Read aloud?? Or, let them read it themselves.....

[Mommyfaithe]

Which do you do??

History?

Literature?

Science??

 

 

How do your kids learn best?

 

Poll is multi answer....because I always wanted to make one of those.....

 

Please share. For us we have always read Literature, history, bible, and science aloud. I am finding my kids are better focused if they read something themselves. They have become extremely adept at pretending to listen while playing, or daydreaming, rather than listening and learning. I am tempted to assign books, save my voice and sanity, and only reading aloud Bible.

 

Please share what you do.....

Edited April 11, 2012 by Mommyfaithe

[kiwi mum]

I started by reading everything aloud but DS knew himself better than I did at the time. He is a visual learner, so for non-fiction he retained more if he read it himself. He asked first to do science, then history himself and I realised that he was right. We still do one read aloud as we like the togetherness of it, but we choose (quality) fiction for that. Bible he does mostly on his own unless it is getting really heavy then we read it together.

[Another Lynn]

Great question. I feel like I'm at a similar crossroads. I've always read aloud Bible, at least some history, and a little bit of Lit. (and science when we do it) - mainly because there has always been at least one child who was (is) still learning to read, or not reading at a level of the books I want them exposed to in those subjects.... and if I'm reading aloud to one or two, why shouldn't they all join in? But now, (aside from my oldest who reads everything on his own now), I have one child who doesn't seem to care about read alouds (he likes some of the lit.), and one who would probably comprehend better if she read on her own, and another who would be glad to listen to SOTW on CD. So, as I think about next year - particularly history - I keep changing my plans back and forth. (On a side note, I'd love to add a little bit of reading aloud back in with my oldest, just to encourage better, more timely discussions).

[Farrar]

One of my ds learns better if I read aloud. The other if he reads it himself. But we do a mix. It's a transition time here. End of 2nd grade and they are getting to the point where they can read more for subjects independently. I see the amount continuing to go up, though I know we'll read aloud as well for many years to come.

[JudoMom]

We each read the Bible ourselves and discuss it during family Bible study in the morning.

 

I read history, literature, and science aloud to all the boys.

 

Ds9 & ds8 each have literature they read on their own that they tell me about when I remember to ask.

 

Next year will look different. I'll still be reading aloud, but there will be more that they read on their own, too.

[boscopup]

My oldest learns more by reading something himself, but I do still read aloud because learning from listening is a skill he'll need for college lectures and life in general (talking to people and learning from them in the work place).

 

We're doing SL now, and I read aloud the "read alouds" and most of the "history", though I did hand him Pedro's Journal to read himself when I was busy (I pre-read it and could discuss easily). Of course, then he LOST it, so now I have to get it from the library unless we find it this week. :tongue_smilie:

 

Anyway, we basically do a mix, and he'll often go back and re-read what I've read out loud for history and science.

[chepyl]

Right now, we do everything aloud. I read some and Ds reads some. As he gets older he will tale over most of his reading on his own. He will narrate or we will discuss and eventually, he will write narrations. Learning from what you read is an important skill. I think that by 5th or 6th grade he should be reading his core subjects to himself.

 

**I have SOTW on CD so I don't actually read that ;)

[Rosie]

I read to them and they read to themselves.

 

We do Sonlight, so I read Bible, History, Literature, Poetry, and some Science. But I also always get books out of the library about the history topics we are studying and they read those on their own, plus I assign time for them to read from our science books most days. And we have a library of over 1000 kids books so they read those whenever they want during the day and at night for an hour before bed.

 

So, yeah, we do both.

 

I do think it's important for us to read together and discuss vocabulary, character motivations and choices, etc. so I don't know if we'll ever fully give up reading together.

 

I've also found the SOTW audio CDS very useful as well as http://www.librivox.org. For the past several days I've been putting books from librivox onto CDS so they can listen to them while they play.

