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My 7 yr. old is almost finished with the Early Reader's Bible. I am thrilled with how it has solidified his reading skills and given him such a huge bank of words to draw on (that have become sight words.) I am so thankful that there is a line up of book titles to help him progress. I see now how much this would have helped my 9 yr. old when he finished his first grade phonics program. I had no idea where to go really and in hindsight I see I was pushing him to read books that were too difficult.

I have a question for those of you who have used both Bibles from the ER set. Did you find it beneficial? Would you do it again? I change my mind everyday about whether or not I want to use the Beginner's Bible. I am a little afraid of overkill with Bible stories. Sure, he loves them, but he also is chomping at the bit to read other books and I only have so much time in the day. I don't want to set him to reading independently yet so that I can correct him when he tries to guess (because he doesn't want to use the mental energy to sound out the word.)

Hi, I haven't used both Bibles, but recently my ds was halfway through the Early Reader's Bible, well within his reading abilities, yet complaining about reading it. I addressed it first as a discipline issue, then realized that needed more variety. We skipped the last half of the Bible, leaving it for free reading, and jumped into Owl at Home, and his enthusiasm resurfaced! He loves "school reading" again, and thinks these books are great. He loves the alternate reading suggestions as well. Every child is different, so if your son needs to move on, I'm sure he'll be fine just taking it at his speed And he reads them aloud to me. I check out other library books for him to read to himself or his sister.

We used both Bibles and I'm so glad we did it that way, I have no regrets! My son finished TRL last May, so I had him read the Early Reader's Bible over the summer. I did that for two reasons....I didn't want to start the ER set until fall and I didn't think he was quite ready for the Beginner's Bible. The Early Reader's Bible was a *perfect* transition out of TRL, IMO. After he finished the Early Reader's Bible, he went straight into the Beginner's Bible with no problem and now he's on the Frog and Toad books and doing great. I was also a little concerned that reading both Bibles would be too much Bible, but he didn't complain at all and thoroughly enjoyed both books. That is just his personality though....not much of a complainer. Looking back, I'm really glad I had him the Early Reader's Bible first because I think the Beginner's Bible would have been too hard for him at that point and led to him getting frustrated. HTH!

Thanks for your input.

We have done some of the alternate titles from the list and some easy readers off our shelves. He loves that! The Early Bible Reader has really boosted his confidence. I think he will need a little dose of some of the later phonics lessons. We used another program with him (nothing recommended by HOD) and didn't finish it. So after having him struggle a bit with Katy and the Big Snow yesterday I realize I have to stop putting it off and pick up that phonics program and finish it/review some things. I don't think we left a huge amount undone. I guess that is what has me wondering if I should take the time to do the other Bible. Kind of buy him some time and maybe solidify some more phonics and let more words become sight words? hmm. I think I will continue on and see how he does, and won't buy the Beginner's Bible unless he really struggles. He has been surprising me lately with seemingly reading everything in sight! That gets a little scary in the grocery store!

I'm so excited! We started Owl at Home and he is doing wonderfully! He reads ahead when I'm not looking. This makes my heart sing!

I did both Bibles with my ds, but when he did Beginner's Bible I started him on the other ER books as well. He used it more as a devotion and was so proud of the fact that he had his own Bible to read in the morning. When he finished the Beginner's Bible he got his 'Adult Bible'!
I intend on doing the same thing with my 2 other kiddo's!

I was fully intending on doing both with my dd because she was still struggling so much with reading and we already owned the other Bible from needing it at church. I think this was this summer when I was still in the planning stages. Maybe mid-May. Anyway, she suddenly took off with reading and it has gotten to where even the Early Reader's Bible was way too easy. We finished that out and I decided yesterday to just go ahead and start Owl at Home. (It really clinched things when Tuesday she started reading to me in the car from the book of Ruth from the "real" Bible she uses during church to look up the verses. I decided that she would probably do just fine moving ahead. ) The first day of Owl at Home went super well-she read it in her head first, and then read it to me and read it perfectly. All of that is to say, though, that I personally don't think it would be overkill to do both Bibles, and that we were certainly planning it. We have been doing a phonics page a day with another program just to review/solidify things, and then doing a lot of other reading (my in-laws got us some 2nd grade reading textbooks left over from their school, and she's been reading the stories out of there-things like Henry and Mudge), so she was just ready to move on. I do think that continuing both Bibles is a good idea, though, since there is such a jump between the two, in my opinion anyway. My dd does read those stories pretty often to her brother and sister, we just don't use them for school.

moedertje wrote:I did both Bibles with my ds, but when he did Beginner's Bible I started him on the other ER books as well. He used it more as a devotion and was so proud of the fact that he had his own Bible to read in the morning. When he finished the Beginner's Bible he got his 'Adult Bible'!

This is what we did with our oldest ds, as he was ready for it! He loved this.

With our middle ds, he started the ERS even younger than my older ds, and he really did need to read through both Bible choices using the pace planned in the Appendix. This was perfect for him!

So, based on what you shared about "Owl at Home" (hooray, BTW! ), I'd give him "The Beginner's Bible" to read for fun independently. For the ERS though, I'd tell him he needs to slow down and follow the pace suggested in the Appendix, or he'll get to the more difficult books way too quickly. You will know best here though - HTH!

In Christ,
Julie