One book at a time vs. One per day approach

[Medieval Mom]

For reading literature (for read alouds, bedtime, and/or assigned literature during the year) how many of you use the following methods? What do you recommend?

 

Method 1: Read one book at a time until it's finished.

 

Method 2: Pick one book for each day of the week. Read a chapter (or more) from this book every Monday (or whatever) for the length of the book. (This is similar to what I see at Ambleside Online.)

 

As I see it, Method 1 has the following advantages:

a) You'll *probably* read more books in a given period of time.

b) You don't have to wait a week to see what'll happen next.

c) You can borrow the book from the library.

 

Method 2:

a) You'll *probably* remember more of the book, since you'll have spent a longer time period reading any given book, really LIVING the book.

b) You can read a variety of literature/genres at once.

c) You can read books you (perhaps already) own.

 

I'm considering these two approaches for our plans next year in the areas of: 1) assigned literature for ds to read during the school year

2) bedtime read-alouds

3) my own reading

 

Any opinions and experiences are welcome! Thanks!:)

Edited October 14, 2008 by Medieval Mom

[Medieval Mom]

For clarification-- Of course I don't mean that these are the ONLY books you'd be reading in a given day! Egads! But IF you were to read The Complete Works of Shakespeare, for example, who among you would read the Complete Works from beginning to end, and who would choose to make Tuesday "Shakespeare Day" and read him on Tuesdays. (Similarily, in working through TWEM, you could theoretically assign Mondays to poetry, Tuesdays to history, etc., or just choose a genre and read all the way through the list....) See what I mean? Sorry if this is ambiguous....

 

Thanks again!

[Frontier Mom]

For clarification-- Of course I don't mean that these are the ONLY books you'd be reading in a given day! Egads! But IF you were to read The Complete Works of Shakespeare, for example, who among you would read the Complete Works from beginning to end, and who would choose to make Tuesday "Shakespeare Day" and read him on Tuesdays. (Similarily, in working through TWEM, you could theoretically assign Mondays to poetry, Tuesdays to history, etc., or just choose a genre and read all the way through the list....) See what I mean? Sorry if this is ambiguous....

 

Thanks again!

 

Well, I use TOG which assigns several parts of books each week. Sometimes you read the whole book of one book, parts of another, chapter of one, etc. I find that it fits the way we have read anyway. I find I usually have more than one book started at any given time and my dc's do the same.

 

I think you just have to make sure for things like read-alouds that the time between reading isn't too long or the story line is disrupted. We tend to do read-alouds at night and different ones during "school time." The ones at night are more topical so that if we miss a few days we don't have to start over.

 

I don't get many school books from the library anymore because I was forever forgetting to return them on time. That would play a major role in my decision.

 

Just an FYI, Ambleside Online is a great place to go to get reading portions of books by week.

[Anne]

I need to read most books straight through - not once a week! I could never keep the threads and ideas fresh in my mind. Fiction absolutely needs to be read straight through! I could never read *part* of a play (i.e., Shakespeare) on Monday and not finish it until the following Monday!

 

That said, I could read non-fiction books in chunks. For instance, read a chapter on the egyptians, with the chapter on the vikings the following week. So as long as they were more or less complete chunks, I could do that.

 

Interesting idea!

 

Anne

[Jean in Newcastle]

We kind of do both. For my dd's history read-alouds I read one book at a time until it is finished. I read it out loud during our breakfast and lunch. The kids don't mind me eating and reading at the same time.

 

Ds11 will read assignments from a book for history, a book for science and many many books for his own reading pleasure.

 

Dd6 reads 4 books with me at quiet time. Some are quick picture books that I will read to her in one sitting. Some are longer chapter books. I will read one chapter from each book she's chosen. And some are non-fiction science books - kind of Q & A type books. For those I'll read a two-page spread at a sitting.

[cathmom]

I would rather read different books at different times of the day than once a week. For example, history in the morning, Shakespeare at lunch, a poem before dinner, etc.