[Cynful]

I have one who definitely learns best with me reading everything aloud. Even simple directions. (Yes, he does have some issues but I think even without those, he'd be this way.)

 

My daughter though, she zones out when I read. She can handle a little bit (ie. 10-15 mins), but that's it. So she reads most to herself. I have no idea how she'll do in college in a lecture hall (hopefully that will come with time). She doesn't even like learning from tv or movies or computer.

 

I do make both of them still read aloud to me (for practice) and I make both of them listen to me read at least once daily (for practice).

[SilverMoon]

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Edited September 10, 2023 by SilverMoon

[edeemarie]

My ds8 and I take turns reading aloud for history and science. He seems to absorb the most info when he is reading aloud, but dd6 learns best when listening. So I read for a while and then hand the book to him for a while. I do read aloud fun books to them at night too and then they are all just listening. So I guess we do a combination - whatever works for that particular day:)

[Chrysalis Academy]

For literature, we have always have one read-aloud going, usually something that I think is a little beyond her in terms of vocab, or has themes that are heavy and/or I want to discuss, or I want to do specific literary lessons based on. Then, she has a book she reads on her own, often a historical novel loosely tied to whatever we are studying, but could just be a "good" modern novel. I.e., right now we are RA To Kill a Mockingbird, because our local theater company is putting on the play and I wanted to be sure we had read and discussed it before we go see it. But, it's heavy - not read-alone material at this age, IMO. She is reading a Rosemary Sutcliff novel, The Armorer's House, on her own.

 

For history, she mostly reads SOTW on her own and does a written summary. I'm leary of having her read it w/o having to do some kind of writing assignment, because I'm not sure she'd read it carefully. I read aloud from Zinn's Young People's History, because it raises issues I want to discuss. Supplemental history is about 50-50 RA/IR.

 

Science is mostly read aloud, because it's all about the discussion and checking for conceptual understanding.

 

ETA: oh, and we use MCT for LA, so that is a lot of read aloud/read together and discussion. we are a very talky school

Edited April 11, 2012 by rroberts707

[Aurelia]

Until just recently, I (or my mom, who handles some of the schoolwork because I work full time) read everything aloud. Since Ariel's reading has taken off, I've started to shift a little more over to her. She still listens to most of it, since there's no way she could handle reading most of the literature books we use, but now she reads her science and English texts, plus an additional history reader or two. We also just started getting into audiobooks, so she can listen to more literature than my voice is capable of handling.

[2_girls_mommy]

Which do you do??

History? aloud, but only because my 7 yr old is not capable of reading that level yet.

Literature? Both. DD9 reads quite a bit herself and gives narrations. DD7 is beginning to read some to herself. But mainly, because of dd7's age, I still read quite a bit aloud.

Science?? main lesson aloud to both again because of dd7. Then dd9 may read and write more on her own.

 

Bible: aloud together to discuss. Though dd9 has done some on her own from a children's Bible.

 

I hope to pair it down a little as the years go on. I do make dh read the bedtime stories when he can, as by then I am tired of reading :)

[Mommyfaithe]

Great question. I feel like I'm at a similar crossroads. I've always read aloud Bible, at least some history, and a little bit of Lit. (and science when we do it) - mainly because there has always been at least one child who was (is) still learning to read, or not reading at a level of the books I want them exposed to in those subjects.... and if I'm reading aloud to one or two, why shouldn't they all join in? But now, (aside from my oldest who reads everything on his own now), I have one child who doesn't seem to care about read alouds (he likes some of the lit.), and one who would probably comprehend better if she read on her own, and another who would be glad to listen to SOTW on CD. So, as I think about next year - particularly history - I keep changing my plans back and forth. (On a side note, I'd love to add a little bit of reading aloud back in with my oldest, just to encourage better, more timely discussions).

 

This is sort of where I am too. My kids seem to learn better visually.....I do too, but I have always done tons of reading aloud. I plan to still read aloud, but the more fun books...NOT the Usborne Encyclopedia.:D