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Hi,

I have all the guides for coming year here in front of me, and am trying to figure out how DITHOR works.
So, if I'm correct, DITHOR I scheduled 3x in PHFHG and 4x in BLHFHG per week. I was hoping to teach this subject to my boys together. I was thinking of either teaching it 3 or 4 times, so that they could so the book projects together.
When do your children do their reading? I was thinking of doing this later in the day, but I guess I'd have to do DITHOR itself later in the day as well. How long does DITHOR take generally?
Another question: Does anyone schedule a reading for 20 days? I was thinking of adding a short book for days 16-20, as my children love reading. And the storytime box in BLHFHG seems to match DITHOR. Do I have to follow these genres?

Thank you

DITHOR takes 20-30 minutes depending on the book selection and the workbook you are using. Since you have one in Preparing an done in Beyond, I would follow the Preparing schedule. Many families don't start DITHOR until at least Bigger if not Preparing. Normally the goal is to get through all of the workbooks by the end of 8th grade. The main reason Carrie has DITHOR scheduled daily in Beyond and is because at that age, kids need daily reading practice. Students don't start reading their own history or science until Preparing, so there is daily reading scheduled in the earlier guides. Since your kids love to read, I would personally have "free reading" books available and use those for daily reading. Then just do DITHOR the 3 days a week with the workbook pages.

You do not have to follow the schedule in Beyond for genres. The storytime in Beyond and Bigger is often referred to as a mini-DITHOR. It gives the kids a start on literature analysis while being read to. But there is no reason to you have to match things up at all.

I agree with StephanieU - you don't have to DITHOR with Beyond. I personally would follow the guide as is for the story time. My kids have loved the activities that we have done as part of that guide. If you wanted to do DITHOR with your child because they are ready for it, you could always just have them do it 3 days a week and complete the same genre as the older child. For us - we like to start DITHOR about half way through Bigger. I am not big hurry at all to start it and would rather complete the story time activities over the DITHOR activities. I love DITHOR but also love story time. With my kids when they are younger, I just encourage them read, read, read! So I am not as worried about them studying what they read as much when they are younger.

DITHOR and story time do not have to line up. Unless your Beyond child is older, I would suggest waiting a year on DITHOR. It's pretty in depth. A general rule is to use books that are fairly easy for the student to read so they can analyze them without thinking about the reading. Story time is a way to let them hear books that are above their reading level and answer questions, etc about those books. If you are going to do DITHOR together then I would just have the Beyond child follow the schedule for DITHOR in the Preparing book. You'll get through about half the genres in the first year and the second half in the second year (so first half would be Preparing/Beyond, second half would be CTC/Bigger)

Thanks ladies, I think I will combine them for 3 days a week as Beyond has scheduled, since my eldest is a young Preparing student.

It will take more than 20 minutes to do both children because I assume they will each be reading different books, and the younger one will definitely be reading all of it aloud to you. The older may be reading just part of it aloud to you, but you have to factor in the time for this. So, either you do the activity/preparation before the reading, or sometimes they read, and then you do an activity/worksheet based on that day's reading. If they are in different student workbooks (2/3 and 4/5) the worksheet may be different, sometimes one level has a worksheet and one doesn't. 4/5 does a lot more of the worksheets independently. They will each answer the questions based on their own book too. So, basically, except for the activity for the genre kick off and the project at the end (which again can be different for the different levels of DITHOR) it's not time saved trying to keep them together in it. I hope this makes sense.

You could add 5 more days of reading but there wouldn't be any worksheets, activities, or analysis planned with it. I like Nealewill's suggestion of just having other books (maybe in the genre if you are that organized) and especially for the Beyond child, having them read aloud to you on the non-DITHOR days and have some discussion over what they read. Just give the Preparing child some books to read on their own if they wish or something.

Thanks, that makes sense. I'll keep them together for now, whilewe're test driving our first genre. When we start the guides I might do it the way you explained it, each doing their own schedule.