Reading

[Elizabeth86]

My son is 7 going 8.  We wrapped up phonics his 2nd grade year.  He is a good reader.  We are starting out his 3rd grade year.  I chose to buy memoria press literature guides to work through.  It seemed like a lot of writing to me, so we are currently going through them orally.  I love them, but I get the feeling isn't so into them.  I have heard over and over here and other places that a lot people don't do anything formal for reading, but instead just have their children read good books.  I am just curious what your homeschool looks like?  How has it worked out for you? I hate to be forcing something on him that might not be necessary.  Just kind of curious how much reading you all require of your children.  My son is good at reading, likes reading, but won't on his own do lots of reading. If you don't do anything formal for my son's age group, when do you start to do something formal for reading/literature.  Just trying to find my groove for this homeschooling journey.  It's so easy with my 2nd and 3rd.  I know just what to do, but I always feel so unsure with my first.  

[8filltheheart]

For 2nd/3rd grade, we tag team read.  I let the student read a page or 2 and then I read a page and so one for about 30 mins.  We just talk about the story as we go in a natural and fun way.  I act shocked or excited about different things that happen and ask what they thought or what they think will happen next and that is about it.

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by 8FillTheHeart

[PeterPan]

9 minutes ago, parent said:

your son is also young for 3rd grade. 

Exactly. If you call him 2nd grade this year, how would that change your expectations? It might help them be more developmentally appropriate. He's probably going to be advanced in some areas and more typical in others, and that's fine.

In 2nd grade, I would be looking for something like this                                             How to Report on Books, Grades 1-2                                      and doing oral narrations. How is his spelling going? Is he beginning to be able to write his thoughts? 

At this point you want to be facilitating as much reading as possible, not killing it with analysis or tons of guides and questions.

[Momto6inIN]

After phonics we just read until 8th grade when we do Figuratively Speaking to learn some basic literary terms. I have a list of high quality historical fiction, biographies, history nonfiction, and science nonfiction that go along with our studies for the year and they read a certain amount of time each day from that list in whatever order they want. 30 min for 2nd through 4th, 45 min for 5th and 6th, and 60 min for 7th and 8th. Sometimes we buddy read in 2nd through 4th if there's a book that's a little too challenging for them on their own. None of my kids have had any problem tackling the classics in high school with that preparation.

[Elizabeth86]

4 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Exactly. If you call him 2nd grade this year, how would that change your expectations? It might help them be more developmentally appropriate. He's probably going to be advanced in some areas and more typical in others, and that's fine.

In 2nd grade, I would be looking for something like this                                             How to Report on Books, Grades 1-2                                      and doing oral narrations. How is his spelling going? Is he beginning to be able to write his thoughts? 

At this point you want to be facilitating as much reading as possible, not killing it with analysis or tons of guides and questions.

Here is the thing, if he had been born less than roughly 21 hours later, he would be a second grader.  I try to keep this in mind, but I struggle.  I feel he can handle every single 3rd grade thing I give him to do, but to do a full days work on this 3rd grade level is exhausting for him.  So, individually, he does great, but he struggles doing a lot of work daily.  His spelling is excellent, no struggles with this subject.  He is doing introduction to composition with dh.  He doesn't love it, but he does fine.  He writes a lot on his own.  He writes letters to Nintendo, the grocery store, and other places when he wants to complain or make suggestions.  :lol:  He writes letters to family.  He writes fun little creative things on his own.  He doesn't really do so great, average I would say writing his thoughts for school related things (things he HAS to write.)  He does fine with dictation and copy work in the lit guides. He does good answering the comprehension questions and discussion, but to have him write the answers seems not appropriate for him at this point.  I asked him about literature for this year.  His feedback was that he was glad when we went to discussing the comprehension and vocab instead of writing it.  He also said he didn't care for reading a book.  He wants to go back to abeka readers like 1st and 2nd grade.  I figured the abeka readers would bore him to tears another year??

