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I have always been a big fan of reading a lot (I love to read), but I recently read something that said students only retain 10% of what they read, and they retain more when they see and hear together, or even more when they do what they are to learn. So that got me to thinking about all the books listed in the older guides. Is it too much reading and do kids really retain it all? We haven't even gotten to start a guide yet, but we start after Labor Day and I have 2 littles and two olders. I would love some insight into it. We have mostly done a Charlotte Mason method the past two years with me picking out our own books. My oldest seems to hate to read now. (He is 14).

One thing to remember is that the guides don't just have the students read. There is narration and other things that add to the learning. If you were just to have your kids read the books in the guides, they wouldn't learn as much as they do by doing the other things included. With history, there is only so much you can actually do. If you are lucky to live where history took place, then you could add those things. But, otherwise, I think the guides include all of the options for learning - writing, telling, and activities.

If all they were doing was reading I could maybe see this being true, however that is not how HOD works. They do exactly what you said. In the upper guides they read fairly short readings at a time and then do a follow up activity related to the reading. This might be oral narration, written narration, looking at a painting of the event and then talking about it, answering and discussing questions with me, mapping the countries they just read about, or copying a memorable quote from the reading. The history projects also reinforce what they are learning. In the guides from CTC up through MTMM they listen to Diana Waring's CD's that cover what they are reading about just in an auditory way. So they are seeing and hearing it. In addition to all this they are often reading a non-fiction book that covers an event and then during storytime they are either reading or you are reading to them a historical fiction book that covers that same event and makes it come to life. I see all of these things as what makes HOD different from many of the literature based curriculum's that are out there.

I also think that one of the main benefits of oral and written narration is improving retention of what they read. They can't just mindlessly read and not process the information. I think these statistics are indicative of how most people read today. I know my ds would read that way and would probably remember way less than 10% of what he read if he didn't have to think as he reads and make connections with what he is reading in order to do the narrations.

Thank you so much!! That is so helpful! I was finally able to order Rev2Rev today for my two oldest and the guide for LHFHG to complete what I have for my 6 yr old. I can't wait to get the guides and all the stuff! This makes me even more excited, to know that HOD will help them learn in so many ways!