For those of you who don't use a reading curriculum...

[robsiew]

So, what does reading instruction look like at your house? Specifically, at grammar stage. Last year I used "Drawn Into the Heart of Reading" with Jayden (then 7/8 yrs.) This year, I'm not sure if I'm going to use that again.

 

Currently, I don't have a great plan of attack. The kids each read 20-30 min. on their own during school. They choose from books that have to do with our science theme or history.

 

Then, when I pull them over to work with me, the youngers, of course, are working on phonics... that I have figured out. I'm not sure what to do with the older two though... ages 7 and *almost* 9. They both are very strong readers. Kylie (7) needs a bit of help, but for the most part can decode well. Jayden (8) decodes very well (just reads too fast sometimes, which reading out loud to me is helping with because I can catch his mistakes). What is the next step?

 

Right now, when we work together, they read and I help to make sure they understand what they are reading. Is this enough? We do oral narration for reading most days with one day being written narration. (Kylie is still narrating orally and I write it for her.)

 

Thanks for any insight you may have!

[NavyWifeandMommy]

No reading program here. I keep thinking I should but we did Drawn Into the Heart of Reading and I liked the idea but too much Christian content. The same with Rod and Staff reading. I like our bible stories and living a Christian lifestyle but I personally dont like it all subjects. I liked the Pathway readers but I personally had a hard time with some of the answers in the workbooks and needed the TM.

My oldest is using Preparing Hearts For His Glory and there is quite a bit of reading there. She also loves to read so I talk to her about the books she reads. Everynow and then I print out from edhelper.com for a reading comp. story for her to do. I also have used Spectrum reading workbooks. SO a bit of variety here and her test scores have been 80% and above. We test yearly with the CAT.

[SkateLeft]

I don't use a reading curriculum past phonics. Once my kids are fluent readers, we read a lot of real literature and talk about it. We start with simple things like character, plot and setting and move on into theme, symbolism, irony, conflict, etc. When they get older, I have them start writing essays in response to literature.

 

I'm not a big fan of so-called "readers" and I don't think they're necessary, but I understand why some parents choose to use them. Teaching literature is one of my areas of strength, so this works for me. There are lots of great book lists out there to draw from, and if you're not confident in talking about literature with your kids, there are books that might be helpful, like "Deconstructing Penguins," by Lawrence Goldstone. If you Google "literary terms," there are also plenty of lists to provide a guideline for teaching literature without a curriculum.

 

It's worked beautifully for us! Some of the most satisfying educational moments in our house have involved our literary discussions. Last year, my oldest daughter used a college level literature course from the Teaching Company as part of her English program, and wrote responses to the essay topics in the course guide. She rolled into 10th grade honors English this year (as a 13yo 9th grader) and is thoroughly enjoying it. :)

[Emmy]

After phonics I transition them to reading alone and then "come tell mom about what you read". Right now I'm working with my oldest to write a few sentences about each chapter in his fiction book with an eye to being able to do a book report by year end.

 

My 9yo has 2 books going most of the time - one is history or science related and one is a "literature" choice. The literature choice comes from a selection of books I've picked for him to read - typically titles I've selected from the sonlight lists or here. He also has his own personal reading (what he reads on his own time or in bed at night). I do not direct these choices for the most part but don't allow inappropriate content.

 

My 7yo is earlier in the process. He is reading mid to late 2nd grade level but is just transitioning to chapter books and doesn't have the stamina to read long sections. But he's basically doing the same - minus the writing part.

[SilverMoon]

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Edited October 30, 2022 by SilverMoon

[hmschooling]

We don't use a reading program either, but we talk about what genre a book is in and use a narration cube that asks about setting, characters, problem/solution, etc.

 

I will, however, use Drawn Into The Heart of Reading as our literature curriculum starting in 5th or 6th when I want them to start digging even deeper and actually studying lit. It's an excellent program but I don't find we need a lit study in 2nd-4th, maybe 5th. It is a fun program though at that age-- we did a about a third of it in 2nd and dd really enjoyed it-- I just didn't see the need and didn't have time for it as an extra.

[joannqn]

I used Spectrum phonics up to 2nd grade. At that point, both of my older kids were reading very well (4th/5th grade level) so we stopped with the phonics instruction. I just help them with words they don't know as they find them and ask.

 

This year (my kids are in 5th and 3rd) we began using Teaching the Classics because I wanted to get into literary analysis more. I didn't feel like I knew the questions to ask and discuss well enough on my own. I'm really liking TTC.

[Love2Smile]

This year we are using Abeka's reading program and next year I wont use one. I am a new homeschooler and I just "thought" I had to have everything covered. I am learning so much from these boards that I don't have to follow a certain method or curriculum! It feels very freeing!

 

For those of you who don't or wont use a reading curriculum what are your plans for highschool. Do you plan on using a lit program? Do you think just reading great lit is enough without learning all the lit analysis terms etc...? I have read from other posters that some of these lit programs can "kill a kids love of reading" i'd like to know your thoughts!

[robsiew]

Wow, thanks everybody for your feedback! Very nice to see what everyone is doing. My gut feeling was to just encourage the reading right now and worry about "analysis" more in the logic stage. I may go back to Drawn Into the Heart then... right now I'm trying to introduce more weighty reading to Jayden my 9 year old as I think he's ready for the challenge. This we have to do together though, because he has a hard time comprehending what he's reading when he reads the tougher stuff. I'm finding the ancient works a bit challenging too! :-) Right now he's reading through some Roman myths that are proving challenging, but doable if I work through them with him. He can read it all, it's just comprehending it that he needs some help with.

