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CM – Too Much Reading – Let's Chat!
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I don’t want to hijack the CM Challenges thread so I thought I would pull this topic out for us to talk about. A few people mentioned feeling like CM is hours of reading in a day without a lot else, esp. in the elementary grades.
So what do you all think?
There, now that the question is at the top I’ll share my thoughts.
First, to me, I think if the reading is taking hours in a day (esp. in elementary years) we’re probably reading too much at once! Don’t get me wrong, my family falls on the side of loving to read aloud and we will happily do it for hours. But strictly speaking, for school work, here is what I see for reading in a CM day in elementary:
– Bible: This takes just a few minutes, maybe 5.
– History/Geography: Family read aloud, 1 chapter, 10 minutes. Individual book, 1 chapter, 10 minutes (read to grades 1-3, read on their own by older grades).
– Science: 1 chapter of a living book, every day or every other day, 10 minutes.
– Reading lessons: if a child is still learning, this is part hands on, whole lesson 10 minutes.
– Literature: If you are doing a book outside of the living books for history and science here is another 10 minutes/1 chapter.
That is 45-55 minutes of reading for the whole day.
Am I missing something? I think the key is sticking to short lessons. For me with reading subjects that means sticking to 1 chapter for any book we are reading.
Now, we don’t do all these, but what comes to mind for me in CM other than reading subjects would be:
Math – not reading, preferably have a hands on component. 20 minutes tops.
Nature Study – not daily and this would be active and hopefully outside.
Picture Study – no reading, just looking at a picture for a few minutes and narrating. We do this anywhere BUT at the table. – If you want to read a book about the artist over the 6 weeks with them do just a chapter a week, or a picture book that is shorter.
Composer Study – Listening. This can be done outside, inside, on the bed, in the car, under the table, while playing, etc. If you want to read about a composer save it for 1 day per week over the 6 weeks. (Honestly, I may want to read something myself and then share neat things about them with the kids but not read the book with the kids.)
Hymn Study – Sing a song daily. 5 minutes.
Foreign Language – Oral in elementary. no reading here!
Writing/Copywork – 5 minutes per day.
Handicrafts – not reading. We do these in the afternoons and hand the kids materials and turn them loose/get out of their way.
And again, many of these things do not need to happen daily. But if you break up reading with these more active subjects I think it works well, and you’re still looking at less than an hour of reading time in a day.
Thoughts?
Remember short lessons. Books take linger this way, but they become friends and are better understood than reading through quickly to check the title off a list.
The family time shouldn’t take hours and hours. Reading lots of books during free hours is great if it happens. something saved for later if it’s not happening all the time though. Each child will be different as will each family. Some city families may have more academic time than say farmers. ;0)
Becca<><
Thanks Tristan. I do think there is a significant amount of reading as I mentioned in the previous thread. I love the idea of reading all the living books yet I’m especially sensitive to it as I have a child with special needs and this poses a challenge for her. With the few living books we’ve read in our first year I can see why they are used as a teaching tool vs. a tex book. The main subjects seem to revolve around reading. The other subjects like nature study, handicrafts, etc are things I need to learn how to do and then how to teach them. We are loosely in our first year so this is feedback from a newbie and having a special needs child. I’m looking forward to input from others.
mrsmccardell – if you are comfortable sharing more about the special needs you’re working with someone on here may have experience or ideas to help!
There is a lot of reading. And I am okay with that. We tend to do our schedule similiar to Tristan, and I save their personal history, science and literature selections for later in the day after we get our family stuff done – the olders read and do their independent subjects while I work on specific skills with the younger ones. In reality, I will have two schools – one oriented to the older kids and one oriented to the little kids – but the wonderful thing is that we CAN share so much. I use that as a bridge to my day.
Another way we found to break up the reading is to alternate our subjects like Charlotte talked about it. It doesn’t seem like nearly so much reading when we are doing a music practice, reading, doing math, reading, map drill, reading, science activity, reading, picture study, reading, etc. You get the idea.
One problem I have with reading so much is how to choose and narrow it down. =) There are so many wonderful books and ideas to read and share, so it is a challenge to me to stop and say “it is enough”.
I love the idea of reading for school instead of just listening to someone’s lecture. Watching my kiddos make their own connection is awesome! I love that we can totally discuss something months later and all know what we’re talking about!
@mrsmccardell – I am not sure what your special needs are, but here is one way I’ve discovered how to help my special needs child cover all that reading: reading aloud or using audiobooks while my special needs child draws and listens. She will understand far more, narrate much better, not get lost in the sea of letters and words floating in front of her, and she will actually finish the book. =) I also have her use a bookmark and follow along with the audio. Sometimes she has to read to me. (She is past the beginning reader stage).
I felt like we were reading too much, but have recently made a few changes which really helped! We started taking lots of breaks. We take breaks for chores, snacks, laundry…and just breaks for free time. It’s amazing how much smoother things go when they are refreshed! We are schooling from 8am-4pm (and sometimes in the evenings), but with all the breaks, our days seem more simple and less tiring. I now only do school in one sitting if we are pressed for time…and usually then I cut out all the extras.
I also was being overwhelmed by science at the start of the year. I was planning 2 days/week. Our lessons were taking 30-40 minutes (and their eyes quickly glazed over)! After a few weeks, we switched to shorter, daily lessons and that made a huge difference! They are refreshed for the entire lesson and it usually only takes 10 minutes (unless we have an experiment).
