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How do you move your older kids to reading their own books?
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We’ve been doing history as a family, but I want to move my oldest to doing more of his own reading next year. How do you organize the reading? I keep reading our spine, SOTW, to everyone… But what about the other books? If I’m reading them to my younger kids, my oldest wants to listen in. He’d rather hear me read them than read them himself. Do you only have you seen older kids read books that you’re not reading to the younger ones? I have a hard time setting aside books just for my oldest, they all look so good I don’t want to miss them. Lol. But I do want to move to my kids doing more of their own reading, I think it’s good for them. And my second child is finally ready to start doing some reading next year. Do I just need to only read the history spine aloud and let everything else be readers for the kids?
I usually read the spine and one other book aloud. Sometimes it’s the book for the 1-3 graders, sometimes the 4-6 graders. It just depends on whether I think I want to read it and if I think the whole family will enjoy it.
Then, I usually have my independent readers reading one chapter a day and narrating to me from whatever other history books I assign them. I try to keep plenty of good history reads in the book basket for free reading, too.
You could keep going with the spine text, plus have one great family read aloud for that time period/subject going. Then dole out what is appropriate to each age/level, but be sure to look them over yourself with a bit of skimming or online research. Then you can have your independent reader narrate to you. Or you could read the books, too, and keep a buddy journal to jot down narrations and ideas or questions. For younger, newer readers, you could do partner reading together for practice and fun, as a slow release of of responsibility. You know, I’ll read a sentence or two, now you read a sentence or two, etc.
I’ve just had to get ok with not reading everything that my kids have to. I ask for a lot of narrations, and I make use of online resources so that I have some idea of what’s going on in the pieces that I cannot read myself. However, at the 8-12th grade level, I think it is really important to choose 1 -2 pieces a term to read together and have good discussions, narrations, and activities on.
Best wishes!
I’m using SOTW with 4 kids this year – 5th, 3rd, 2nd (not reading yet), and kindergarten, so there are plenty of books I find that are either too mature/long for the youngest, or too young for the oldest. I read SOTW and a bunch of other books to all 4 kids. I read some fun picture books to the 2 youngest, and give the 2 older kids the option to listen, read the books on their own later, or skip them. The 3rd and 5th graders have assigned independent reading. I usually assign different books because the “must reads” are read aloud, and they tend to steal each others’ books and read them anyway. I often choose biographies for independent reading, because they’re tedious to read aloud, but my kids enjoy them.
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