[PeterPan]

49 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Here is the thing, if he had been born less than roughly 21 hours later, he would be a second grader.  I try to keep this in mind, but I struggle.  I feel he can handle every single 3rd grade thing I give him to do, but to do a full days work on this 3rd grade level is exhausting for him. 

LOL, I can see your point! My ds is right on that line. I'll tell you though, a LOT of kids function ahead. Since he's SO close to the cutoff, he's not developmentally ready to do the load that fits how bright he is. If you grade adjust him to 2nd, then he's a BRIGHT 2ND GRADER. But right now he's a floundering 3rd grader. 

It just seems like there's pushing in everything you're saying. If you get his grade level right, your expectations will allow HIM to be pushing, rather than you. That's what you want to see.

50 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:

He wants to go back to abeka readers like 1st and 2nd grade. 

This is normal!!! It's a normal thing to read lower level material to build fluency. You should let him do this and give him more access to material at this level!

Have you thought about going *wider* rather than increasing the difficulty and work expectations? Have you looked at the Veritas Press catalog, TruthQuest History, Sonlight, WTM, or other places to find books? With my dd those were great sources. With my ds, I use a lexile search engine. https://hub.lexile.com/find-a-book/search  We read so much NEW stuff together, and it's all wonderful. 

52 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:

He writes a lot on his own.  He writes letters to Nintendo, the grocery store, and other places when he wants to complain or make suggestions.  :lol:  He writes letters to family.  He writes fun little creative things on his own. 

This is so sweet!!!! This is what you DON'T want to shut down by cranking expectations up. If you grade adjust him to 2nd, it gives him room to mature, lets him keep doing this.

53 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:

He does good answering the comprehension questions and discussion, but to have him write the answers seems not appropriate for him at this point.

Does he do other fine motor activities that you would expect a new 2nd grader to do? Puzzles, dot to dots, the writing of his math, sculpting with playdough, etc.? I mean, I've had two kids now do OT for handwriting, so I'm all for not missing problems. But really, as long as he's doing comfortably age appropriate things with fine motor, not having headaches when he reads from his eyes, not slouchy or leaning funny on his arm or complaining of physical pain or using an odd grip, he probably just needs more time to mature. 

It sounds like his skills are coming and he just needs TIME. Time is the best gift you could give him right now. There's plenty to do and call 2nd without moving him forward by grade label.

[wendyroo]

Does he enjoy audiobooks?  Maybe in the car or during meals or other times when he is a captive audience?  Or while playing in the bathtub or playing with playdough?

My boys are in 1st, 3rd and 5th grades.  All of them love reading, and will choose to free read for a couple hours every day, but they all really shy away from anything challenging at all.  So I beef up their expose to literature via audiobooks.  They all love listening to stories in the car and we can tackle books that none of them would willing read on their own (even though the olders could certainly decode them no problem).

I do still insist that they read some assigned literature every day, but I keep the expectations very low.  My 1st grader reads for about 10 minutes, my 3rd grader reads for about 15 minutes, and my 5th grader reads for about 20 minutes.  They then spend 10ish minutes "responding" to what they read.  The 1st grader often draws a picture of something he read and then narrates a sentence that I write on his picture.  The 3rd grader will either write a one sentence narration; or draw a picture, narrate a sentence which I copy on the white board, and then he copies that sentence into his notebook; or he sometimes chooses to respond via one of these reader response sheets that I bought from Teachers pay Teachers.  The 5th grader either uses one of the reader response sheets or writes a paragraph about something he read.

So, daily, at age almost-8, my boys would be free reading for 1-2 hours (from easy fiction and nonfiction like Dragon Masters and DK encyclopedias), listening to audiobooks for 20-30 minutes, reading from an assigned book for 10-15 minutes and then spending 10ish minutes responding to what they read.

