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Hi everybody! I haven't written in a while...good news is that we are sailing along with LHFHG at a full-speed pace now. I pray we can get done with LHFHG by January, but with Daddy leaving in a month to go overseas for the remainder of the school year, I am building in time for off-days. I LOVE this curriculum. My other goal is to start building in time for John to do LHTH, two or three days a week.

Ok, here's my question. Shana is blowing us out of the park with both her reading ability and comprehension. She will come downstairs and tell me plot lines of books she's read. I tried to move her ER books and storytime books for Beyond, but she climbed up to get them and has devoured most of them. I had her pick out the books she hasn't read, and she named only 6 or so. OOPS!

Because of some stressful times in our family (my getting diabetes and hubby getting ready for "long work"), it's all I can do to get EVERYTHING done in a day but her reading time. I just am not sure what to do at this point. We have a bunch of supplemental titles (i.e. Boxcar Children and Junie B. Jones), but I don't know quite where to start since she's technically doing ER's in Beyond but with no guidance from me. I just kind of let reading go because she does so well at it on her own, and I needed to shore up her handwriting and math.

We are at Unit 22 in LHFHG, and so we start Beyond in the spring. What would you do if you were me? I don't know if I'm ready to add in DITHR...

Honestly, I would do the ER's.

My DD, just turned 7 last year when we started Beyond. She had been devouring chapter books on her own for an entire year before we started homeschooling. I went thru the ER's anyway & I'm glad I did. It really helped her to read aloud to me, something she wasn't good at. We did go a little faster, for example, she would read the Bible story, answer those questions and then read a day's assignment in another book (starting at Frog & Toad), and then answer those questions too. If she ever wanted to read more than a day's worth, we did except we stopped to answer the questions first. Oh, even tho she's already read them, I would still have her read them aloud to you and answer the questions. My DD taught herself to read at age 5, so I was surprised there were some words she didn't know even tho she still could have told me the plot. I think its becuz she didn't have a lot of phonics.
HTH

Good to hear from you, Heidi! I'm so glad Shana is doing so well with LHFHG. How exciting her reading has taken off! I know that as parents, we often begin to think reading ability can be measured by how well dc read independently, along with the reading level they seem able to read independently. This is true, in some regards, however, reading ability is so much more than this. Careful reading, reading aloud with proper pronunciation skills, beginning oral narration skills, and comprehension skills are the next steps in reading instruction after phonics. Dc flying solo on reading can get the mindset that the goal is to read a huge pile of books at a speed lightning reading pace, and that this then says they are amazing readers with no need of further instruction from us as parents. This is in opposition to Charlotte Mason ideals and often works against the fine principles of hers we as parents are attempting to establish.

For these reasons, I really think Robbi had some super advice! I would look at the rest of your time in LHFHG to be an important time to focus on reading comprehension, beginning oral narration skills, and good oral reading abilities. The good news is the ERS will do all of this for dd beautifully! If you set aside 10-15 minutes a day, you can listen to dd read the ER books and have her answer the 1-3 questions after the reading. I try to start my day with the things I might be likely to not do or do less than a thorough job with later in the day. You may want to begin with the ERS now, as this will help you make sure to get to it each day. Though she is capable of reading more pages than the ERS schedule assigns, I'd not go at a quicker pace. This will keep the ERS instruction time short as it is intended to be, easier to teach each day, and help dd to learn right away from the start that reading CM style is meant to be savored, discussed, developed, enjoyed. She can certainly have any books she has completed the reading/discussions for in her room to reread. I'd set aside the Beyond books on an even higher, unreachable shelf , as she more than likely raced through those and will benefit from the slower, pace accompanied with follow-up activities, skills, and discussions next year. HTH, and congrats on dd's progress! Keep up the good work!

In Christ,
Julie

My almost-6 yo dd got her hands on many of the ERs too (need higher shelves!) and read through them. We're still going through them together and discussing the questions. Honestly, dd seems even more excited for having read the books already. She loves getting to "share" a book with me and often tells me beforehand "Oh, this one is soooo funny!" The questions build a lot of skills that I wouldn't want her to miss. We also focus on reading slowly and clearly. DD has some speech challenges so it is a good time for her to practice her sounds too. I do let her do more than one day's reading at a time if she wants. I suspect we will slow down once we hit the Nature Reader since she's never read anything like it before. We shall see.

Enjoy your reading time with your DD!

Blessings,
Erica

Thank you, everybody! I hear you, Julie, I just need to work it into our day, I guess. And it involves getting out the Beyond book, too. I have it, it's just a separate guide to pull out.