We are finishing up Bigger Hearts and have had an awesome year with it. I'm so glad you get to look forward to using it as well!
You don't need to ever worry about your DITHOR guide and workbooks collecting dust - they are just way to important to be dust holders!
You and your dc will reach for those wonderful books every single day, and you will use the DITHOR guide book from now up through eighth grade. It is going to get some serious use, believe me.
DITHOR is very important to do. It provides the reading instruction for students, and it incrementally moves them along in their skills year after year. I cannot imagine where we'd be without it. My oldest ds read very well very young, but when it comes to the reading skills, dc must be taught them or they just don't progress past "reading very well". In CTC last year, my oldest ds did awesome with reading and understanding the classical pieces within his creative writing program "Write with the Best". He could easily read the "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" excerpt, work through the comprehension of it, and then use that modeling to write his own piece. DITHOR made this possible.
In RTR this year, my oldest ds did the Shakespeare study and did not bat an eye. He was so ready for it. The same with his history reading assignments and follow-ups - which were quite meaty - DITHOR made this possible. Looking ahead to lit studies in high school, I am not worried. All of those higher level thinking skills, familiarity with the genres, knowledge of the story elements, ability to use contextual clues for vocabulary, skills to be able to analyze literature - he has those skills in place, and you guessed it, it's because of DITHOR.
So many times I hear of dc simply reading books from year to year, and though the books may be increasing in reading level, there is an entire set of reading skills that simply must be taught to be known. Believe me, when dc begin high school, it becomes all too clear who was prepared for that level of LA and who was not. Dc who have simply read through the years are not ready, and those are the dc who often times must come back and do DITHOR Level 6/7/8 at least for a year or two to even be able to begin to be prepared for high school reading skills. DITHOR prepares our dc well through the years, and it does it in a smooth, step-by-step way that is not overwhelming and that does not require a ton of time. Dc must have these reading skills at some point. If they are not taught them now, they will have to be taught them later, and at that point, major backtracking is the result.
I am soooo glad you asked this question, and the answer is a resounding "yes", dc do need to be having "Drawn into the Heart of Reading" instruction year after year. DITHOR is not hard to teach, does not take long, prepares dc well for upper level reading skills, and it encourages a lifelong passion for reading excellent living books - it is worth every minute of time spent on it. HTH!
In Christ,
Julie
Both are used and needed for reading instruction.