Reading Bog-Down?

[mothermayi]

Hi! As I add the final things to my cart, a thought entered my mind. We are going to do RTR with a 5th and 6th grader but we are totally new to the quantity of reading required in HOD. With our previous program, it was designed for mom to read everything aloud (I am really tired of reading aloud for hours . Anyway, how long does it take your dc to read all of the assigned pages each day and then do DITHOR? I don't want dc to feel bogged down with reading. I also don't want to read aloud for two or more hours per day. Should we choose a lower level on the placement chart just to have less reading? Both of my boys placed solidly in RTR. Thanks!!

[StephanieU]

Have you seen this post? It has the time per box for all of the guides:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2093&start=135#p74537

[LynnH]

The readings in RTR are not that long. My ds is a slow reader and the reading about history usually only took him 10-15 minutes to do the reading and then he did the follow up activity. The only readings that took longer are when he read from Peril and Peace and also Monks and Mystics. These books took maybe 20 minutes for him to read. The reading in Mystery of History are short. The science reading was also about 15 minutes. The storytime reading you do. Usually the maximum that takes with you reading is 30 minutes. You can control the amount of reading in DITHOR. I always scheduled books that were a little shorter just because I knew my ds reads slow so most of the time he was only reading 13 pages at the most. Everything really is balanced. My ds doesn't like to read at all in his free time, but he enjoys the HOD books. The only one in RTR that he ever struggled with was Peril and Peace and I think that is because he was new to that series and the writing style was different for him. He also was used to the short readings in the other history spines so when he saw 15 pages scheduled in this book he would get a little stressed. Eventually he got used to it and he really liked the church history that this book contained.

[mothermayi]

Thanks, Ladies!! So RTR it is! I can't wait!!

[mom23]

In general, HOD deliberately keeps the reading times pretty minimal; it's part of the Charlotte Mason influence in their approach. A very manageable reading, followed by lots of digging deeper in the meaning of what was read and processing that. If your kids placed solidly in RTR, I wouldn't hesitate to go with it! With that said, you know your kids and what has been expected of them in the past and what they're going to be able to reasonably handle in the adjustment to a new curriculum. You may consider easing them in-wait a couple of weeks to begin DITHOR (that's the heaviest reading requirement), or consider going half speed to begin with. There are lots of threads on how to do that, and I think it looks different for different families, but it basically means that you would take 2 weeks of your time to get through each "Week" in the manual. Turn 4 days of work into 8. Even for those who have used HOD in the past I think that's helpful advice at the start of a new guide because it does help take off some of the pressure in adjusting to a new guide and new requirements.