Any experience with BJU Reading Grade 5?

[3browneyedboys4me]

I've just looked at this and wondering if it would be a good supplemental reading program. At this age, it's good to keep him reading and doing comprehension. Any thoughts?

 

 

Thanks!

[Pammy]

our TOG reading. I also used it with the Homesat DVD's, to free my time up some during the day. My kids learned a lot more than if I were to teach it and even did hands on activities that I wouldn't normally do at home.

 

The only thing I didn't like was that it was snippets of books, short stories, etc. You would really want to have them read whole books for literature too.

 

HTH!:001_smile:

[PeterPan]

We're using it right now. What do you want to know? It's exactly like the online samples make you think. It covers a lot of genres and has Press authors as well as some classics. That ratio changes with the Reading 6 and moves more toward classics. By lit 7 it's all classics, no Press authors from what I can tell. There are some fun activities or logical rabbit trails (read about how puppets are made, so your dc may want to make a puppet, that sort of thing). The workbook covers a ton of different skills, everything from vocab to lit terms to the dewey decimal system, so I think it's valuable. There are a fair number of Q&A pages in the workbook, also valuable to us. The questions are largely comprehension with some moving into interpretation and inference. I just borrowed the reading 6 from my SIL to look at, and I think it's going to move more fully into the Why questions.

 

I guess how well it fits depends on your dc. My dd read the entire book in a day or 2 and has been plugging through the workbook ever since. She does 4 pages (2 fronts, 2 backs) most days, and sooner or later we'll finish. But she's a bit advanced. I didn't end up reading most of the BJU 5 because she zoomed ahead so fast. For the Reading 6 and Lit 7 I'm getting her the source books so she can read the entire work or enjoy more works by the author (poetry, short stories). I think the skills the BJU reading covers are worthwhile, but I'm flexing it to make it fit us. I wouldn't say the way we're doing it now really fits her, but I didn't have a better option, wanted rather to just finish what we started. Sometimes a simple thing, well done, is more valuable than you at first perceive. I wasn't willing to jump directly to a higher level or skip the writing in the workbook, because that pencil pushing really is important.

 

Is that too muddled? I don't know anything more about your situation (advanced, regular dc, whatever) to know what to say. I like the BJU reading for the variety of sources and thoroughness of the skills covered. If your just want your dc to have some extra reading, have you looked at the VP catalog?

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm

[Pammy]

This is the first year that I didn't require my kids to do both TOG and BJU. They are in 6th and 7th now. Before this year, they mainly focused on the BJU Reading and when I could do a read aloud from TOG with them I would. They would read the shorter UG books from TOG on their own, but chapter books that are longer in TOG were done as read alouds.

 

I was surprised that my kids decided to focus on TOG this year, since they loved BJU Reading with the DVD's. I really didn't have much time to spend with them during the day when I was working, and my oldest dd was very independent since she has done TOG for 4 years. She can read the lit and history books in a week, even at the Rhetoric level if she paces herself.

 

My 6th and 7th graders were late readers, and don't really like to read unless the content interests them. I would say if you have a hesitant reader to just let them choose what they read. I tried shoving TOG when they weren't ready and regret it now. They are just at the point where they enjoy reading chapter books in TOG.

 

Oh, and as far as discussion goes with TOG, we normally just go over the SOTW activity book questions that line up with the TOG History that week and they do the worksheet for the literature. That is it.