 

I think I will go ahead and look up some literary terms to keep in mind as I guide him through the reading though. It would help me as I was never taught this way so I'm not overly familiar with lit stuff.

 

Thanks again everyone! This was very valuable to me (and hopefully others!)

[Annabel Lee]

Wow, I hadn't thought of adding a formal curriculum for reading! That's funny to me b/c I have every part of LA separated out w/ curricula for ea.; I'm trying to get away form that and find a more cohesive way of doing LA.

 

Right now, my 1st grader is doing the last half of OPG for phonics instruction 1x/day, reads begginner's books for practice in fluency out loud to me 1-2x/day, 1 section per week from a 1st grader reader, and reads on his own (probably skimming past words he can't decode yet) during his free time. My 3rd grader reads at-level books for history and science content (many Magic School Bus chapter books), 2 sections per week from a 3rd grade reader which he finds easy (this only takes about 10 min. per session), and is reading The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan out loud with me. I say "with me" because there are words he truly doesn't sound out correctly and some he can read but doesn't know what they mean. I'm using this to stretch his reading level. It's the first above-level chapter book he's really been interested in tackling. How I wish he'd tolerate this with a more classic novel. I feel that if I don't do this "stretching" with him, he'd stay at the same level indefinately. If it were up to him he'd read comics all day long, haha. Those may be read in his own, completely non-school time. Even "free time reading" for school cannot be used on comics.

[Aletheia Academy]

I don't think a full-time reading curriculum is necessary; however, I do think it is worthwhile, at some point, to teach children how to engage with different kinds of reading texts.

 

When/if you feel you are interested and able to take that on, you might consider something like the Elson Readers with accompanying Teacher Guides (very little teacher input required), or do a Total Language Plus unit, or (part of) a LLATL book, a Progeny Press Guide, ...something.

 

IMO, I agree that narration is the most important skill a child can develop in the elementary years, but eventually more explicit instruction in literary analysis is needed.

[Karen in CO]

 

For those of you who don't or wont use a reading curriculum what are your plans for highschool. Do you plan on using a lit program? Do you think just reading great lit is enough without learning all the lit analysis terms etc...? I have read from other posters that some of these lit programs can "kill a kids love of reading" i'd like to know your thoughts!

 

 

I tried to use lit. programs for high school, but I found that they weren't what I wanted. They didn't require enough reading for my ds; the topics weren't deep enough; and I am terrible at following directions. He made an admirable score on the SAT Lit. subject test, still loves reading, and did well in his college English lit. course. I'm happy that he survived to college with his loved of reading intact.

[gwendolyn]

You should check out the great books academy reading list. We are doing SSRW for phonics and instruction, but GB for our reading list. DS is only 5. i don't feel the need to over do reading with segments from good books in a reader. When I was a teacher, I hated readers. They took great works of literature down to such a skeletal level. I love reading the entire work with DS and DD (2).

[willowcreek]

NOthing formal here but:

For a little older kids--before going into a junior high type literature program (if you are headed that way), I think fifth graders can use Figuratively Speaking--it has 36 short units (one per week) that introduce metaphor, idiom, symbolism, etc. It uses blurbs from good lit as examples and then can be a springboard for asking your kids to identify elements in their reading.

 

We use a variety of things to elicit thinking about reading with my younger guys--

 

www.bookadventure.org comprhension quiz game is fun and covers lots of books.

 

I don't do anything formal but as a run-up to something like Teaching the Classics--

I intro plot, character, theme, conflict, setting and resolution and look for a way for them to respond to one of those in a book:

 

one paragraph about one of those

turn writing on setting to a travel brochure

 

For character:

have characters "write letters" to each other (student writes two letters, knocks out letter format and has to think about how that character would talk vis a vis the other)

 

Draw two large people forms on poster board and cut them out. The child colors one to look like him/herself and the other to look like a character. On back--list how they are alike and on the other, how they are different. (young kids can really get into this since it is listing--not so much writing and you can utilize a venn diagramm mini-session in the planning for writing)

 

Make a book jacket--do the picture. Use the inside flap to write a suspenseful hook--that gets them through half a plot or perhaps sets up a character sketch. Back--quotes from them that are "review like." Back flap author bio

 

Novel-ties/ Novel Units available from BMI Educational services are chock-ful (more than you need!) but they have them for MANY books of all levels, beginning with first and second graders.

[PeterPan]

You don't need a reading curriculum for those ages. I use one, but I modify it heavily. WTM/SWB cautions against spending lots of time reading educator-written stuff instead of reading actual quality literature, and I totally agree. It's easy for the reading curriculum to suck time that ought to go to READING. And 20 minutes a day is light for those ages. Do you have an afternoon quiet hour where they could read? My dd read for HOURS a day at that age, still does. Basically anywhere she can read, she does. And to get that you need lots of books, lots of good books, around the house, not a reading curriculum. Teach them to read, then get out of the way and let them read! If you want to do some basic comprehension guides (like the ones from VP), that would be fine. VP's reading lists are awesome btw. WTM has reading lists too. I would have them reading books for general reading (books they do narrations on), books to go with their history, books to go with their science, books for pleasure.

 

Audio books are another great way to build reading skills. The audio books build their vocabulary so they recognize the words when they go to read them.