Stressing over DITHOR book packs

[Mumkins]

If my DD starts book pack 4/5 in CTC, she'll only finish pack 5/6 by the end of MTMM. Will that prepare her well enough for the highschool guides?

[StephanieU]

Many families have their kids read a full book pack over a year but only do the workbook for 4-5 genres. The other 4-5 books are read over breaks. So, you would get through 4 packs that way. If you use the 4/5 pack with CtC and RtR, you will probably be able to skip to the 6/7 pack for Rev2Rev and MtMM.

[Mumkins]

There's still the 5/6 pack. I own everything up through 5/6, so no new expense:) I like the idea of reading daily and only doing DITHOR when it says. I think you'd end up with too many books per genre and no build up making answering questions hard. Hmmm, idk...what to do...

[LynnH]

I wouldn't have them read the book packs on the days that DITHOR isn't scheduled. That upsets the balance of work. You really are only supposed to get through half a book pack in a year. Is there a reason you won't have her doing the 5/6 book pack for CTC? I can tell you what I did was mix and match from 2 different book packs. So for CTC he was doing some from 4/5 at the beginning of the year and a few from 5/6 at the end of that year. If you did this then you could do all 5/6 for RTR and then for Rev to Rev whatever 5/6 you had left and then a few 6/7 Then for MTMM do as many 6/7 as you can, which would be about 5. You could even throw in one from 7/8 at the end of the year for a good challenge.

[Mumkins]

I'm hesitant to move my DD too quickly. She only started ER early this year. We read through most of pack 2 as we quickly went through ER and skipped the bible. I own 3, 4/5 and 5/6 as well. I was going to have her do 3 this year as I'm nervous of pushing her too fast. She's made a lot of progress though. She's a delayed reader. But she's really taken off. She's been reading the Doll People from 4/5 on her own. And getting into her sisters books, which I checked and they are 5.5. I just worry if I put her in 4/5 now, it may be too hard to work with, even if she can read them. She's only a few months shy of 10 though.

[LynnH]

So she is in Preparing this year and doing level 3 book packs? That is about where my ds started and through the years we were able to cover books from all the levels even if we didn't get to every book in every level. I would just assess next year before CTC and see where you think she is then.

[Nealewill]

For me - I buy 1 book pack a year but I only plan to use 5 books out of it for DITHOR. Over the summer my kids will read and they usually read the other 4 genres for fun. If you don't plan to read all of those books though, you could just plan to only buy 5 books and not buy a book pack. I think the packs are set up so that you can just buy 1 pack and plan to use it over two years. You wouldn't need to buy 1 pack per year this way. So if your child reads level 4 books consistently now, then get the 4/5 because they can read the level 5 books next year. Then the following time you need a book pack you would look at the 6/7. Does that make sense? So you don't need to buy all of the books in the book pack unless your kids just love to read.

[Mumkins]

Maybe I should do a hybrid? Let her pic her favourites from 3 before moving into 4/5, -so she can get some easier books to work with as she begins DITHOR? I still can't believe she's reading so well. It makes me tear up. It's been a long, hard road. For both of us, lol. But she's doing it!

[MomtoJGJE]

I always do the easier books for my kids for DITHOR. They hate reading, so this lets them not worry about the reading as much as the thinking. We basically do half each year (we don't do it with the regular guides). I have all the books in a bin with a list of which ones go with which book pack... I think I have through 4/5. So I pick what seems like a good fit for which kid for which genre. I'll also use prior storytime books for my oldest.

[Nealewill]

I also pick books that are easier to read. I find that the history and science stretch them enough. So the DITHOR books are usually books my kids will enjoy and a little bit lower in reading level. Now, I will say that the science and history books seem higher level in nature anyway. So I guess the DITHOR books are right at grade level but they are still easier than the history and science books IMHO.