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Ok ladies. I'm confused because I see several people say that in level 2/3 of DITHOR that the child should read aloud to the parent. I"m confused because I don't read that anywhere. It was my understanding that DITHOR was meant to be independent reading for the child. The Emerging Readers are read aloud but then you move into DITHOR after finishing the Emerging Readers and DITHOR books are read independently at that point.

What am I missing?

It's in the daily assignments. At that stage you still need to listen to most of their reading.

anointedhsmom wrote:Ok ladies. I'm confused because I see several people say that in level 2/3 of DITHOR that the child should read aloud to the parent. I"m confused because I don't read that anywhere. It was my understanding that DITHOR was meant to be independent reading for the child. The Emerging Readers are read aloud but then you move into DITHOR after finishing the Emerging Readers and DITHOR books are read independently at that point.

What am I missing?

Amy is correct-and so are you-in 2/3 the child reads aloud to you, which is the beginning of independent reading. The child is still working on fluency and comprehension. This is in the DITHOR teacher manual daily lessons, and the parent is to work with the child to complete the workbook pages-both the manual and the workbook are necessary at all levels. Level 4/5 has the child reading aloud to you sometimes with more independent work, then level 6/7/8 no longer has them reading aloud to you, and the daily lessons are almost all independent.

I wasn't aware of this either. What if your child has already been reading well on their own?

That's a good question. I'm sure it will come down to how well you feel your child is comprehending on his or her own, and you could decide to omit having your child read to you. But I can tell you that having my daughter read aloud to me for DITHOR 2/3 a few years ago was very revealing. Because she often chose books from the library and read them and told me about them, I thought there were no issues. When she read aloud to me, however, I found she was skipping or substituting words and inventing pronunciations I am glad I had her read aloud to me at the time, as it enabled us to work on those previously undiscovered areas.
Having her read aloud to me didn't take long-the books for level 2/3 are short, so a daily reading is very brief. In level 4/5, when a "read aloud" is scheduled, the child is instructed to leave only 3 or 4 pages at the end of their assigned reading for the day to read aloud to their parent, meaning the rest of the day's reading is done silently. So listening to the child read aloud only takes a few minutes anyway.
Even before I ever heard of DITHOR, when I taught my oldest children I used to take turns reading aloud to them and then having them read aloud. They both continue to be voracious readers, reading several large books a week in addition to their schoolwork, just for fun. They are also very expressive when they read aloud, and rarely mispronounce a word. It is a good skill to develop, even if it's just so they can effectively homeschool their own children someday
Curriculum is a tool. You can use it as you wish, depending on your goals for your children. But I have come to see there is not anything written into Heart of Dakota without a purpose

Besides comprehension, there's a whole list in the appendix of DITHOR that the daily teacher plans refer you to with specific oral reading skills for your student to work on. Reading aloud is an important skill to work on at this age - and one that will most likely be necessary throughout life. Correct pronounciation is one of the things you can help with, but also reading clearly, loudly enough to match your audience, with expression, with proper pauses, at a good speed, etc. I think that this stage is called "independent reading" because the child is able to pick up a book and read independently, BUT DITHOR is your time for reading instruction so they don't just take it and do it themselves. You discuss things with them. When they're young, you help with the student book and learning to think about the answers and move to being able to record them on paper. And, you also work on teaching oral reading skills for a few years. Make sense?

Kathleen

That does make sense, and I've never considered that this would be beneficial at this age. I'm glad you asked this question, anointedhsmom. I haven't really delved into my DITHOR TM enough to even catch that. I was just planning on doing the same thing that I did this year: Hand her a book and say, "Read two chapters today." lol

Excellent advice in this thread! Thanks, ladies!

Blessings,
Carrie