Wendy

[Elizabeth86]

59 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

 

 

59 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

LOL, I can see your point! My ds is right on that line. I'll tell you though, a LOT of kids function ahead. Since he's SO close to the cutoff, he's not developmentally ready to do the load that fits how bright he is. If you grade adjust him to 2nd, then he's a BRIGHT 2ND GRADER. But right now he's a floundering 3rd grader. 

It just seems like there's pushing in everything you're saying. If you get his grade level right, your expectations will allow HIM to be pushing, rather than you. That's what you want to see.

This is normal!!! It's a normal thing to read lower level material to build fluency. You should let him do this and give him more access to material at this level!

Have you thought about going *wider* rather than increasing the difficulty and work expectations? Have you looked at the Veritas Press catalog, TruthQuest History, Sonlight, WTM, or other places to find books? With my dd those were great sources. With my ds, I use a lexile search engine. https://hub.lexile.com/find-a-book/search  We read so much NEW stuff together, and it's all wonderful. 

This is so sweet!!!! This is what you DON'T want to shut down by cranking expectations up. If you grade adjust him to 2nd, it gives him room to mature, lets him keep doing this.

Does he do other fine motor activities that you would expect a new 2nd grader to do? Puzzles, dot to dots, the writing of his math, sculpting with playdough, etc.? I mean, I've had two kids now do OT for handwriting, so I'm all for not missing problems. But really, as long as he's doing comfortably age appropriate things with fine motor, not having headaches when he reads from his eyes, not slouchy or leaning funny on his arm or complaining of physical pain or using an odd grip, he probably just needs more time to mature. 

It sounds like his skills are coming and he just needs TIME. Time is the best gift you could give him right now. There's plenty to do and call 2nd without moving him forward by grade label.

Yes, I mean, he's fine with the physical aspect of writing.  He doesn't have beautiful handwriting.  We are trying cursive and he can't make it slanted, but generally I think his writing is typical. He can come up with complete sentences to answer the questions verbally.  He could copy the sentences they ask of him for copywork.  To come up with the answer and then have to write it out is too much though.  

Thanks for taking the time to reply.  I'm not sure if you will know the answer to my next question.  How do you think this will affect the legal side of it all?  When I report to the school board and do testing, will I have to adjust this?  How will they view a grade adjustment?  I have to do an evaluation or testing each year.  We always do testing.  He makes super high scores so we decided that would be a good way to go.  The tests don't stress him out, so we don't mind the testing.  Will I have to officially call him a 2nd grader?  I'm not sure how is going to handle this?  

Edited September 23, 2019 by Elizabeth86

[Elizabeth86]

37 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

Does he enjoy audiobooks?  Maybe in the car or during meals or other times when he is a captive audience?  Or while playing in the bathtub or playing with playdough?

My boys are in 1st, 3rd and 5th grades.  All of them love reading, and will choose to free read for a couple hours every day, but they all really shy away from anything challenging at all.  So I beef up their expose to literature via audiobooks.  They all love listening to stories in the car and we can tackle books that none of them would willing read on their own (even though the olders could certainly decode them no problem).

I do still insist that they read some assigned literature every day, but I keep the expectations very low.  My 1st grader reads for about 10 minutes, my 3rd grader reads for about 15 minutes, and my 5th grader reads for about 20 minutes.  They then spend 10ish minutes "responding" to what they read.  The 1st grader often draws a picture of something he read and then narrates a sentence that I write on his picture.  The 3rd grader will either write a one sentence narration; or draw a picture, narrate a sentence which I copy on the white board, and then he copies that sentence into his notebook; or he sometimes chooses to respond via one of these reader response sheets that I bought from Teachers pay Teachers.  The 5th grader either uses one of the reader response sheets or writes a paragraph about something he read.

So, daily, at age almost-8, my boys would be free reading for 1-2 hours (from easy fiction and nonfiction like Dragon Masters and DK encyclopedias), listening to audiobooks for 20-30 minutes, reading from an assigned book for 10-15 minutes and then spending 10ish minutes responding to what they read.

