Once dc have completed phonics and the emerging readers, continuing daily reading is still a focal point of instruction. Dc are not responsible for independently reading any subject in Bigger Hearts, so if they are not doing DITHOR, they are not reading consistently for school daily. However, I CAN totally see that beginning DITHOR full-speed at the same time as starting 3 HOD guides may be a lot of 'new' all at once for you as the teacher. For this reason, I think a happy medium would be to have ds read to you each day from his DITHOR book, but spread the DITHOR day's lesson over 2 days. This would probably only take 20 minutes a day, and half of that time could be fairly independent if ds is reading fairly well. For example, one day he may just read half of the assigned pages. The next day he may read silently the other portion of assigned pages, but do the discussion questions or Student Workbook page with you. Or, you can just spread the Student Workbook pages over 2 days if that is easier. Or, you can do the writing for ds on the Student Workbook pages, as he orally answers, if him writing the answers is what takes too much time. A second option, if this seems too much right now, would be to have him read his DITHOR book each day, every other day reading some aloud to you, with you asking a few questions about the readings, and in January or February, have ds begin DITHOR, either half-speed or full-speed. What we don't want is gaps in reading and instruction - we want to keep the ball rolling in this area, especially at this age. I think either of these options would accomplish this, as long as starting DITHOR full-speed later is on the horizon. HTH!
In Christ,
Julie
