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Good morning Ladies.

Looking at both DITHOR and Progeny Press and trying to decide between them -- does anyone have experience with both? Compare/contrast? My dc that I would be using either program with are 12, 10, and almost 8 yo boys.

Which leads me to my second question... I am not excited about the idea of adding more pen and paper type activities to their day. Between math and LA I feel like they have enough of that. I *love* the idea of teaching them to think critically about what they are reading though. Is it possible to go through DITHOR sans the workbooks? Or are they too integral to the program?

Thanks,
Jenn

I have not used both, but i have used DITHOR. Yes the workbooks are very important to the program. I understand what you are saying about not wanting to add more pen and paper work to the day. I did a couple of things to help. I tried to fit the more writing sheets on lower writing days if I could or we did the workbook sheets orally. I found that the workbook pages were not hard for my son to do especially if I seperated them in the day. We typicallly do reading after quiet time in the afternoon and that seemed to be enough of a seperation for my son not to see the worksheets as more writing. I have also been very impressed with the critical thinking skills that he is developing.

Jenn,

I agree that the workbooks are integral to DITHR. In our guides from Preparing on up, we schedule DITHR 3 days a week, which really helps balance out any writing needed for DITHR. In our guides, we also take into account how much writing is being done in the rest of the subjects (on the days that we schedule DITHR), which also provides balance in the writing area.

Depending on which level of Progeny Press you are doing, the writing within those guides will far exceed what is to be completed for a book in DITHR.

Blessings,
Carrie

Hi, and thanks for responding. It is helpful to know that PP guides will require more writing. I think that pretty much makes up my mind for me.

I will admit that I really wanted to do DITHOR anyway, so we could do it together. I loved the kick-off day ideas in the sample. I think I may even ask my neighbor if she wants to do it with me... she has a dd she is trying to encourage to love to read.

Thanks for your informative answers.