Working ahead

[Haiku]

I have my first grader do two pages of ETC every day.

 

The other evening, when I was out, she did 18 pages on her own! Just for fun! When she showed it to me (beaming with pride, of course), she told me, "And now I won't have to do my phonics for the next nine days!"

 

Toward the end of the pages, I could tell that she had gotten tired and her work was pretty sloppy. The next day, we corrected some of the sloppy parts as that day's lesson. Today, she told me that she could skip phonics because she'd worked ahead. I gave her the choice of skipping a few days or continuing to work every day and getting into the next book faster. She chose the latter option.

 

I was just wondering what other people do when their kids work ahead. Do you let your child "skip" or do you keep them working? I don't want to kill her enthusiasm for working ahead but neither do I want her to take two weeks off phonics and work so far ahead that she gets sloppy.

 

Tara

[Kuovonne]

Well, I sometimes have to hide the reader from my DD. When we are done, she often wants to sneak a peak at the next bit, but I don't let her. That way she stays interested, she doesn't get burned out, and her brain has some time to absorb the info.

 

If she were to "work ahead" I wouldn't let her off the hook for the next scheduled lesson. We'd just move on to the next thing. How much we do is determined by what I think she can handle that day rather than a set number of pages.

[Pata]

I let my dd work ahead and then we finished all of HOP in a year:w00t:! I only let her work ahead in phonics/reading and math. I haven't had problems with her burning out but I am challenged to find enough to keep her interested. I do plan on starting to hide readers because they will begin to line up with our history lessons and she will just get to far ahead. We'll just fill in with books from the library. I figure she'll slow down when she wants to. Hope that helps!