How many pages should a highschooler read weekly?

[Miss Marple]

I know this is a broad question, but I'm looking for some basic guidelines. Here's the deal: I teach in a co-op and this year we are doing Sonlight 300 World History (only the history portion, readers optional), Great Books/World Views (I'm putting that together), and chemistry. These kids should be doing a math program at home and many will be adding in a foreign language.

 

Some moms feel that the reading load for the 3 co-op classes is far too great for their kids. I think it is less than many college prep schools require.

 

A typical co-op week will be: 4 Books/chapters in the Iliad, several short chapters in another book (Sophie's World, Bible, or others), about 10 pages of chemistry, and about 20 pages in history.

 

So, about how many pages of reading will your highschooler do per week?

[Jenny in Florida]

I don't have a high schooler currently. However, I went back and looked at my records and found that the last year she was here, her reading assignments for history and literature came to a total of about 5500 pages for the year. That's roughly 150 pages per week and doesn't count science, philosophy/religion or science.

 

And, just in case it's helpful to know, I went and looked at the reading I have assigned for my 10 year old this coming year. A typical week looks like this:

 

18 pages of supplemental math reading ("living books" read alongside a traditional math curriculum)

 

34 pages of history

 

158 pages of history-related fiction

 

29 pages of science

 

Total = 239 pages of reading for the week

 

Edited to Add:

Okay, I found some more records from my daughter's last year of high school. Here are her totals from a representative week:

 

25 pages of history

 

136 pages of history-related literature

 

4 pages of art history

 

57 pages of philosophy

 

She did science online that year, so I can't help with that. However, as you can see, her total assigned reading for that week in history, literature, art history and philosophy was 222 pages.

[readwithem]

I count history and lit together and my rising 11th grader reads at least 2 hours every day for those. That would include her history book, whatever great book she is reading (currently Faerie Queene) and any writing she does for those classes.

 

I would count the chemistry as a separate class. Last year my dd did chem and spent about an hour each day reading that.

[Tokyomarie]

I give an increasing amount of work for my high school students depending on grade level. I see 9th grade as something of a transition year. Strong readers & writers should be doing nearly as much in 9th grade as most college bound students would be by 11th grade. Not so strong students should have another year or two to mature, with a gradually increasing reading/writing load.

 

The subjects your co-op is offering are typical for strong 10th grade to average 11th grade students. I'm talking in terms of the real averages, not what is "average" for a classical homeschooler. Any student, whether younger than 10th grade or not, should be able to handle the reading load you've listed for those classes if they want to be in the class. If the student is a more average kind of student and is in 9th grade, the parent should be encouraged to consider waiting a year before tackling those subjects in a class setting.

 

Likewise, a student who needs longer than the co-op year to complete the subjects should not enroll. My own second dd tried chemistry at our co-op but we squish all 16 modules of Apologia chemistry into 24 co-op weeks plus a couple of extra sessions. She was able to handle chemistry but was not a strong enough student that year to do it in 26 weeks AND handle a full load of other courses.

 

Bottom line: the assigned reading is reasonable for the typical grade level of student who would take the class.

[Cedarmom]

We do Omnibus. It is usually about 40-50 pages a day. History is about 20 pages a week. Sometimes I assign other reading to do with science or writing. So, the amount of reading you assigned seems right. They are going to do a lot of reading in college, and need to prepare for that.

[SusanAR]

I randomly chose a week form my 10th grade ds's schedule:

 

 

15 pages in government

24 pages in SWB Ancient World and/or Speilvogel

5 chapters in Odyssey

12 pages in advanced biology

 

not including Latin, Foerster's Alg II/trig, rhetoric

 

Susan

[FloridaLisa]

Based on the readings you referenced that would break down per day to:

 

1 chapter of Iliad

2-3 pages of chemistry

5 pages of history

1 (or less) chapters in separate reading (Sophie's World, Bible)

 

This is based on a 4-day work week, leaving 1 day for co-op and doesn't include any weekend time. No, that's not too much at all. Goodness gracious, many, many kids are working well into the evening and on weekends to finish coursework.

 

I'm not sure off the top of my head how many pages per day my ds did, but I would not call this too much. Especially if these kids are prepping for college work in a couple of years.

 

HTH,

Lisa

[HollyinNNV]

I know this is a broad question, but I'm looking for some basic guidelines. Here's the deal: I teach in a co-op and this year we are doing Sonlight 300 World History (only the history portion, readers optional), Great Books/World Views (I'm putting that together), and chemistry. These kids should be doing a math program at home and many will be adding in a foreign language.

 

Some moms feel that the reading load for the 3 co-op classes is far too great for their kids. I think it is less than many college prep schools require.

 

A typical co-op week will be: 4 Books/chapters in the Iliad, several short chapters in another book (Sophie's World, Bible, or others), about 10 pages of chemistry, and about 20 pages in history.

 

So, about how many pages of reading will your highschooler do per week?

 

Dear Cynthia,

Here is a link to the literature co-op page for my class. Scroll down to see the entire lit list.

 

http://web.mac.com/hollyk3799/Site_2/Welcome.html

 

We are reading the Aeneid so you could click on those weeks to see how fast we are going.

 

As far as whether you are assigning too much, it depends upon a lot of things. How hard is the chemistry and history book? The secondary lit books difficulty will also play into this. Also, how much work is assigned in addition to the reading? My literature class includes many works, but I am going to tone down the other assignments to allow for a heavier reading load.

 

Can you tier the assignments? I will sometimes allow my younger students to do a little less. For example, I might require an 8 paragraph essay from the 11th graders, 7 from the 10th graders and 6 from the 9th graders.

 

Holly

[Miss Marple]

Thank you all. You've echoed my own thoughts. Now I have some ammunition :-) when I'm approached about being "too hard".