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Hi ladies,

My dd will be in Beyond this year for 2nd grade. It offers 3 types of reading levels (phonics, emerging readers, and independent reader). I have two questions:

1) I am not sure how to evaluate her: whether she needs the emerging reader set or if she is ready for the first level of DITHOR. Although I have had her home all year and have heard her read aloud with her phonics, I don't really know what level the first grade Abeka readers would be considered (which is what she's used). She loves to read, doesn't do too bad on comprehension, and tends to have fairly good voice inflection while reading aloud. I do help with accuracy (because sometimes she will skip a word or two). When she reads on her own, she reads Stories from Grandmas Attic, or the American Girl series...although I haven't checked her comprehension with those...only her phonics readers.
2) If I did do DITHOR, does it have to be done independently, or could I still have her read those books aloud to me?

Thank you for your help!

Either one, she will read aloud to you I'd look at starting part way through the emerging reader. Look on amazon for sample pages and have her read some page to you until you find a level that she slows with a bit, loses the nice fluid flow, ha a couple words she needs help with, etc. once you find that, I'd back up a book or two and start there on the list. The emerging readers are RL 2-3.# (I can't recall exactly) Abeka being leveled readers I'd imagine 1st grade readers are RL 1-2. It makes sense but I could be wrong!

I looked at the reading samples on Amazon for both the emerging readers and some of the books from DITHOR. She could easily read any of the emerging readers, however, I just don't feel she is quite ready for DITHOR program as a whole (some of the books would be fine). So I was thinking of starting her off with the second half of the emerging readers set, and when we are finished with that, switching her into the DITHOR. Is it a big deal to start DITHOR midway through the year?

Although my daughter was a fluid reader she did not comprehend very well, so we stuck with emerging readers. Now she is reading books from DITHOR without actually doing the studies to get her used to this level of reading before we begin studying the literature more closely next year. When we did the emerging readers most of them I had her read in a day because they were easy and I didn't want to bore her. I picked up or slowed the pace as she needed. This has been a good fit for us for now and next year we'll be doing more formal literature studies. DITHOR is VERY flexible and can be started any time. It's sort of like an "extra" part of the HOD curriculum as it is not directly written into the guide.

I think you are safest with the emerging readers.

I think even starting in the middle of the ER would not be a problem and starting with DITHOR when you are done would be fine. This is the beauty of home schooling. You can have your child work at their level. My oldest son was a strong reader and started doing ER when he was half way through the ABeka1st grade readers. The questions for comprehension that Carrie has seem way more advanced in my opinion. My second son started the ER readers after he finished TRL, while he was finishing with LHFHG, now he is in unit 5 for Beyond and he is half way through the ER readers, half way through 1B for math. I just put sticky notes in my guides and just follow along with my kiddo's leading. I have learned to keep the 3 R's going at the pace they indicate.
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