Wendy

I actually just got an audio book from the library.  We will see how he likes it. An assigned book for 10-15 minutes and then spending 10 minutes responding to what he read sounds super doable for him.  The 1-2 hours of free reading will take work.  I signed him up for the Pizza Hut Book it program, so this might help.  He is very motivated by rewards.  

[PeterPan]

4 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

I'm not sure if you will know the answer to my next question.  How do you think this will affect the legal side of it all?  When I report to the school board and do testing, will I have to adjust this?  How will they view a grade adjustment?  I have to do an evaluation or testing each year.  We always do testing.  He makes super high scores so we decided that would be a good way to go.  The tests don't stress him out, so we don't mind the testing.  Will I have to officially call him a 2nd grader?  I'm not sure how is going to handle this?  

In our state we are required to notify and legally you do NOT have to specify grade. You have to put their birth date. The state homeschool org has a legally complete form that does NOT include grade. However our local district, in their generosity, provides forms that do, haha. 

So if you have included a grade in the past and that information is not required, simply do not provide it the next time. If the information is required for your state, then provide the correct new grade when you do your new paperwork. If they inquire (which it doesn't seem likely they would), you simply explain he was on the cutoff and that you've grade adjusted him. 

4 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

The 1-2 hours of free reading will take work.

It's a good goal! My ds listens to audiobooks by the hour. Any way you can get language in is good. 

4 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

The tests don't stress him out, so we don't mind the testing.

So your state may have a portfolio review option, and you might like to do that. Otherwise, you can still test him at the end of the year with the correct test (2nd grade) but simply use a different test. Like if you've done the CAT, do the IOWA or Stanford or something different, kwim?

Remember, many children function out of grade level and assynchronously. At this point what you're doing is allowing the developmental expectations of the grade to match where his body is. The usual advice for grade advancement of a precocious child is that they actually be functioning MORE than one grade ahead. In his case, he's so on the line that pulling it back and giving him the time to develop may be really good. And with the strong availability of dual enrollment, etc., you're going to be glad to have this time at the end.

 

Edited September 24, 2019 by PeterPan

[Lucy the Valiant]

I'm an English teacher, and the only thing we did until 4th grade was read together & love books. They're teens now who love to read (though I don't mean that's the best plan for everyone; just, that - for some - it's a lovely, full-scale, appropriate, dear foundation for reading). ❤️

[HomeAgain]

I had the kid that learned to read early and quickly.

Even so, in 2nd grade I started him on a grade level Elson Reader.  Just because he *could* read well, didn't always mean he was comprehending everything he read, and it was good exposure to different authors in bite sized chunks, with appropriate lines of questioning, in a format that made getting into chapter books more just a thing to do.  It was nice and easy and a good thing for our day.  In fact, we're still using a grade level Elson Reader now in 4th.  We'll probably use one a year, just to keep reading light.
Now, on our schedule we also have "literature".  Those are good books, ones I want to expose him to or he's interested in but we get more meat in our discussion or go with our writing program.  A lot of our read alouds are in this group.

[Elizabeth86]

5 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

I had the kid that learned to read early and quickly.

Even so, in 2nd grade I started him on a grade level Elson Reader.  Just because he *could* read well, didn't always mean he was comprehending everything he read, and it was good exposure to different authors in bite sized chunks, with appropriate lines of questioning, in a format that made getting into chapter books more just a thing to do.  It was nice and easy and a good thing for our day.  In fact, we're still using a grade level Elson Reader now in 4th.  We'll probably use one a year, just to keep reading light.
Now, on our schedule we also have "literature".  Those are good books, ones I want to expose him to or he's interested in but we get more meat in our discussion or go with our writing program.  A lot of our read alouds are in this group.

Lots of great suggestions! 

I think I will switch over to simpler reading for him and shelve the lit guides for a later date.  The composition curriculum ties into the books used with the lit guides.  I suppose I will shelve that too.  If I have my son do a narration for what he has read, do you think this will be enough for writing for his age?

[Elizabeth86]

3 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Lots of great suggestions! 

