Bigger and/or DITHOR

[sahervey]

If I plan on doing Bigger for a 7, 9, and 11 year old, do I buy the Emerging Readers (7 year old), the Boy Interest (7 year old) and the Extension Package (9 & 11 yr old) for Bigger AND Dithor's Level 5/6 for boy (9 yr old) and girl (11 yr old)? I guess my question is do I just do one or the other-- bigger's books or Dithor's books?

If not, i'm looking at about 70 books to buy!

[moedertje]

Sahervey,
I don't know if you have done the placement chart for your kiddo's especially your 7 year old who is going to do Emergent Readers. Beyond sounds like it might be a good match while he is still finishing his phonics/reading. This would allow your ds of 7 to grow in the skills required in Bigger and he will also get more out of it being a little older. I totally understand that you perhaps want to group all your kiddo's together, but Bigger requires some skills that might be much for your 7 year old.
Even though many 7 year old boys place in Bigger, it seems like so many Mom's on the board notice that they do better and get more out of it at age 8 or even 9.
http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

Now to get to your questions:
You will need ER for ds 7. He will not do DITHOR till he finishes with ER.
If you keep all 3 in Bigger, you can easily get away with using the same story time book for all 3 kiddo's. You could pick the classic set!
The extension package will most likely be needed for your dd 11. (These are extra readers to compliment history and science)
For DITHOR you will need books at your child's grade/reading level. You might want to start off a level lower to introduce them to the program. (someone else might be able to chime in on this and help you a bit better).
For DITHOR you only need 1 workbook per level. You are allowed to copy for your family.
DITHOR and story time are two different sets of books.
Hope this helps and does not confuse you more
Succes with what ever the Lord leads you to do with your kiddo's and hope that HOD blesses your family as much as it has mine.

[pjdobro]

You will need one set of read alouds for storytime for Bigger. You could choose the classic set, the boy set, or the girl set or mix and match books from these 3 sets or choose your own book for each genre. This book will be read out loud to all 3 children utilizing the activities in the Storytime box in the plans. Here is what the beginning of the guide says about the Storytime box:

Daily storytime sessions are based on literature that is read aloud from the following nine genres: Biography, Adventure, Historical Fiction, Fantasy,
Mystery, Nonfiction, Humor, Realistic Fiction, and Folk Tale. Each type of literature is read aloud for 20 days, except for Folk Tale which is read aloud
for 10 days. The instructions and activities are written to be used with any literature. This flexibility allows you to use your own discretion in selecting literature to read aloud to your students. The structure also allows you to select the pace at which you complete your read-aloud selection. A suggested list of read-aloud titles is provided in the Appendix. This list of titles is not necessary to complete the program. It is an optional list to help you choose literature for each genre to read aloud. Each book on the list was very carefully chosen as an excellent read-aloud for this listening level. Heart of Dakota Publishing sells three different packages of the listed read-aloud selections on the website

The emerging readers and DITHOR are both used for the Reading Choices box of the guide. If your 7 year old is an emerging reader then the emerging readers would be a great choice for him or you may choose your own reading program. For your 9 and 11 year old, you would use DITHOR and choose an appropriate book set or individual books for each of them. Here is what the beginning of the guide says about the Reading Box:

A reading instruction reminder is listed in the plans daily. This is the area where your child practices his/her reading skills. If your child is an
emerging reader, choose to follow the Emerging Reader’s Schedule in the Appendix, or use your own program. If your child is an independent reader, choose Drawn into the Heart of Reading: Level 2/3, or use your own reading program. Since I believe reading instruction is a very personal decision for each family, Bigger Hearts for His Glory was designed to work with any reading program that you choose.

If you want to add to the level of the program for your older children, you would add the extension books. These books are to be read independently by the dc to extend the learning of the history and science. You would probably only need this for your 11 year old since your 9 year old would fall into the age range of the guide without extensions.

