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We're going to start Beyond in the fall. We'll be using McGuffey Eclectic Readers for our reading program. Someone told me that we'd need a reading comp curriculum as well.. but really? Between the reading comprehension questions already listed in the guide for story time, the reading comp questions at the end of his lessons in the readers, plus, having him do oral narrations... is that not enough for grade 2?

If he is still working on phonics, then doing a reading comprehension program is not necessary. You will see in the suggested items for Beyond that there are three options: phonics, Emerging Readers, and DITHOR. Your readers would probably fall under phonics. Emerging Readers are a set of books (readers that you can buy from HOD or get many from a library), and then at the end of the guide, there are 2-3 questions a day normally about the reading. DITHOR is where you get into more of a literature study.

Now, there is a difference between reading comprehension and listening comprehension. That is why HOD moves kids through the three phases for reading. But, your child has to be able to read fairly fluently before being able to have decent reading comprehension. If they are having to sound out a lot of words, then they aren't going to be able to remember and put together the story. Storytime/Read Alouds work on listening comprehension. You are reading the stories to your child for those. The only reading your child does on their own is phonics/Emerging Readers/DITHOR.

My son will be doing the second reader which is a 3-5th grade reading level. He's only 6, but is already a fluent reader, past phonics. He's just finishing up the Emerging reader set, now. The picture is a sample of what he's reading.

I found that reading comp just came naturally. For my younger kids I usually just ask them a question ever page or two anyway. It doesn't have to be a complex question, it more to see if they remember what they red. And I usually just ask it casually while they are turning the page. Before HOD I used another vendor who was very heavily dependent on pushing the readers but with my younger kids we just read whatever. I can honestly say that my youngers actually read better than the older child. I love just letting them read whatever they want (within reason) and basically what they have been wanting to read are mainly the ER and the younger DITHOR books. But we are big on just going to the library with my 6 & 7 year old kids and I let them pick what ever books off the shelf and read them. We always end up with a book or two from the early reader shelf, a book or two about animals - they love the National Geographic books that talk about snakes, pandas, weather, whatever. They already know that not everyone believes what we believe so we just laugh when the books wrong But I find my kids love the books with lots of colorful pictures. And they are getting some great vocabulary too with it. We are planning to start DITHOR next year though and will push more chapterish books then. But even the DITHOR level 2 books would be fine for them to read at this point. They thoroughly enjoyed Bear on Hemlock Mountain and the Sarah Witcher Story along with the Nature book from the ER. And my two youngest are reading beautifully by just doing this for now.

I think the push for more and more reading comprehension curriculum is based on testing. I don't think reading comprehension specific texts make you a better reader or better at analyzing a story. You just get better at filling in a bubble sheet based off the story. I think what you have listed is plenty for Grade 2.