves history. I've done Sonlight Core C and 1 with him and his younger brothers, who will be in 2nd and K. While SL is a very good fit for him, it's not for the rest of us. He would like to continue with SL. We finished Core 1 today - woo hoo and I have Core 2 already (minus non secular selections). My plans were to finish Core 2 with all of them, then let my oldest branch off and do another program with my younger two. However, looking at the selections, I think many of them he could read himself now (he's at a 5th/6th grade reading level) and be free to go at his pace (only complaint about SL from him is the one chapter limit scheduling). I think he would really enjoy history even more if let go with it. I did pick up some activity books and kits to go with SL Core 2.

 

He's also read all the SL readers, so I picked up fifteen 5th/6th grade titles to use in addition to the Core. They won't last the school year though.

 

If you were going to do this, how would you go about it?

 

Adding that I'm talking the history/read aloud portion of SL only.

 

I've never really thought about doing this myself, but I don't see why it couldn't be done. I think it takes an average of 15 minutes to read the history selections. Maybe you could read those to him, get audiobooks from the library for a bunch of the read-alouds (if you think it would be too much for him to read them all) and then let him read the rest on his own.

 

You could make 3 stacks of books -- history, read alouds and readers. Put them in in the order they are in on the SL schedule and let him take it from there.

 

Lisa