So in summary, you need a set of books for the Storytime box which will be 9 books. You will need to decide what to use for reading for each of your 3 dc. That could be the emerging readers set plus a DITHOR set for each child. You would need to decide whether or not to extend the history and science for your older children and if you do that, you would need the extension set. It is quite a few books! Remember though that you can choose any book in the correct genre that you want for the Storytime box of the plans; you can choose any reading program you want; and you can choose to use the extensions for your older children or not. There is a lot of flexibility in the plans. All of the HOD books choices are excellent and if you can afford to get them, I don't think you will be disappointed having them on hand. Many of the books might also be available at your library so that is another option. I would recommend when you get the DITHOR guide to get the Sample Book List as well. That will help in choosing books at the right level for each genre if you choose to use the library for your selections. We are really enjoying Bigger now. Welcome and enjoy Bigger!

[sahervey]

The ages I quoted earlier are the ages they'll be next year. What if my 6yr old is in Kindergarten now and is reading at a 2.3 level? And my older two are both reading at the 6.1+ range? Should I still consider the Emerging Readers for the younger one. His teacher basically said that he already knows the phonics part so far.

Can I get away with NOT purchasing the extension books? Can't we just check some out from the library for whatever history/science we're stuyding?

[my3sons]

The ages I quoted earlier are the ages they'll be next year. What if my 6yr old is in Kindergarten now and is reading at a 2.3 level? And my older two are both reading at the 6.1+ range? Should I still consider the Emerging Readers for the younger one. His teacher basically said that he already knows the phonics part so far.

Can I get away with NOT purchasing the extension books? Can't we just check some out from the library for whatever history/science we're stuyding?

The extension books are what extend the history and the science areas to be appropriate for 10-11 yo's. Since you have an 11 yo, I think you probably would want them. You could start with just the first few extension books and see how it goes. If you wanted to extend these subject areas in another way on your own, you could, but the connections to the historical time period and the science themes already written so beautifully in the extension package would be tough to top. If your 6 yo is in kindergarten now, I don't think Bigger Hearts would be a good placement for him. It is a very meaty program! Have you had a chance to look at the placement chart? Here's a link to that:
http://www.heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php

If you had your older 2 dc do Bigger Hearts, or even Preparing Hearts, they would be pretty independent. If they did PHFHG, they probably wouldn't need the extension package. Then your 6 yo could do Beyond Little Hearts, which is a wonderful program, inexpensive, and easy to teach. I taught Preparing Hearts and Beyond Little Hearts at the same time years ago, and we had such a good year. My older ds didn't have to wait for my younger ds to finish, and my younger ds didn't have to be stretched way too far or do school for too long. As far as your 6 yo's reading, I would probably have him read through the Emerging Reader's Set. They begin with Level 2 books, but progress fairly quickly to Level 3 to Level 4+ books. The Emerging Reader's Set is a delight to use! The comprehension questions in the back of the HOD guide really do wonders to prepare dc for the more difficult reading instruction in DITHOR. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[pjdobro]

I would second using the emerging readers. They are good for so much more than just increasing reading level. They really help teach the dear children to slow down and comprehend what they are reading. They also help with their reading aloud skills. I used them with my two dc both at different ends of the spectrum. For my ds, they were still a challenge in the actual reading level at first (he was reading about 2nd grade level at the time), but for my dd they were way below her actual reading level. She was reading around 4th grade level when we started the emerging readers. They were great for my ds in helping him increase his reading level, fluency, and comprehension. For my dd, they really helped her with her reading fluency and helped her think more deeply about what she was reading. It was a great bridge between doing reading for fun and early readers to reading more in depth chapter books and evaluating them. They are such a breeze for the teacher to use too, so I loved them!

[sahervey]

Thanks, everyone, for your help. I've also put in an email to Carrie to get her opinion. I appreciate your insight and have a lot to consider now!

[Carrie]

sahervey,

I think I've responded to you now by email, so if you need anything else feel free to email or post on the board. We'd be glad to help!

Blessings,
Carrie