Which Level to use?

[anne0rdman]

Hello! This will be our first year using HOD. My daughter will be 10/5th grade when we start and we are going to use Preparing. She reads a little bit above grade level. My original plan was to us books from the 4/5 list with the 2/3 workbook. Would that work well? I see a lot of people don't even use the workbooks until higher levels, so now I'm confused about what to do! She definitely doesn't love writing and I don't want to overwhelm her this first year using hod!

[Gwenny]

It is recommended to start someone brand new and that age at the 2/3 book. As far as what to read, you want the reading to be slightly easy for them. In DITHR, the goal is not to challenge on the reading but to have it fairly simple so they can analyze/think about/work with the book. So, it could be that she should do something in the 2 or 3 book pack.