What about book reports?

[Cherylanne]

Sorry for starting another thread but I have to ponder and ask alot before I jump into to something. I heard a 5th grader talking about doing a book report on some topic yesterday. WELL...that got me thinking. When does that kind of work come in with HOD? My 4th grader would have trouble with now if I asked him to do one. He always asks "how do you study?" Also, research papers; Is that held off until high school?

[countrymom]

I know some of the other ladies will be able to add a lot more detail, but I would start with DITHOR, the reading program HOD uses. This is much more than just reading a book and if you look at the plans I think you will see the children are lead to dissect what they read. Here is a link to the first week - I know you can't see the student workbook, but this still gives an idea of what students are doing. http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/d1.pdf I believe you would probably want to look at level 4/5.
Secondly I believe narration, which is a big focus with HOD (and any Charlotte Mason program) is a great way to learn book reporting skills. Once a child learns to narrate, all that is left is the writing skills, which HOD shines in. Here is a thread that demonstrates some of the writing skills developed, viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8443 (Julie's original post). Here is another recent thread that explains HOD's writing program, viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8413. So in a nutshell, I DITHOR, narration, and the writing program should give a student all of the skills necessary to write a wonderful book report.

[Mom2Monkeys]

My DD is currently in public school for this semester. Those book reports they are doing are not all that wonderful...I don't mean the DC's writing, I mean the lesson behind them. My DD has excelled in this area bc it's basically the school asking them to do a written narration (or summary, actually, since they want very specific info included...both skills are in HOD at the appropriate time), plus throw in some literary terms like character, plot, solution, etc which you'll find mixed in throughout HOD's storytimes and on a larger scale in DITHOR.

As for research papers, the training in research begins in PHFHG. I love the incremental stepping stones to higher level skills that Carrie has written into the guides. Kids will be some comfortable with their research skills by the time they actually have to write the papers. And they will posses excellent writing skills from all the instruction over the years of HOD!

[Cherylanne]

Thanks Ladies, appreciate the response.