Changes to Literature list on Curriculum Guide

Sonya, thanks for the update!

Amanda, I can only tell you what I’ve done for my children (10,11,&12) because I could not read aloud enough to get in every book that I want them to read and they need to grow into reading more on their own. My oldest (dd) loves to read, so it is not outside of normal for her to read 2-5 chapter books in a week outside of school. I choose 1 book per week that she must read (if it’s really long, I give her 2 weeks, i.e. Little Women). The rest of the books she is allowed to choose for herself (with my approval, of course). My boys both struggle with reading and have different forms of Dyslexia. I assign them one book per week that they must read. Some days they read aloud to me and other days I let them read on their own and just narrate back to me. I also allow them to draw pictures of what they’ve read because writing is also a challenge for them. Sometimes the book I choose is the only one they’ll ge through in a week and other times, they’ll pick up some more simple books at the library.

In addition to the book that they are assigned to read, I have a family read aloud that is just literature for enjoyment. Also, I will have the older child read aloud some of the books in the history module, rather than reading them all myself.

So, in answer to your question, letting them read aloud is a great option and assigning some books to read independently is also good. I find the hardest part is that I want to read them all and, if I assign it for them independently, I’ll miss out on it. 🙂

Oh, yes, audio books are great! We frequently have one going in the car and my youngest son listens to them on a discman as he follows along in the book.

So do you all have a specific list of books for lit., history, science, etc. that is assigned to each child? I’m thinking that’s what I want to do along with the family reading.

We do much the same as momto2blessings.

Amanda,

Glad something was helpful:)  I don’t do well w/regular planning. All my scheduling is ‘doing the next thing’ and not specific pages.  I bought SCM’s “Planning Your CM Education” and use their downloadable schedules.  During the summer, I make out the next year’s schedule and I really don’t do much except tweak along the way during the school year. 

I have a master schedule for myself of our family readings and what each kid does independently each day (this is just a weekly block schedule).  Each kid has their own daily schedule of independent work (just one page of what to do each day of the week). I keep it vague, like 2 pg.’s of math, lit. reading, history reading, etc.  They have a small binder with this weekly schedule and behind that I have one page of history readers listed in order and one page of lit. readers (and whether to read one or two chapters of each book). They just keep reading in order….I don’t have to do much. 

I don’t do much other planning once the year starts, except fixing things that aren’t working well.  Like if a child just hates a lit. book I may sub. in another, or if we’re not getting to our arts subjects I may try to switch things around a bit. But I really love the SCM schedules because if I want to tweak I can just pop into my file and edit a bit and print out a new one:) Hope that made sense!  Blessings, Gina

P.S.  Next year will be my first buying the module guide….so not quite sure if my history reader method for them will work as well as when I totally made our history schedule myself.  Haven’t planned it yet:)