Is Sonlight too much reading?

[michaeljenn]

I may be using Sonlight Core 100 for my 14yo daughter, who does not like to read much. I am wondering if it is just too much for her. I had my husband look at a sample days worth of reading, and even he said it was a ton of material. He was really shocked. The again, maybe we are just being too easy on her?? sigh.... I guess knowing that she is not really a "reader" I just hate to make her hate reading even more.

 

So, I thought about either ditching Core 100, or just weeding out some of the books.

 

advice:confused::confused:

[southcarolinamom]

Core 100 for a 14 year old should be fine - it is a lot of books, but they are at an easy, comfortable level of reading. She should be fine. We did Core 100 from 14 1/2 to 15 1/2 with my son and it was "just right."

 

We did drop the book Christy, however. Core 100 has a LOT of books where the main character is a female (which is totally fine!). My son was getting tired of reading about all the girls :001_smile:

[siloam]

I may be using Sonlight Core 100 for my 14yo daughter, who does not like to read much. I am wondering if it is just too much for her. I had my husband look at a sample days worth of reading, and even he said it was a ton of material. He was really shocked. The again, maybe we are just being too easy on her?? sigh.... I guess knowing that she is not really a "reader" I just hate to make her hate reading even more.

 

So, I thought about either ditching Core 100, or just weeding out some of the books.

 

advice:confused::confused:

 

It depends on the child. Here it was too much for my younger kids, too much of a focus on history and not enough stuff to do. My oldest did fine with the reading and loves history, so didn't mind spending a good chunk of the day on it at first. Once she figured out it was equally as fun to do projects and other stuff she lost interest. There is no way she could do SL now with her current schedule. Her time is focused elsewhere.

 

I don't think ditching it would be a problem, except if you want to continue to use the History of the US books I personally would want to still use the notes. I think they are lacking in depth for High School without them.

 

Heather

[mama27]

My 17 yo is a reader and LOVES SL books and wishes she had always read them and one all the SL cores. SL also helped my now 10 yo become a reader.

My 15 yo, on the other hand, HATES reading and HATES SL. Honestly, if a child hates reading I don't think SL will make them learn to love it, it will have the opposite effect.

[DarlaS]

I would plan to spread it out over two years. There is definitely enough material there for two high school credits even if you drop about half of the historical fiction.

[swimmermom3]

We used Core 100 for 8th grade. That particular child is a serious reader so he didn't find it to be too much reading;however, some of the selections are on the young side. I think for your child, it's not so much a question of quantity as it is quality. Pick the very best books that are engaging, well-written, classic and/or contribute to increasing your child's understanding and appreciation of the time period. If your student has not done SL 3 or 4, look at works like Johnny Tremain, or Carry On, Mr. Bowditch which are more sophisticated than some of the Core 100 choices. You are probably short on time with the other children you need to teach, but try to pick a handful of really stellar books for the two of you to read and discuss. Arthur Miller's The Crucible is one option. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is another one. Your choices will depend on your daughter's maturity level.

 

My youngest is a non reader but a heavy thinker and questioner so I do a lot of reading aloud of the best works. I have seen a marked improvement in his enthusiasm for our literary choices. Lit analysis is his favorite subject but he still won't read anything other than Calvin and Hobbes outside of school hours.

 

Best wishes for a great year!

[momee]

"There is definitely enough material there for two high school credits even if you drop about half of the historical fiction. "

 

 

Being casual here, but that is debate filled statement girlie :)

I found SL core 100 to be "easy" after our go with TOG. Mostly because most of the lit books were below grade level. That said, it would have been fine for one credit if I'd gone with it.

 

To the OP, I think if you cut some of the less interesting books out you'd still be left with a great program for a person who doesn't love reading. Even more of a reason to use SL. The books are high interest, high action alot of the time, and you could read many of them with her. OUT LOUD reading always pulls my guys in.

 

The books are interesting. My guy who lOVES reading was dying with an all classical great book curricula and is finding SL a breath of fresh air. He's even taken a few to bed, something he NEVER did with our other curricula. I don't think the workload is too much, she's entering high school so it's time to step up and SL really isn't so bad. Let her take two days to do one at first. Once she's interested, it'll go much easier.

