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I've noticed that a lot of the history and science reading is done independently in this level (my first year doing HOD at all). Do you read ahead of your child so you know what they're reading or do you just leave it to them? Or do you have another method of knowing what they're studying to be able to critique their work and also know if you like the material?

I don't read it prior. They have narrations, written narrations, notebooking, etc that lets you know what they are reading. And I can tell when my dd has actually read the sections and when she's just skimmed through it quickly.

I had every intention of reading ahead last year when we started CTC, but it just didn't happen. Like Lora Beth said, I could tell from their narrations, notebooking, etc. if they understood the material. For research, I would usually do a quick search to check out the research answers. If I had any questions about their work, I would skim over the material in the books to verify it. For science, there is a page number associated with each question so I was able to look up the answers quickly if I needed to. Since I had 2 doing CTC at the same time and they worked independently, it helped me as I compared their answers too. Since this was our 5th year doing HOD, I didn't have any doubts that the material was good. I could tell in checking over the work that they did and also in the work we did together what the material was like. Even though I wasn't doing all of the reading myself I got a really good feel for the flow of history and many of the science topics. My dc were often so interested in what they were learning that I sometimes heard more about it than perhaps I even wanted to. Seriously though it was a great year and I enjoyed what we learned. I would have liked to have learned more of the details like my dc did, but that would have involved me spending quite a bit more time with the material. As I am looking through this coming year's material I am thinking again about reading ahead---not to be able to check my dc's work though but so that I can learn the material too!

I have not read ahead for my ds. I thought about doing that this summer but didn't get to it. We started CTC last week. My ds loves the reading part of CTC so it isn't really an issue for him and I can tell by his work what he is learning and if he understood it.