heartofdakota.com

Both of my older children are in the upper age range. DS is 13 using RTR meaning he will start Rev to Rev at 13 (the upper age) but turn 14 half-way through the year. Same for dd. She will begin CTC in the fall at age 11, but turns 12 in January. My question is, do you use the extensions for your dc that are at the upper end or do you just have them do the guide as is? And, what about DITHOR? Would the extension books work well for that or should I also have them doing the follow-ups from the Appendix for their extensions? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

I too am wondering about DITHOR working with the Extension books for older kids. The catalog mentions using the Boy or Girl interest books from CtC for DITHOR, so I was wondering if the Extension books cover the genres for DITHOR. I do personally think that HOD is quite advanced, though, so even if your child is at the very end of the age range suggested, I think it's still challenging. My ds is using CtC in 9th, and although I am supplementing with some SL books, we are both thoroughly enjoying the program. Of course, I'm new to HOD this year, so I am eager to hear from the more seasoned mom's here too

I'm kind of in the same situation. My dd just turned 11 in March. We are using Preparing for 5th grade and will use CtC for 6th... without extensions (except for those that I can't resist, and I sometimes just use them as a read aloud). We use the guide as is, though I usually require the tougher part of the assignment. For example, if the instructions say to write a 3 to 5 sentence narration, I have her do 5. I think it depends on the child, but this level is perfect for my dd. If I find she is getting bored with the work, that she isn't challenged, then I can add in the extensions. Her math and grammar are at grade level. I didn't use the extension books for DITHOR, but that's only because there are so many other wonderful books in the book packs.

inHistiming wrote:Both of my older children are in the upper age range. DS is 13 using RTRm meaning he will start Rev to Rev at 13 (the upper age) but turn 14 half-way through the year. Same for dd. She will begin CTC in the fall at age 11, but turns 12 in January. My question is, do you use the extensions for your dc that are at the upper end or do you just have them do the guide as is? And, what about DITHOR? Would the extension books work well for that or should I also have them doing the follow-ups from the Appendix for their extensions? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Good question! In CTC, the target age range is 9-11 yo, and the extensions are for 12-13 yo's. In RTR, the target age range is 10-12 yo, and the extensions are written for 13-14 yo's. I wouldn't use the extensions for your 11 yo turning 12, but I probably would for your 13 turning 14 yo. However, if your 13 turning 14 yo will be overly challenged by the extensions, and therefore doing the daily plans of the guide will become too much, then I would not use the extensions. Completing all of the daily plans of the guide (including "Drawn into the Heart of Reading") is more important than doing the extensions. The daily plans of the guide includes the incremental teaching of skills, so it's important to first and foremost do all that is scheduled in the daily plans. The extensions can beef up the learning in several different ways for older dc. First, simply doing the additional reading of the extension packages ups the learning, because the students are doing more reading themselves. Second, they are also learning more about the historical time period. Third, if they do the follow-up extension assignments, they are building skills that way as well. So, if dc need RTR beefed up, they can just read the extension titles, or they can both read the titles and do the extension follow-ups - whichever fits their needs the best.

The extension titles are not meant to be used with "Drawn into the Heart of Reading", and they don't work well for that purpose, as they are scheduled to match the daily history readings (rather than be 5, 10, 15 days' worth of reading like DITHOR is), and they don't represent very many different genres (pretty much just nonfiction and historical fiction). If you are thinking you'd need to have the Extension books double as DITHOR books because having both extension books and separate DITHOR books would just be too much reading, that is probably an indicator that the Extension Package is too much for the student - in which case, DITHOR should be chosen instead of the Extension Package. RTR is quite meaty. Even for older dc. You may want to begin with the daily plans, making sure to do DITHOR, and then add the extensions after a month if they are needed. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks, Julie. I was asking because I am trying to decide if I should order DITHOR. He is currently doing the extension readings, though I have waited until today to tell him to begin the follow-ups, starting Monday. It is not too much for him. He loves to read and really is enjoying ALL of the books with HOD. I know he needs to have some literature study so really was just wondering if I could use the ext. pack that we already have to save some money. However, since we can choose whatever books we want, I'm sure I can use some of what we already have along with some from the library to create a great package.

Along those lines....I already have the ext. books for my dd but have not had her reading them. Would it be possible to use those for my son's DITHOR readings? I'm guessing they will be a bit below his reading level...I'll have to check to see exactly which titles I have.....but I'm just not sure how much that matters since I have not yet used DITHOR. Thanks for chiming in and of course any more advice is very welcome!

The girl or boy read-alouds from CTC can work for DITHOR if you aren't using them as read alouds (if you are using the history read-aloud option).