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My DS is ready for the emerging readers and I had planned on ordering them and having them ready to start right after Christmas. We ended up having some car trouble and the money I had set aside had to be spent on that instead. I was at Wal-mart today and they had the Beginner's Bible on sale so I went ahead and bought it so he could get started. I won't be able to order the Beyond guide and the rest of the books till sometime in February. Can someone tell me how this is scheduled? Does he just read 1 story per day or is it a certain number of pages or what? Also, will he miss out terribly by not having the questions from the Beyond guide for this first month or so? Thanks!

Hi there,

The Beginner's bible is not really scheduled according to pages or number of stories. On average we have been reading 2-3 stories per day or approx 14-15 pages I think. There are 3 questions per day focusing on different skills. Your son would get the most out of them if you had the guide, but if this is not possible, I suppose you could compose your own questions in the mean time. Maybe only read it a few times per week until you get the guide and read some other ability appropriate books in the mean time so he does not miss out. You can always catch up a bit later. My son would read the whole bible in one day if I let him, he loves this book so much!

You are going to enjoy the ERS so much! The book selection and progression is excellent - and it's just plain fun to see our dc take off in their reading! The questions for the ERS in the Beyond guide helped my ds strengthen his reading comprehension skills, as well as his oral narrating skills. Carrie wrote the questions according to Bloom's Taxonomy, so they progress systematically to the higher levels of the pyramid. She also wrote them to begin to lead dc toward CM style oral narration skills. Beginning without them due to budgetary reasons would probably be fine, but personally I wouldn't proceed long without them. The ERS is the transition between phonics and "Drawn into the Heart of Reading". Dc need to draw on all that was learned within the ERS as well as what skills were learned from the HOD guide's Storytime box to be able to do DITHOR well. The "Early Readers Bible" is the only book that has the questions right in it. If you could take back your "Beginner's Bible", and get the "Early Reader's Bible" from HOD, starting with that, and ordering the ERS set with "The Beginner's Bible" choice next, would probably work well (plus you'd get the great package savings HOD has in place). HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

I was going to suggest the same thing as Julie. I'd start with the Early Readers Bible since the questions are right in it. This should take about 9 weeks...then you can get the whole set and go on from there. I'm AMAZED at how well Allison is doing with reading now. The Emerging Readers are going super for us here!

Kathleen

I've been wondering how to schedule both bibles in the ERS, using the standard 34 units from start to finish, when only one or the other is scheduled. I plan to do the Emerging Readers starting next fall with Bigger. I have a struggling reader right now finishing phonics. I was hoping to use both Bibles. I thought about using the Early Readers Bible in the summer before the official school year begins. Is that what others do who want to use both?

Thanks,

mamaduke wrote:I've been wondering how to schedule both bibles in the ERS, using the standard 34 units from start to finish, when only one or the other is scheduled. I plan to do the Emerging Readers starting next fall with Bigger. I have a struggling reader right now finishing phonics. I was hoping to use both Bibles. I thought about using the Early Readers Bible in the summer before the official school year begins. Is that what others do who want to use both?

Thanks,

HI Julie! We just started the "Early Reader's Bible" when we finished phonics. It adds about 9 weeks. You can just start it whenever you think your ds is ready for it, and summer would work out just fine if that's when he is ready to begin. If you feel he needs more phonics instruction before he is ready to start the ERS, you could always do that through this summer, and then finish out the ERS the next summer. I like to think as the reading kind of running at its own pace. Whenever you finish phonics, the ERS can be started. Whenever you finish the ERS, DITHOR 2/3 can be started (half-speed if need be). But, by the time dc are in PHFHG, they need to be able to read their science books, so that's a general guideline to strive to meet. Another general guideline, by the time they are in CTC they need to be able to read their history books on their own. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Julie, thank you for your help. I see how that works now. I really don't know when ds7 will be ready to start the readers. I think he could be close-ish, now. He was not enjoying the phonics program, so I set it aside about halfway through and picked up some easy readers from the library. He has been doing OK, but only a page or two a day, depending on how many words on each page. He really looked forward to each page in the Cowboy Sam series and i was glad to make it fun for him. But now, as we're about 1/3 done with the school year, I'm thinking he might really need to finish phonics officially, before spending too much time in readers. I'm afraid he may learn too many words by sight as I help him with some rules he had not learned yet. The problem with that is perhaps not being able to decode unknown words later in life.

I guess I know my answer, he must get the rest of the reading tools he needs. I just wish I could help him enjoy it. I like your idea of a small immediate treat. We have not tried that yet.

Thanks ladies for your help! Unfortunately I couldn't find the Early Reader's Bible anywhere locally. DS already looked through the Beginner's Bible and read the first couple of stories. He is excited about reading it himself! I should be able to order the Beyond guide in another couple of weeks so I think we'll be OK for now. I may have him tell me a couple of things about the story when he finishes it just to make sure he's comprehending as he reads. Can't wait to get the guide and have it all schedule out for me though!