Take it one book at a time if you have to. Work on her pace. She'll get it. They have hormones floating around too, their opinions change from one moment to the next, kwim? Are you doing just the history and lit or looking at the whole program, bible, current events, writing, etc?

The schedule may take some warming up to so start slow.

pm me if I can help at all, don't know if I can but to encourage you to try it

Edited August 16, 2010 by momee

[swimmermom3]

"There is definitely enough material there for two high school credits even if you drop about half of the historical fiction. "

 

 

Being casual here, but that is debate filled statement girlie :)

I found SL core 100 to be "easy" after our go with TOG. Mostly because most of the lit books were below grade level. That said, it would have been fine for one credit if I'd gone with it.

 

To the OP, I think if you cut some of the less interesting books out you'd still be left with a great program for a person who doesn't love reading. Even more of a reason to use SL. The books are high interest, high action alot of the time, and you could read many of them with her. OUT LOUD reading always pulls my guys in.

 

The books are interesting. My guy who lOVES reading was dying with an all classical great book curricula and is finding SL a breath of fresh air. He's even taken a few to bed, something he NEVER did with our other curricula. I don't think the workload is too much, she's entering high school so it's time to step up and SL really isn't so bad. Let her take two days to do one at first. Once she's interested, it'll go much easier.

Take it one book at a time if you have to. Work on her pace. She'll get it. They have hormones floating around too, their opinions change from one moment to the next, kwim? Are you doing just the history and lit or looking at the whole program, bible, current events, writing, etc?

The schedule may take some warming up to so start slow.

pm me if I can help at all, don't know if I can but to encourage you to try it

 

Excellent post! I'll leave my personal feelings out with regards to SL 100, but yes, it is definitely NOT 2 credits for high school.:D Momee, I'm not thinking that she pick only classic work. I certainly don't do that with Swimmer Dude, the 0h-so-reluctant reader. However, if I need to cover The Iliad, I'll pick the version that I think will appeal to him the most and not necessarily the most "correct" one. This year we are in the Middle Ages. Knight stories abound. No romantic, sweet stories here. He'll want to see feudalism in action, warts and all. I picked a book with separate tales of the individual Crusades. The irony is thick and he will love picking up on that. It was so easy to hand the older kids book lists and let it be. It just doesn't seem to work with a reluctant reader.

[DarlaS]

"There is definitely enough material there for two high school credits even if you drop about half of the historical fiction. "

 

 

Being casual here, but that is debate filled statement girlie :)

I found SL core 100 to be "easy" after our go with TOG. Mostly because most of the lit books were below grade level. That said, it would have been fine for one credit if I'd gone with it.

 

 

To me 1 credit = 150 hours of instruction. That's it.

 

If you did SL 100 as written it is way over that. Reading all the books + discussion and doing the writing assignments would take 2 hrs a day easy. If you're still not sure you've hit the number of hours you need, supplement with some videos from The Teaching Company, History Channel etc. Add even more discussion, research papers & a project or two of some kind.

 

Perhaps since history is not the focus of my home school, that colors my perspective. If the amount of time spent on history equals time spent on math it equals the same amount of credit (according to my state requirements).

 

I do agree many of the books are *silly* easy (I've given a bunch of them to my 10 yo to read). I won't be doing Core 100 with my rising high school student, but will be doing All American History with lots of supplementation to make it credit-worthy. I'm making notes of some of your suggestions, and much to my son's chagrin--adding to my library list :D. (He now wanders the library between the children's section and the YA section aimlessly... we've got to fix that. :tongue_smilie:)

[momee]

Thanks for you thoughts Darla. Have fun :)

[Mom22ns]

My ds did Core 100 last year in 7th grade. We read the Hakim books out loud (so my 5th grader could tag along) and the rest of the reading took him about 45 min/day. That is history and the lit part of LA. He is a fast reading, book loving guy though. I don't think it would be too much for a 9th grader and you can always drop the occasional fluff book if you want to.

 

We really enjoyed this core. The Hakim was great read together because we could discuss our opinions of the writers bias. The rest of the books in the core were generally light, with a few exceptions and ds enjoyed most of it. I think he had a great year with Core 100.