[Peela]

I didnt think the reading many books at once approach would work for us, but I tried it and it works very well, and we actually read more books this way. We wouldnt sit down and read a book for 2 hours (not a school-assigned book) but we can easily read from 4 different books over 2 hours in the day.

The kids free reading is not split up like this, but school books are split up over the term or longer, and there are often many books going at once. It works for us.

One benefit is that if the book isn't thrilling to the kids, it can still be endured. Another is that by waiting a week, that segment of the next week is really looked forward to if its a good book. I think it also trains the memory- we quickly revise what we read the previous week and to do that we need to dig into our memory and find some triggers till it all comes flooding back in.

[suzf242]

We do both, too. We are doing Ambleside Online Year 1 with my dd6. I do most of it as a read-aloud. (She loves it, constantly asking to do more.) Some books are a chapter a week, some are a chapter every couple of weeks, but she doesn't seem to have any problem remembering where we are.

 

She is a good reader and is also free to read whatever she wants for an hour or so a day. She is currently into Bobbsey Twin books and EB White books. If I give her the time, she will read at least a whole chapter book every day. She will often reread books several times.

 

Take care,

Suzanne

[Medieval Mom]

We do both, too. We are doing Ambleside Online Year 1 with my dd6. I do most of it as a read-aloud. (She loves it, constantly asking to do more.) Some books are a chapter a week, some are a chapter every couple of weeks, but she doesn't seem to have any problem remembering where we are.

 

She is a good reader and is also free to read whatever she wants for an hour or so a day. She is currently into Bobbsey Twin books and EB White books. If I give her the time, she will read at least a whole chapter book every day. She will often reread books several times.

 

Take care,

Suzanne

 

Thanks for your imput! This is very similar to the approach I'm considering next year. :001_smile:

[elegantlion]

duplicate post

[elegantlion]

This is what we do for school.

 

1. We do a read-aloud daily (same book until done)

2. DS has a separate book for quiet reading (same book until done)

3. We do a lit study once per week. Right now we are using Bulfinch's Mythology so the stories are short.

 

For personal use I have several books I am reading. I try to have one easy, fun read and one more in depth. Honestly, I'm in the middle of about 4 books right now and hoping to finish two by the end of the week.

[laylamcb]

We do both, too. We are doing Ambleside Online Year 1 with my dd6. I do most of it as a read-aloud. (She loves it, constantly asking to do more.) Some books are a chapter a week, some are a chapter every couple of weeks, but she doesn't seem to have any problem remembering where we are.

 

 

 

Ditto here. In addition, sometimes we read a book all at once that was supposed to be read slowly over a few weeks because we've gotten that book from the library (for example, the D'Aulaires' biographies in Year 1). Also, we do the AO supplemental reading each night before bed, and for that we only read one book at a time until finished. And finally, I found that my kids were really struggling with Paddle to the Sea being so stretched out across the entire year. So we switched that to our evening reading and finished the entire book in just a couple of weeks.

 

So in short, we do both. :001_smile:

[Crissy]

It completely depends on your children.

 

I wouldn't do well with a different book each day of the week, but my older son would thrive.

[Medieval Mom]

Ditto here. In addition, sometimes we read a book all at once that was supposed to be read slowly over a few weeks because we've gotten that book from the library (for example, the D'Aulaires' biographies in Year 1). Also, we do the AO supplemental reading each night before bed, and for that we only read one book at a time until finished. And finally, I found that my kids were really struggling with Paddle to the Sea being so stretched out across the entire year. So we switched that to our evening reading and finished the entire book in just a couple of weeks.

 

So in short, we do both.

 

Thanks for you imput! This sounds great!

 

As an unrelated aside, do you use Ambleside history selections only, or do you mix in SOTW? Just curious! I'm trying to decide between the four and six year cycle for ds next year. Both Ambleside and WTM's history cycles seem attractive!

[Medieval Mom]

3. We do a lit study once per week. Right now we are using Bulfinch's Mythology so the stories are short.

 

For your lit study, do you usually use just one book, once per week? That's a fun idea, too!

 

Thanks!