SOTW for reluctant listeners?

[tdbates78]

I plan on starting SOTW volume 1 next school year. I purchased the components used at our local homeschool consignment shop and I'm excited. However, as I've mentioned in previous posts, my girls have never been great listeners during read-alouds. It's getting better, as I let them choose our read-aloud (currently reading Magic Tree House Mummies on Monday), but I am a bit concerned that they won't get as much out of SOTW if I can't get them to listen and pay attention. I bought History Pockets and a Professor Noggins ancient history game to go along with it, to hopefully keep the interest going. I really want this to work as I am excited about it myself.

 

Just curious how successful SOTW has been for others who may have been in a similar situation?

[marbel]

One of my kids is a reluctant listener.  (The other could listen to audiobooks or me reading aloud all day long.)  She would draw or color while I read aloud.  She didn't get as much out of it as her brother did, but she absorbed enough.  We would talk about the chapter after reading it.  She did enjoy History Pockets and other hands-on activities and that reinforced the half-listening.   But she was never very interested in history; nothing I did ever made her love it.   

[Guest]

I played the audiobook in the car.

 

For the general issue of listening, I'd do picture books for a while, not chapter books. Also, my "reluctant listener" is enthralled by read alouds that are way more complicated than I would have thought. IOW, he won't sit if I'm reading Magic Treehouse, but he will sit if I am reading A Children's Homer (though that's also excellent on audiobook) or Tanglewood Tales.

[SparklyUnicorn]

One of mine was like this.  It helped when I let him do the coloring page or fiddle with a small toy.  He listened better that way.

 

I did not worry at those ages that listening was 100% perfect for stuff like SOTW.  You will cover a lot of those concepts over and over.  They will forget a lot even if they are highly interested and listening very attentively. 

[73349]

If you're looking for something to occupy their hands while they listen, the Famous Figures cut-out and assembly might work, as would coloring blackline maps.

 

I've never really been able to predict what DS will like listening to.

[Garga]

I let the kids color on the coloring page while listening, or else bounce around the room. We had a little trampoline and we had a big exercise ball to sit on while listening.

 

There was one year that I read each section twice. I'd read a section a day and at the end of a chapter, re-read the chapter again, section by section.

 

I would pause a lot to discuss what we'd read. I'd ask them to tell me what was happening so far, or would make some other comments on what was going on.

 

We always did the map work (they loved the map work for some reason.). For a few years of SOTW (we went through the books twice, so I did them for 8 years), I had time to read a lot of supplemental books. Other years there wasn't as much time. I would force myself to do a few activiies a month. I'm not naturally a person who looks forward to hands-on things like that, but it helped the kids.

 

I guess the big thing is to let them move around if they need to, or to color if they need to, and to pause a lot (a lot) and make sure they're tracking with you.

[bwdiaz]

Silly putty. My reluctant listener like silly putty while reading. It doesn't distract me with sound and she listens more than if she were thinking about colors.

[blondeviolin]

I wouldn't worry too much. You can try some things for them to fiddle with while they listen, but I've found SOTW 1 to be engaging enough and have short enough sections that it's not a problem. My current kindy kid probably has a touch of CAPD and he gets it just fine.

[tdbates78]

Thank you all! I will take all of the great suggestions and put them to good use. I feel reassured that we can do SOTW! :)