Do you prefer lit guides or just reading? sm

[Allison TX]

If you use lit guides, what grade do you begin? Thanks!

 

Allison

[BeckyFL]

nt

[clementine]

I've used Lit. guides, but sometimes I think they take some of the 'fun' out of reading. With Progeny Press, I think there are almost too many questions/activities. My daughter would rather focus on the joy of reading & not the guide. A good balance of both would be ideal, I suppose.

[JaneGrey]

I'm opposed to lit guides. I can see using or two if you don't feel comfortable asking an older child questions about a work -- just to give you an idea of questions to ask. (Of course, you could get a glimpse of one and start sprinkling those questions on a younger child.) I can also imagine you might want one for a text you've wrestled with. However, at that point, it would probably be better to do some research at a library or look online. I'm actually quite surprised at the proliferation of lit guides for elementary level reading. Seems quite unnecessary.

 

What they need for college is the ability to analyze a given work, organize that analysis, and communicate those thoughts clearly. This doesn't need to be done with everything they read.

 

In another thread today, I posted links for free analyses of various works. You can use these to come up with your own questions for a critical analysis of any given work. Once you know what to look for, it should become easier to see those things.

[VaKim]

I tried a couple of them this past year with dd13, and frankly found them to be a waste of time. She could easily do all the activities and answer all the questions and didn't even really seem to have to think about them. The only thing we liked about them was the information on the authors. Most people seem to love them though, so maybe we are just weird. :tongue_smilie:

[PeterPan]

Well what grade are you teaching? The VP guides are comprehension, just straight comprehension. Like the others said, it's going to be an unnecessary exercise for some kids. I had my dd do some this past year just to have her writing answers in complete sentences (3rd grade). I think for the early years, there's some value to that basic, no-brainer writing, just to get their daily quantity of writing up. For this coming year I have the BJU5 Reading. I've dabbled in it a little bit with her so far and really like it. The discussion questions are excellent, getting her to read more carefully (always an important skill) and extrapolate, make inferences, etc. It's just good stuff, age-appropriate. The PP guides were tricky because if you got guides on book to fit her reading level, the thought process in the guides wasn't age-appropriate. At least that's how it was for us a couple years ago, when we tried. They were fine, just couldn't mesh the reading level and maturity. At some point you're putting so much clutter in the way they can't just enjoy the books, kwim?

 

The other thing I like about the BJU reading is the way it weaves in other skills (outlining, etc.). So I think there's room for a lot of different things. It doesn't make sense to me to say that narration replaces a good lit guide, because narration only shows what they took from the book, not what they DIDN'T. I'm continually impressed by the fine-tuning my dd has to take to her reading to answer the questions in the science and reading (both BJU) we're doing. Previously we had done some of the McCall-Crabbs comprehension exercises, and they're good too. I think that's really good for pushing careful reading when you have a serious list of accountability/discussion questions, something so nitpicky they realize they really DIDN'T read carefully but were in the habit of skimming, skipping things, etc. My dd has incredible comprehension according to a standardized test, but I still think this exercise is useful. You don't have to do it all the time, but I'd at least do it some. If the lit guide seems to have no value, it may not be challenging enough.

[Carol in Cal.]

But, I think that when a book is quite old and has symbolism that is now more obscure, a guide or at least an annotated edition is very helpful. But still, I prefer notes rather than artificial questions.

 

I like the Shakespeare editions that have the original on the left and a modern English 'translation' on the right, for instance.

 

And the annotated version of "Alice in Wonderland" was very illuminating.

[LisaNY]

I prefer just reading the book. I use the questions in WTM/WEM for our discussions, and sometimes we just discuss it on our own. :001_smile:

[Peela]

I much prefer "just reading" along with oral and written narrations. Oral narrations often jsut take the form of the cihld telling me excitedly what is gong on in their story, because I am showing interest.

 

I often wonder why people don't make more use of and discuss socratic dialogue as recommended in TWTM. Its so easy to do, to ask some relevent questions. By Logic stage I think its a good idea to be looking a little more deeply at at least one book at a time, but for us it still usually takes the form of oral narrations, ocasionally a written assignment, and some specific quesitons and guided discussion.

 

We did use Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings last year and it was good, and I don't regret it at all, however I find literary guides in general turn my kids off reading, wheras discussing with them engages them further. So sometimes I look online for some ideas of themes etc so that I can intelligently guide a discussion- we are about to read The Bronze Bow for literature and I have a list of questions to ask , to provoke conversation and deeper thinking, but it will still appear very informal to the kids, even though I have done research for it.