WHEN TO START DRAWN INTO THE HEART OF READING

[jmh]

WE ARE DOING BIGGER HEARTS FOR HIS GLORY . WE LOVE IT SO FAR. MY SON IS 8. WE ARE WORKING THROUGH THE EMERGING READER SET AND KIND OF ADDING IN BOOKS THAT HE IS INTERESTED IN. HOW DO I KNOW WHEN HE IS READY TO START THE DRAWN INTO THE HEART OF READING PROGRAM?


HE SEEMS TO BE DOING WELL WITH THE READER SET. SOME OF THEM SEEM TOO EASY AND SOME SEEM DIFFICULT.




tHANKS!!

[StephanieU]

Are you following the schedule on the back of the guide for the ER books? It has a daily reading schedule plus followup questions for each day.
Once they are done with the ER books, they are ready for the Level 2 DITHOR books. The DITHOR manual itself is somewhat similar to Storytime in Bigger. Some kids aren't ready for the double dose of literary analysis, but it is okay just to finish out the year reading some of the level 2 books if that is a better fit.

[jmh]

OK THANKS!

HE IS DEFINITELY NOT READY FOR THE BOOKS THAT ARE IN STORYTIME! WE ARE LOVING INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD RIGHT NOW!

I THINK WE WILL JUST KEEP GOING WHERE WE ARE

[Nealewill]

Just to confirm, she didn't mean that he would be reading the storytime books. There are level 2 books for DITHOR that your son would read and they cover similar but different information in regards to the literature. Those books are much easier to read than the books that are scheduled for story time.

My youngest started DITHOR at 6 because she did whatever her brother did and she started reading very young. But my other two kids started when they were 8 or so and could easily read the Emerging readers and were ready for more challenging books. Because I have most of the book sets (my kids enjoy reading and they love the HOD picks), I already owned all of the books for both level 2 and level 3 book sets. I remember setting each book set up on the dining room table by genre (like both biographies were in a pile, both adventures, etc) and let my kids pick what they wanted. With my younger two - that was fun. They went through each decided who would read which book(s) and there were none left over. I will say that some of the books from level 2 and 3 overlap in difficulty. You don't need to necessarily buy both book sets, you can just buy one or the other based on their reading level. Each book set gets a little bit more challenging as they go up. Some of the books get longer and with the higher sets, they print seems to be smaller. I stell let my kids pick their books when they move up in level but I choose which books they can pick from. The books that don't get picked (if we own the whole set and it was never selected) are either read later by them when they have free time or I read them aloud to the kids at various times when we feel like reading extra books aloud as a family.

You definitely don't have to start DITHOR in Bigger but if they your child is soring through the Emerging readers, I would consider it. We knew it was time when my kids would sit down to read the ER book and I would assign their reading for the day, come back, and they were 2-3 days ahead LOL. Some of the books at the end are page turners! My son finished the book Tornado in 2 days because he couldn't put it down. Same with Bears on Hemlock Mountain and the Courage of Sarah Noble. My kids LOVED those books and read them more quickly than they were scheduled. Many of the books in ER set were read and read by my kiddos. I would go ahead and finish out the ER set first if you haven't done so already but if you child wants to read more quickly, that is a good sign that they are more than ready to start DITHOR. If they don't want to speed it up, no worries. I would just finish ERs with the schedule in the back and then you can always start DITHOR when you start Preparing.

[jmh]

thanks so much ladies