Name: Great Homeschool Conventions (Columbus)
Start: 2025-04-24T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-04-26T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Columbus, OH

Tagged: History, reading

This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 8 months ago by sheraz.

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

Author
Posts
April 7, 2015 at 8:45 am
teachme2learn
Participant
I was looking for some input on my 14 year old son’s history readings. He is a struggling reader but he is improving a lot. At the moment he is enjoying reading on his own a book from the gr. 4-6 booklist but I was wondering if it would be better to have him at the higher level gr.7-9 books using audio books.
April 7, 2015 at 9:26 am
sheraz
Participant
Do a combination of both – it will continue to boost his morale to have books to read and understand easily, but having him listen AND follow along in a printed book with the older books will help his fluency, his vocabulary, his pronunciation, and his reading levels all as he studies his history. =)
April 7, 2015 at 10:09 am
anniepeter
Participant
I strongly second this opinion. We did this at someone’s recommendation, and our worked very well.
April 7, 2015 at 11:58 am
Monica
Participant
I agree – do both!
My 14YO is a good reader but doesn’t like reading the sheer amount that I assign to him. Every couple of months he’ll listen to an audio instead. He listened to RL Stevenson’s Kidnapped on audio last month, and next month he’ll listen to Tom Sawyer on audio.
April 7, 2015 at 4:08 pm
teachme2learn
Participant
Thank you for the suggestion. We are doing Module 4 and I’m having a hard time knowing which books I should have him read from gr. 4-6 and which ones I should have him listen to from gr. 7-9. There are so many great books. One thought I had was to use the gr. 7-9 books on audio for his literature selections. But I’m not sure….
I’d love to hear more of your suggestions.
April 7, 2015 at 4:51 pm
sheraz
Participant
In my experience, what they listen to on audio is often narrowed down by simply looking up all recommended resources and finding which are available on audio. 😉 LOL
Another way that I know what to use for my children is to know the books. There ARE a great many – too many – for us to read them all, but if I know, for example, that we are following the SCM guide for history, then I need to at least glance through those books and see what would work for audio and which needs to be read either independently or with me. The books are great and they have been selected by someone I trust, but I still need to check the style of writing and just note which modality would work best for MY child.
Same thing with the literature. Checking it prior to my child – even if I can’t read every single word – gives me a chance to evaluate which modality would be more effective. I have been letting the kids listen to a lot of our literature on audio, but I am also realizing that sometimes they need to spend a bit of time alone in a book without someone else’s voice or inflections in order to form a better bond with that character, if that makes sense. It is a fine line to walk.
Her are a few places to look for audio recordings:
librivox.org
Audible.com
Jim Wiess recordings
Jim Hodges recordings – he has done a lot of the G.A. Henty books, which tend to have historical adventures in them.
Amazon.com
On another note – sometimes I find that a reader can make a book totally unappealing due to accents, tones, or even the quality of the recording so watch out for that. =)