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Just a quick question... My 10 yr dd will be doing Preparing this year -she is an excellent reader & I've ordered both the Deluxe & Extension packages [she did both with Bigger last year also]. My question is, with all of the reading that she does personally & the books in the deluxe & extension packages, will DITHOR be too much? My dd is a very bright girl, but very imaginative, hard to keep on task & stimuli/sound sensitive. This leads to long days often, even with HOD, as I continually bring her back to the task at hand or deal with her stimuli sensitivities. I have ordered some reading response activity books to give her alternative ways of assessing her comprehension of the materials in the extension package, so she would have those activities or I could skip those & the written narrations with the extension & use that time/ her energy to focus on DITHOR.....Your thoughts would be very much appreciated.
TIA! Liz

I'm bumping bc have the same question.?.

My son did Preparing Deluxe, Extension + Dithr last year and it wasn't too much. Maybe she could cut back a little on her non-school reading but if she is an excellent reader I doubt that she will have any problems. If you get into it and you find that she is struggling you could drop either the extensions or the deluxe because the guide is written to only do one anyway. I wouldn't drop Dithr though as it is an excellent program. HTH

Ditto to what Leah said. We just did Preparing "normally" last year, but if it were me, I'd drop either the extensions or the deluxe pkg. books as you only need one of those sets. I wouldn't want to drop DITHOR as it's your reading instruction for your child! Just like it's important to teach your child to read when they're young, it's important to keep teaching them about literature, giving them instruction on good oral reading, building comprehension, teaching moral discernment while reading, building analytical skills, etc... Here's a recent thread where a couple ladies explain why DITHOR is suggested as the reading program to use with HOD. viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6986 (If you're not using DITHOR, I think it's assumed you're using something else to fill in this gap...although I'm not sure I've seen anything that teaches all these things so well. And that's so enjoyable!! )

Kathleen

I agree with what's been said here. DITHOR is the reading instruction for dc after the Emerging Reader's Set, and all of the skills it covers would be incredibly hard to replace with another resource. If I had an older child doing PHFHG like you, if it was too much, I'd first drop the Extension activity responses and just let her read the books. If that was still too much, I'd drop either the Deluxe or the Extensions. Dropping the reading instruction would be something I'd not want to do, and I wouldn't want to replace it with something less living (which is pretty much anything else out there I've seen) . This is a good question! I bet you'd be surprised how much your older child could enjoy reading now though. The sheer amount of what my almost 11 yo loves to read amazes me, and my 7 1/2 yo is already close on his heels. I find it a huge relief that I have a pool of excellent books to use from HOD for my dc to read. When the books are that good, it seems like the kids can hardly get enough. If I had a child doing extensions, I think I'd find it's the follow-up activities that may require additional writing that could be too much with the rest. HTH as you think this through!

In Christ,
Julie