Talk to me about Lit guides...

[persephone43]

What is the main purpose of using these?

It seems like it might possibly take the fun out of reading or does it really enhance understanding? We have never used them...my son doesn't really like reading fiction as it is, but his reading comprehension is below average. Would this help him or make his intersted level drop even further? Any good recommendations? We will be doing SOTW Ancients next year for a 5th grader and will be trying to cover some of the clasics - mostly read-alouds if that helps. Thanks!

[Harriet Vane]

For fifth grade, I'd still play it light and easy. The comprehension questions are to train the mind to notice details, and to understand the underlying meaning behind the details. For the elementary school years, there should be comprehension questions for the work, as well as a few "deeper" questions to ask about lessons learned or messages the story seems to convey. An alternate way to do this is by just writing a number of book reports that summarize what the story is about, who the main characters are, and lessons learned.

 

It's different for high school. Older kids should, by that time, be good at noticing the details of the story, so the focus is much more on explaining the underlying meaning of those details and identifying literature elements.

[persephone43]

That makes sense. It seems like some here are doing them in 5-6th so I thought I would ask. So maybe for the time being I'll stick with oral questions and discussion and short book report and then move onto lit guides later. Thanks!

[Lori D.]

Personally, we did not use any lit. guides until late middle school/high school, and only for classic works of literature to help give us discussion (not comprehension) questions and ideas for helping us move into analyzing the work and more formal study/discussion of the Literature, ala WTM recommendations. We DID find the Lightning Lit 7 and 8 to be very helpful Literature programs in grades 7 and 8 to help make that transition.

 

In contrast, the elementary-aged, and many middle-school-aged lit. guides tend to be comprehension (not discussion/analysis) questions and activity ideas.

 

I would suggest that to bring up your DS's reading comprehension, and as a more natural transition to eventually "doing" Literature in high school, that you might like to slowly incorporate SWB's Logic stage questions (just sometimes, for some works). It's esp. easy to do as you read aloud. Also, take a look at this article on "teaching reading comprehension" -- it's great for helping you understand the types of skills you want to help your DS develop in order to have reading comprehension. Based on this article alone, you could come up with questions to use throughout the day on whatever is happening to help increase general notice of details, remembering details, and working with details to come up with applications -- all skills used in reading comprehension.

 

What you want to be developing for reading comprehension over the next years of the Logic stage are things like:

- ability to remember and narrate the events

- ability to place plot events in sequence

- ability to describe (describe a character, a setting, a situation, etc.)

- identifying the problem(s) and solutions

- seeing and describing similarities/differences

- looking for cause and effect

- make connections with current events in the story with what has gone before

- predict/guess what WILL happen, based on what has already happened

 

These are the skills that the student will use for analyzing literature later on in high school in the Rhetoric stage.

 

 

Other ideas to address the reading comprehension specifically:

- Narration -- formally having DS recount key events from the History, Read Aloud, etc.

- Narration -- informally, each day when you pull out the read aloud, ask aloud, "Now, where were in the story?" Or, "I can't remember; what happened last chapter?" Or, "What was the hero about to do?" etc.

- Reading Detective and/or the Mini Mysteries from Critical Thinking Press (do one short reading and matching questions a day together)

 

And, if you aren't already using some logic and critical thinking puzzles and activities as part of your schooling, you may want to consider including them at this time to help increase overall thinking and noticing of details, which often translate into increased reading comprehension.

 

Some worthwhile Reading/Literature Guides for gr. 5-8 (these are not just comp. questions, but begin to have you move towards thinking about/discussing the Literature):

- Memoria Press Literature Guides (Trojan War -- Olivia Coolidge version)

- Garlic Press Publishers, Discovering Literature series

 

 

BEST of luck as you slowly begin to move into a new stage of Reading and Literature! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Harriet Vane]

Personally, we did not use any lit. guides until late middle school/high school, and only for classic works of literature to help give us discussion (not comprehension) questions and ideas for helping us move into analyzing the work and more formal study/discussion of the Literature, ala WTM recommendations. We DID find the Lightning Lit 7 and 8 to be very helpful Literature programs in grades 7 and 8 to help make that transition.

 

In contrast, the elementary-aged, and many middle-school-aged lit. guides tend to be comprehension (not discussion/analysis) questions and activity ideas.

 

I would suggest that to bring up your DS's reading comprehension, and as a more natural transition to eventually "doing" Literature in high school, that you might like to slowly incorporate SWB's Logic stage questions (just sometimes, for some works). It's esp. easy to do as you read aloud. Also, take a look at this article on "teaching reading comprehension" -- it's great for helping you understand the types of skills you want to help your DS develop in order to have reading comprehension. Based on this article alone, you could come up with questions to use throughout the day on whatever is happening to help increase general notice of details, remembering details, and working with details to come up with applications -- all skills used in reading comprehension.

 

What you want to be developing for reading comprehension over the next years of the Logic stage are things like:

- ability to remember and narrate the events

- ability to place plot events in sequence

- ability to describe (describe a character, a setting, a situation, etc.)

- identifying the problem(s) and solutions

- seeing and describing similarities/differences

- looking for cause and effect

- make connections with current events in the story with what has gone before

- predict/guess what WILL happen, based on what has already happened

 

These are the skills that the student will use for analyzing literature later on in high school in the Rhetoric stage.

 

 

Other ideas to address the reading comprehension specifically:

- Narration -- formally having DS recount key events from the History, Read Aloud, etc.

- Narration -- informally, each day when you pull out the read aloud, ask aloud, "Now, where were in the story?" Or, "I can't remember; what happened last chapter?" Or, "What was the hero about to do?" etc.

- Reading Detective and/or the Mini Mysteries from Critical Thinking Press (do one short reading and matching questions a day together)

 

And, if you aren't already using some logic and critical thinking puzzles and activities as part of your schooling, you may want to consider including them at this time to help increase overall thinking and noticing of details, which often translate into increased reading comprehension.

 

Some worthwhile Reading/Literature Guides for gr. 5-8 (these are not just comp. questions, but begin to have you move towards thinking about/discussing the Literature):

- Memoria Press Literature Guides (Trojan War -- Olivia Coolidge version)

- Garlic Press Publishers, Discovering Literature series

 

 

BEST of luck as you slowly begin to move into a new stage of Reading and Literature! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

Excellent post.

[Lilaclady]

Thanks Lori D. That is helpful

 

[Lori D.]

For fifth grade, I'd still play it light and easy. The comprehension questions are to train the mind to notice details, and to understand the underlying meaning behind the details. For the elementary school years, there should be comprehension questions for the work, as well as a few "deeper" questions to ask about lessons learned or messages the story seems to convey. An alternate way to do this is by just writing a number of book reports that summarize what the story is about, who the main characters are, and lessons learned.

 

It's different for high school. Older kids should, by that time, be good at noticing the details of the story, so the focus is much more on explaining the underlying meaning of those details and identifying literature elements.

 

:iagree:

 

 

 

 

LOL! And I just read YOUR post, Harriet Vane, and thought, "now why can't *I* be more concise and go straight to the heart of the matter like Harriet, here?!" :D