Another change has been to look at read alouds as a family activity…instead of another subject to check off my planner. We were reading a chapter of our literature book in the morning, but it was taking a month to finish a book! I really want to enjoy more books than that, so we’ve been reading throughout our day. I can usually fit 2-4 chapters in throughout the day. I’ve also been trying to fit this in the evenings (along with board/card games) to keep them from watching so much TV.
The special needs are pretty involved in every aspect of functioning/learning. So she is 6.5 yet seems to function more like a 3 yr old for most things. So while we only read a chapter she is not following the story at all. As a matter of fact, she sits there most of the time asking if we’re done yet. I’ve tried everything under the sun to keep her hands busy but most things frustrate her so then she has a tantrum because she needs help…even with playdoh. She has a rare chromosome disorder. She has come very far and can even appear high-functioning in some areas…very brief though. I kicked up our schooling a notch this Jan to include more intro to handwriting and reading…wow, it opened my eyes to how much depth there is to her disability. So we are pursuing neurodevelopmental therapy through Hope and a Future which can/should change things for her dramatically. My son age 5 is a sponge and absolutely loves reading/learning and has made many comments about enjoying our books so I know we’re on the right path. My troubles are how to separate such differing degrees of learning. So with my daughter we’ve stepped back to wait until our eval (Feb 5th) and to start the program. There’s no need to cause any more tears for her learning struggles at this point. I know I was vague with her needs but they are really all over the place and that would look really sad to type out that many needs! I do love CM and plan to stick to this education philosophy as it speaks so much truth to me/us. Sorry so long.
Okay – this is something that I have always puzzled over. I would say that our reading aloud time equals about 45 minutes to 1&1/2 hour per day. So, I am never sure what people are doing that they are reading for hours and hours?
I have the sort of voice that gives out if I talk to much, so maybe I just adapted our schedule early on…
The actual ‘out loud’ portion of our day would look like:
Bible study/prayer – 20 minutes
Memory work – 10 minutes
History Reading – 20 minutes
Science Reading (not every day) – 15 minutes
Literature/Poetry – 20 minutes
I think that is it! Maybe I am missing something here. I admit that I am fine with doing less than a chapter per day or whatever some curriculum guides recommend. We just go at our own pace and pick up where we left off the day before.
I will say that, although we do family subjects together, as soon as the child is old enough to read on his own and narrate I let him go.
I think people get into trouble by continuing to read everything aloud when their child is actually ready to read the book themselves. I think this is a disservice to the child, as you are inserting yourself between the child and the great mind (author) or idea that the book presents. It is like giving them baby food after they have a full set of teeth.
Didn’t Charlotte have something to say about this?
When I first started CM and home schooling I thought it was a lot of reading. But now it doesn’t seem that way at all. I would like to keep reading aloud but after while my mouth gets dry and my tongue starts tripping over itself so I need to stop. Plus my afternoons aren’t as free as others so I can’t for that reason also. But it did get easier as we went along. Now my reading aloud is also similar to Tristans with the literature book about 20 min at lunch time.
mrsmccardell – here is what I would do I think – follow the early years guide here: http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/eyguide/ , or even do a module, but choose to do fewer books over a longer time for whichever you do.
For example I would choose living books on topics she would enjoy and just work through a few pages at a time, maybe only 1 book at a time even. Does she like birds? Animals? Dolls? Find books that she will relate to. Does she have activities she does enjoy that can have learning components? (puzzles, games, manipulatives?) Work slowly on colors, shapes, letters, numbers as she is ready. One of the blessings of homeschooling is meeting our children where they are, not where their chronological age says they should be.
Tristan,
We definitely follow the early years planning guide. She was drawing in the sand tray, picking letters out of rice bins, learning sounds, working on chores (dusting, vacuuming, dishwasher, clean-up). She knows her colors, letters, shapes, etc. That’s the only reason I thought maybe we could try to bump up the learning to include reading/writing. I’m glad I did b/c it really showed me the depths of her disability and now we can get help. Plus my son just turned 5 and I didn’t want to push him at all…he wanted to learn to read and he was writing but a lot were incorrect so I am slowly giving him 1 letter of copywork a few times a week.
Here is our day:
-prayer/calendar/songs/exercise (jumping jacks or similar)
-reading lesson
-character study (read-aloud)
-copywork (sand-tray, HWT)
-history/science (about 1-2 days week if at all) (read-aloud)
-slow intro to notebooking with our science (lions)
-slow intro to geography – random talks about it when it comes up; may incl globe or map (they like to play with maps so I use that to my advantage)
-art (anything we can think of and she needs direction with this so I can’t just say “go to town” as she wouldn’t know where to start)
-chores
our afternoons need to be scheduled so they include:
-quiet time (which is anything but quiet for her!)
-literature (Stuart Little 1 chapter)
audio book – alternate every other day with Stuart Little
computer game on starfall.com
free play
after dinner is bible story with dad and either a puzzle, game, legos
bed time reading
library 1 day week
So I try to keep the flow of learning daily even if we don’t do all of the above. She needs a schedule so it helps to stay consistent even if we don’t open the book but talk about it in some form.
I’d love to read-aloud a bit more but hold back due to her inability to focus on it. I hope it makes sense as I’m writing it out.
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