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I have looked at the chart and my almost 8yo fits great in Preparing. However , he needs to study some American History this year. How does it work if my son is advanced in spelling ? He just started Rod &Staff spelling 3 this year and it's doing great . He writes narrations, letters to grandma and his spelling& punctuation is most of the time perfect . But thisyear I decided to go with a dictation approach instead of a boring R&S workbook.

I would like to know if Bigger schedules dictation for older kids since it sells extra package for them?
I know I could add dictation from his history , etc but I would like something ready for me to go .
I am a very busy mama of four under 8 and one is more special needs ...so if I don't have something planned out for me , it doesn't get done !

That's one of the reasons I chose to go with HOD this year !

If you scroll down to my3sons (Julie) second post in this thread, you can see samples of dictation from the guides. Bigger has level 2 dictation and Preparing has levels 2, 3, and 4. HTH!

Thank you for that link . It looks like he could easily do level 3 . So how do I get to buy level 3 ? Does HOD sells a separate spelling book or do I have to buy Preparing for that ?

You would have to consider maying doing the left side pages of the Bigger Manual (which will give you american History) and then also doing the right side pages of Preparing - which will give you the dictation and the other "basics" on your ds' level. Yes, you do have to buy both manuals for this. HOD does not seperate parts of the guides.

, I decided to go with bigger and just do something else for spelling &LA . I read it works great for some families. I cannot afford another guide since I already have to buy Little hearts for my younger one. If bigger it's not challenging enough for him (as another lady was complaining ) I will just add more books to read . He loves to read. And my philosophy in the early years is better less than too much

I just wanted to suggest that you give the LA in Bigger Hearts a whirl! Why not, right? You have the guide. In Bigger Hearts, R & S English 2 is scheduled for grammar, Drawn into the Heart of Reading 2/3 for reading instruction, copywork of the classical poetry, dictation level 2, and oral narrations in response to the history, science, and storytime readings. This is an outstanding combination of LA! Dictation is also harder than it appears. I thought for sure my ds would not miss any, but a stray punctuation mark, or writing "too" as "to" still qualify as mistakes and give good cause for that level of dictation still being necessary. Why not read over the directions in the Bigger Hearts appendix for dictation and give it a try? You can always skip ahead to the middle of dictation if need be, but I do think dd will find it harder than you may think at first. Just couldn't resist the urge to put a bug in your ear to give it a chance - we're doing BIgger Hearts along with DITHOR 2/3 now, and seeing huge growth in LA skill for our already excellent reader/writer.

In Christ,
Julie