heartofdakota.com

We'll be starting DITHOR in August or September. I've decided to start with Biography (mostly because it's my favorite). Do you usually let your kids choose their DITHOR books or pick one for them? I've started collecting the biographies from our own shelves & a few from garage sales, paperback swap, etc. so that Luke can pick which one(s) he wants to read. Reading always seems to go so much more smoothly when it's HIS selection.

I like that idea. I have not thought about how I will go about selecting books once we start DITHOR. I really like your idea of having preselected books at the appropriate reading level and the child can choose which they will read. I would agree that my son would be more willing to read if he helps in the choosing.

I will be interested in what others have to say on this.

Karen

I plan on doing both the list that I bought thru here and a list that my daughter wants to read. I have thought about just letting her choose but then decided that there will be times when she's gonna have to read something she don't like. Like right now we are finishing up with the emerging readers books. There were two that we fought thru because she just didn't care for them but I made her read them anyways.

I'll be using DITHOR with my dd7 starting in Aug. I plan to let her choose the books that she wants to read. She is strongwilled--like her mommy , so I give her choices whenever it's appropriate. What I plan to do is to show her 3-4 books in the genre, and then let her decide which one she wants to read. We're both really excited about starting DITHOR.
~Jennifer

I've always let the boys decide, but I do offer suggestions.

I will allow mine to decide from pre-chosen books. Some we already have, and some we will get at the library. They will have plenty of free-reading time to read books of their own choosing.

I haven't let my ds choose yet, but when I used DITHOR tutoring Level 6/7/8 children, I chose 3 books and let them choose 1-2 from those. Now you've got me thinking about that... hmmmmm... my ds is in Level 4/5 this year. It may be fun to start to let him help in the choosing. I could put the book(s) he doesn't choose on his "independent reading shelf". I like to have all genres represented on that too, so that would be an easy way to accomplish that. Good thought - thanks for sharing!

In Christ
Julie

haven't done DITHOR yet, but when we do the Storytime reading, I always read the synopsis' to him/them a week or so ahead of time from the back of the manual, and let them decide which one they like the best. Only once did they surprise me with what they chose.

I hadn't thought about DITHOR. I tried to order the book list last week, but my computer shut down in the process and I waited a week to see if it went through or not... seems it did not. So I am going to order again and will probably narrow it down to a few and let him decide from that.

I do agree that sometimes they are just going to have to read, because they have to. I just haven't had any books come up yet that fell into that category.

I have done it both ways with my kiddos. In the younger years (usually up until 4th grade for sure), I just pick the books for the kiddos and plan out the pacing. As they get older, sometimes I let them choose from among several of my choices. At other times, if they have a burning desire to read a certain book, I'll put it in at their request. Even as they get older though, I often will select several more difficult/classic titles that I really want to discuss with my kiddos and use those for DITHR. However, I wait to do this, until my kiddos are strong readers and also really love reading, because very difficult books can sometimes kill the love for reading (as those types of books take some time to get into)! The wonderful news is that you can make DITHR grow and change with you as your needs change!

Blessings,
Carrie