If your child is placed correctly in their guide...

[LovingJesus]

If your child is placed correctly in their guide and they are managing to complete a HOD week in a week (as written) I am wondering:

*How much of the guide is easy for them?

*How much is challenging them?

I am still praying over where to place my children for fall. I am trying to weigh out their strengths and weaknesses since I know the program some. I think the best scenario is coming up through the guides, but since we are not in that place I am trying to discern. I think in general last time I found the reading to be very easy for them, and the writing to be challenging overall.

If they are very strong readers, but weaker in writing, or very strong writers and weaker in reading which did you place according to?

Thank you!

[StephanieU]

I am not sure how to describe my daughter in percentages, but I will try to answer your question as best I can

My daughter finds the boxes that are reading with narrating orally (or not at all) easy and fun. She is learning a ton through those boxes, but she enjoys them. Any box that requires writing (notebooking and vocabulary mostly, but sometimes science lab, DITHOR, and grammar) challenging. I don't necessarily think it is too hard for her, but she did not like writing or drawing for school. Dictation seems to be the exception, as she has yet to complain about that. We are using a different math, so I will skip that fit this conversation.

So the things that are easy and fun she is probably learning the most from (except math and grammar maybe). So I would say 100% would fit your description. Yet if she liked to draw and write, it would be totally different!

[LynnH]

I think it is better to place them with the writing level weighing more than the reading level. If the reading is a little easy, that is ok. The analysis they are being asked to do with it in the higher guides will most likely still challenge them and if you do DITHOR then you can give them more challenging books for that. However if the writing is too much or too challenging this can lead quickly to frustration and feelings of failure. HOD does a great job of starting gently with the writing requirements, but they do ramp up with each guide and by the time they get to the high school guides you want them to be pretty confident in those abilities and able to handle a large writing workload.

If I had to guess I would say that when we start a new guide usually 1/3 is pretty easy, around 1/3 pushes him a little but he can do it as written and then around 1/3 or maybe a little less pushes him a lot and are things where he isn't quite meeting the expectations yet.

[LovingJesus]

Thank you Lynn for your 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. That information is really helpful. It made me go back and evaluate their placements two years ago and the year they spent doing HOD. This in itself was helpful for understanding.

Thank you!

[Nealewill]

I wanted to chime in as well. I complete agree with Lynn about 1/3 statement. I find that while I do want my kiddos challenged, I don't want them overwhelmed. It seems like a really nice balance. The other great thing about this set up is that as the year goes on, they very much grow into the skills in it isn't so difficult after a while. I feel like we always spend more time each day on the guide in the beginning of the year than at the end. That is always nice as summer approaches, my kids long for shorter school days (....and so do I ).

[MelInKansas]

In answer to one of your questions: whether to place by their weaknesses or their strengths: I would say you don't want to place them where their weaknesses are going to really frustrate them and they won't be able to complete it well. So whichever is weaker, you might want to place according to that. Exceptions to that would be if a child is really behind in one area but to pull them back to the guide that fits that area is holding them back dramatically in other areas. Obviously they are always going to enjoy and do well in the areas that come more easily. But I don't think in general it's a good idea to push ahead and choose a guide that they won't be able to be successful in.

As noted, the writing expectations do ramp up pretty quickly and there is a lot expected, and they learn to write with good quality. I have had to do a lot of handholding and to figure out what will help and motivate my kids to do the writing well. They are growing really well also though, and I am thankful to see what they are learning. I don't think I would have challenged them enough if I would have been putting this together on my own.

[MelInKansas]

I just read a couple of your other posts regarding your children as well. Here are some more thoughts based on what you wrote in those posts.

If you feel your child is probably capable of the work in a higher guide, but will have difficulty with it at first because they are not used to the requirements or just not as familiar with that kind of assignment, you could place higher with the understanding that you would need to help that child out or adapt the requirements at first to allow for "learning curve." So this would be based on how much you feel you could be available to spend time helping the child through their work as they adjust to the work load. And I would also base it on whether or not the child might be "bored." Children do work harder when they are in something that really interests them.

It seems like maybe you have one child hanging out between Preparing and CTC (more toward CTC based on the placement chart) and one between CTC and RTR. Depending on how strong of readers both of these children are, and whether or not you think they would be self-motivated to complete the work on their own, I might consider combining in CTC just to make your work load lighter. You could read the storytime box to them and discuss it, and they could work together on science experiments (I might suggest having them alternate weeks as to who sets up and leads it, and have the other be the "recorder" and write down the results?) But if you don't think combining would serve them both well, or don't see them working well together in that guide, then definitely keep them separate. Again, if they would want to do all of the reading on their own, then all you have to do is checking over the work, discussion, narration (listening to and reading), some English and writing, etc. I am definitely finding Res to Ref pretty light on my work load and yet just the right amount of interaction for my 11 year old.

[LovingJesus]

Thank you Melissa for your thoughtful and thorough reply. I do appreciate the help.

