DITHOR is scheduled daily in the LA box of Bigger Hearts. It is just a reminder to do DITHOR. The DITHOR Teacher's Guide contains all of the teacher's instructions. For an 8 yo, we'd usually recommend to start with Level 2/3, if a student has not had formal literature study (i.e. genre study, story element instruction on the parts of the story, Godly character trait application and discussion, etc.). Unless your dd has had at least a year of formal literature study, I would get the Level 2/3 DITHOR Package, which includes the Teacher's Guide, the 2/3 Student Book, and the Sample Book Ideas List...TNT wrote:Ok- Julie in addition to my questions above could you send me to some links or explain to me more about how Bigger works with DITHOR -are lesson plans included in the Bigger Guide? - what would you suggest I order for DITHOR in regards to my dd8 who is an advanced reader. i was thinking the level4/5 book pack,book projects to send home, beginning wisely English 3 igniting your writing ???
Also, where does spelling come in LHFHG and Bigger?
Thanks for helping this newbie!
http://www.heartofdakota.com/drawn-into-packages.php
For the books she will be reading, you can choose whichever set she can read comfortably. This is not the time to overly challenge her with a reading level she's working hard to understand. DITHOR teaches many excellent skills, and that will be challenging in and of itself. So, I'd consider Book Pack 3 for her, but you could always do Level 4/5 Girl Interest too if you wanted. Here are links to those...
http://www.heartofdakota.com/drawn-into-optional3.php
http://www.heartofdakota.com/DITHOR45-girls-pack.php
R & S English 2 is scheduled in the daily plans of Bigger Hearts. R & S English 3 begins sentence diagramming and assumes dc have a good working knowledge of the parts of speech. R & S English is considered to be an advanced program. It teaches grammar for the purpose of writing well, so it includes many skills. HOD has a goal for dc to complete R & S English 6 by the end of Grade 8, as R & S English 7 and 8 are high school credit worthy. If your dd knows her basic parts of speech, and is ready to begin diagramming, then she can start R & S English 3. You can just do a lesson a day, spending 2 days on reviews, and you should come out about right. Otherwise, R & S English 2 is scheduled in the daily plans of Bigger Hearts.
There is no spelling in LHFHG, as according to the placement chart, dc are "ready to learn formal manuscript printing, or able to begin writing words". If your 6 yo dd is ready for spelling, however, you can use the Beyond Little Hearts manual for this. It has daily plans in the LA box for spelling, and 2 choices of spelling lists in its Appendix. Many, many moms combine several dc in LHFHG and use Beyond's right side of plans for the older of the 2 dc to up the LA/math, by using the Emerging Reader's Set, the spelling plans, the 1 x a week grammar, and the 1A/1B hands-on math plans. So that is an option to consider, however, I would be careful about pushing 6 yo dd with autism too much - you want her first year to give her the feeling that "she can do this and have fun with it too"!
In Bigger Hearts, there is a choice of spelling words or dictation - dictation is considered the more difficult of the two. Dictation is explained very well in the Appendix of Bigger Hearts, which contains both the spelling words and the dictation passages.
HTH!
In Christ,
Julie