Memoria Press Literature Question

[ByGrace3]

Do your children read these independently or do you read them as read alouds? I bought the 6th grade lit package to do with my 6th and 4th graders this year. Last year we read all of the Narnia books aloud and did a lit study. It was wonderful. This year we are doing Middle Ages for history, so I liked that the MP 6th grade lit went along with that. I have many of the Veritas Press lit books for the course as well and of would also like to add just good lit as well. 

 

I have never used the MP lit guides a or lit package and I am having a hard time figuring out the best way to use them. I bought the pdf download of the lesson plans, and I see how they stretch the 4 books across the entire year. I understand why they do that, but I cannot imagine doing that for ourselves. We enjoy having our read a loud as part of the morning basket time and do not want some weeks to only have a chapter or two. I don't think we will use the lit guides in their entirety-- that was never my plan anyway. I bought them more as a guide for discussion and enrichment.

 

I think of the books, I would like to read The Door in the Wall, Robinhood, and King Arthur aloud for sure. I am not familiar with Adam of the Road. Is that a good read aloud or better for an independent read? I do read alouds with all 3 of my kids, though they are certainly aimed at the older 2 and the younger one has her own set of read aloud lit this year.

 

Any of the VP MARR books that should definitely be read alouds and not read independently? 

[EmseB]

We do MP lit independently because we do full cores and MP schedules other books to read aloud. In the lesson plans for 3rd grade it still has the student reading the chapter aloud, but we found we just didn't have time and it wasn't really necessary. Then again, he reads independently, but the comprehension/discussion questions we do together in order to help my guy craft well-written answers and to point out any significant details or plot points they maybe didn't pick up on. It's also just a nice discussion time where every so often he will tie in his reading with something else in his life that he's learned or thinks of. It's not every day, but we've had some real gems come out of our lit studies.

[J&JMom]

I have used the MP guides for my oldest in 6th and 7th grades as well as 2 titles with my youngest in 5th grade.  We stretched out a book over an 8-9 week quarter by reading aloud (tag team) a chapter or two a session and answering the questions as we encountered them. He did the vocabulary on his own.  This took 2-20 minute sessions a week to accomplish.   I have another joint (both boys) read aloud I do daily, on Fridays a joint nonfiction read aloud, and both have daily individual literature classes with me from an anthology (Treasures or Holt Literature based on grade). Finally, they have an Accelerated Reader point goal per quarter of self-selected, independent, and untested reading which should equate to 30 minutes daily.  

Edited July 6, 2016 by J&JMom

[carriede]

We enjoy having our read a loud as part of the morning basket time and do not want some weeks to only have a chapter or two. I don't think we will use the lit guides in their entirety-- that was never my plan anyway. I bought them more as a guide for discussion and enrichment.

 

If you bought them to use as a supplement, then do that. It sounds like you have a good thing going. I'd say yes, a 6th grader using the lit guides would read the books himself. But don't let the curriculum force you to do something you weren't planning on/aren't excited about.

[Holly]

We are going to use MP lit guides as a family this year.  While they are intended to be used by their grade level, I think this will work well for us, at least for this next year.  I bought multiple copies of our first planned book (Farmer Boy) from Thrift Books, so they can take turns reading aloud and underline vocabulary words.  If this goes well, I'll buy multiple copies of the other books too.  My plan is to use the quizzes/tests from the teacher's guides, and maybe choose a few of the enrichment activities or questions to write out (and illustrate) in their notebooks.  We'll use the remaining questions as discussion topics.  I'm planning 4 chapters per week, with the 5th day as an enrichment/catch-up day.