It is interesting you mentioned combining my two middle children into CTC. My first thought in looking into coming back to HOD was putting them together into CTC. I know from past experience that doing three guides, with my youngest who has DS in the mix, was honestly unmanageable. It was just more content then I could get through with them in a day with all of the toddler interruptions and challenges of special needs. The other reason I was thinking of combining them is because they are already combined in so many areas. They are currently doing Land Animals with the drawings, crosswords, lab write ups, and written narrations in the note book together. They also are combined for spelling and a daily history / literature read aloud that I pick out. They are both very advanced readers so I have them do the same book for DITHOR and then have her do the 2/3 work book and him the 4/5 work book, but we go over the genre and the questions in the green TM together. I alternate between 2/3 and 4/5 questions. He is one grade ahead in Rod and Staff English since he is at the end of 4 and she is at the end of 3. He is ahead of her in math. He is a stronger writer then she is. They would enjoy the drawing book, drawing in the note book, story time books, oral narration, DITHOR, and the hands on activities. They put up with R&S English and their math without complaint. They both complain about writing. So since I have had them combined all year I have thought of them as 'together'. I was actually surprised when they placed two levels apart. In some areas they are a grade apart (his writing, English, and math are ahead). In other areas they are very much in the same place. They both can read very easily my older son's 7/8 books that arrived recently for his DITHOR. These books truthfully are their reading level and far below my oldest's reading level. My oldest though is enjoying them and challenging him in reading would take late High school reading levels that his writing is no where near ready for.

Lynn's 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 was also very helpful in better understanding HOD. It does mean my dd was placed too low in Beyond for 2nd grade (she is in 3rd now). Yet, the content of Bigger, for her sensitive soul at the time, would have been a poor fit. So I think in the end it worked out fine. I ended up using the history boxes and story time boxes of Beyond, Beyond emerging readers, Rod and Staff English 2, some extra reading from MFW ADV (that I had done with my oldest so I knew the program well), note booking from ADV (which has one spine in common), and Apologia science with note booking. She actually ended up having a very growing 2nd grade year and placing too low for her abilities (probably 100% easy as far as Beyond went) was fine because the content was prefect for where she was at during her ages of 7 / 8. So it worked out. It isn't the way I would want though to use the HOD program or the guides; it is far from Carrie's intent with the program.

Lynn's 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 made me also realize CTC was too low for my oldest for 5th at the time. The reading and content (most of which he knew) was very, very easy for him. He was ready for longer written narrations then 5 - 8 sentences. In the end he was placed too low.

Thank you Melissa. Your post was helpful. My first thought in looking into HOD was LHTH for my dd7 (who is developmentally approximately 3 according to some recent doctor evaluations and has down syndrome) and the LHTH would give her some focused time to feel part of what we do, CTC for my two middle ones to keep them combined (all 3 used to be combined into MFW, so splitting off my oldest the last two years has actually been a huge adjustment for him that started with CTC for 5th...but with 7th looming he needed to do so), and Rev2Rev for my oldest. I was ignoring the placement chart some to be honest because I haven't had success with it in the past. The time I did circle the placement chart a month ago though I had MTMM for my oldest, RTR for my second, and CTC for my third with all the circles in one column for each. This has given me a lot to think about as well. I do not consider them strong writers, but I think that is because I took a slow and steady route and have sometimes ignored how good their writing really is becoming. With years of Rod and Staff English behind them they are exceptional writers in their sentence structures, paragraph structures, clarity, grammar, and thought. Rod and Staff has laid an excellent foundation in writing for each of them. The board though has given me a lot to pray over, think about, mull over, and talk with DH about. It has been a process since February and I am still thinking and praying. The LORD though is opening my eyes more and more to where we are and giving me goals for the upcoming years of home schooling and it is helping me immensely. He has used this board many times in our journey and seems to be doing so again.

Thank you ladies.

[MelInKansas]

Here's my take on the placement chart.

Grammar and math are pretty irrelevant to placement or can be adjusted easily. They do not affect other parts of the guide. Science is a bit "separate" as well. Bible is wonderful at all levels and there's no level that would be "too easy" or "too light" for most kids (like an 8th grader could do the memory work and study of Phillipians 2 in CTC and be challenged by it, they would just analyse it at a deeper level). So to me, the history, writing, independence level, narrations, those are the things you should most highly consider when trying to choose a guide. Those weigh more heavily. I agree that running 3 levels of it is really challenging and very hard to get through all the material in one day. I'm doing Res to Ref, Preparing, and Beyond right now with two younger ones to care for. It is a LOT of work each day and usually we don't get all the day's work done in one day. I'm thankful the older kids only have 4 day weeks, we can generally get them all done in 5 days of work. But I think with older guides this changes quite a bit, and in fact it can be a benefit to have kids in their own guide once you hit Res to Ref. Because they use the guide all day, so if you combine, you might even need to have two guides, or at the very least you'll need a good plan for how they can use the guide together and how they can mark off what they've completed (I do let my kids write in the guide once they start using it a lot). Again certain parts, like the history project, listening to the CD, and maybe science activity/experiment they might do together, but there are a good number they would do themselves, each of them reading the materials, notebooking pages, written narrations, etc.

[LovingJesus]

Thank you Melissa! Your explanation made so many things clear. I think I understand!