Trying DITHR again next fall!

[Tree House Academy]

I am very excited. My son was doing well with DITHR, but when we switched to the textbooks for him (after finding so many gaps from ps), we went ahead and switched to the R&S reading as well. He has begged me since then to PLEASE let him go back to DITHR. In the fall, since we are going to be using CTC for him, finally, we are going back to using DITHR. We are both very excited. We are going to pick up right where we left off last year so we don't miss a thing.

Now, we get to have fun finding books to read!

[Kathleen]

You & your son will LOVE it again, I'm sure!! Grant told me today that reading was his FAVORITE thing to do every day. (Now, he's also said this about science, which he always loves, storytime, writing poetry...an the list goes on!) I'm so glad that he truly enjoys school, even though he's ALL boy and loves all things outside & free-time related! Right now though he's reading The Sign of the Beaver from the 4/5 boy pack and is totally into it, so I think that may be why it's at the TOP of the list. Carrie's book choices are great, so I'd start there if I were you. Have fun picking out books!!

Kathleen

[Tree House Academy]

The issue I had with DITHR is that I was not reading the books with my son, so I was having a hard time helping him with his work on days when he needed help. This year, I have decided that it will be his "read aloud" to me. Instead of him reading to himself (which he does for hours on end daily anyway), he will read the chapters to me. I have my read aloud time with him and he has his with me. Since DITHR will only be 3 days a week as scheduled in CTC, I think it is completely do-able. I look forward to him reading to me.

We are slowing going to start my younger one on DITHR. I want to finish the R&S Phonics/Reading that really go together when they are young and then we are going to start DITHR. My younger is already picking out the books he wants to read. Right now, it is anything with an animal on the front of it! :

[sharonb]

Rebecca-
That's why I myself was hesitant to go with DITHOR- the fact that I might not be familiar enough with the book to help dd. I know that a combination of reading aloud and silent reading is fine once they are really fluent readers, BUT, I want to be able to keep up with the books too. So, I also think that I will have her read her DITHOR books completely aloud, and just plan on doing it 2-3 days a week at first to see how that goes! Or I might pre-read her books right before she reads them, and see if that's enough. I don't know. I just know that all the positives of DITHOR outweighed that one concern of mine. I have a lot going on here, but it's worth making this work!

[funkmomma71]

I've actually read many of the books we will be doing in the upcoming guides and DITHOR; surprisingly I have found myself enjoying most of the books. I wouldn't hesitate to pre-read the books for DITHOR, it sure beats sitting in front of the boob-tube.

[my3sons]

Welcome back to the happy reading land of DITHOR, Rebecca! I think that's a super way to begin, and I think you'll know if it's something you're loving enough and seeing the benefits enough of, to continue with throughout the year. You may find you'd eventually like to do 50/50 with his reading aloud part of the time to you and part of the time independently, or you may find you love listening to your sweetie read it all to you for the whole year. I think you'll definitely know what fits your time together best once you're doing it, and he will too. I'm glad you'll be doing DITHOR again - it's such a joyful way to teach reading!

In Christ,
Julie