I think I will switch over to simpler reading for him and shelve the lit guides for a later date.  The composition curriculum ties into the books used with the lit guides.  I suppose I will shelve that too.  If I have my son do a narration for what he has read, do you think this will be enough for writing for his age?

Ok and another idea I had since what I chose for this year was a hit for us, but not quite ready would be to save it all for next year.  I had considered ELTL B for us for this year so maybe go with that.  Thoughts?

[HomeAgain]

3 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Lots of great suggestions! 

I think I will switch over to simpler reading for him and shelve the lit guides for a later date.  The composition curriculum ties into the books used with the lit guides.  I suppose I will shelve that too.  If I have my son do a narration for what he has read, do you think this will be enough for writing for his age?

 

31 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Ok and another idea I had since what I chose for this year was a hit for us, but not quite ready would be to save it all for next year.  I had considered ELTL B for us for this year so maybe go with that.  Thoughts?

We are using ELTL D this year in 4th and I think it is great.  I think B would be ideal for 2nd, but given your two questions I'm going to try to answer both with that in mind.  ELTL doesn't introduce independent written narrations until C.  B is strengthening the hand and learning how to compose thoughts for the most part, so if you do written narrations occasionally it will be MORE than enough writing for his age, kwim?  I believe the book progresses so that he dictates to you, and then that is used as copywork by him after you write it down.

Even though we don't use the program, I've really found a love for the Brave Writer podcasts.  Her perspective on writing is always fresh and makes me think about things and the direction we're headed. 

[PeterPan]

7 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

If I have my son do a narration for what he has read, do you think this will be enough for writing for his age?

You can do as much as you want! I agree with setting aside the overwhelming composition curriculum. However it might be ok to look at something gentler like an easy introductory IEW book or Writing Tales 1, something using basic narrative. It's good to be eliciting narratives for his science and history, not just fiction reading. I also really like the How to Report on Books for this age. Just fun and gentle. Even my ds with significant SLDs could do it.

Is he creative in some way? If he's creative with language, it's fine to nurture that.

[Frances]

On 9/23/2019 at 11:12 AM, Elizabeth86 said:

Here is the thing, if he had been born less than roughly 21 hours later, he would be a second grader.  I try to keep this in mind, but I struggle.  I feel he can handle every single 3rd grade thing I give him to do, but to do a full days work on this 3rd grade level is exhausting for him.  So, individually, he does great, but he struggles doing a lot of work daily.  His spelling is excellent, no struggles with this subject.  He is doing introduction to composition with dh.  He doesn't love it, but he does fine.  He writes a lot on his own.  He writes letters to Nintendo, the grocery store, and other places when he wants to complain or make suggestions.  :lol:  He writes letters to family.  He writes fun little creative things on his own.  He doesn't really do so great, average I would say writing his thoughts for school related things (things he HAS to write.)  He does fine with dictation and copy work in the lit guides. He does good answering the comprehension questions and discussion, but to have him write the answers seems not appropriate for him at this point.  I asked him about literature for this year.  His feedback was that he was glad when we went to discussing the comprehension and vocab instead of writing it.  He also said he didn't care for reading a book.  He wants to go back to abeka readers like 1st and 2nd grade.  I figured the abeka readers would bore him to tears another year??

Nm

Edited September 25, 2019 by Frances

[Sarah0000]

I started Sustained Silent Reading (we call it that to be like Ramona Quimby) with DS for second grade. He has a box of books he can choose from ranging from high level picture books of myths and fairy tales to fiction series. He's currently reading Percy Jackson and usually reads one chapter a day and orally narrates during SSR time. Sometimes he'll free read more.

He spends a couple hours a day free reading series at a lower reading level. I just strew books around. We also have a fiction book we buddy read aloud with plots that are perhaps not so exciting. These are the types of books found with literature guides from various programs but I don't use guides. I figure in a couple years I can move this book category into assigned independent reading and perhaps at that point a guide will be helpful occasionally.