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Independent work
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I have been thinking that maybe too much of our school day is teacher led. Do you do most of the reading with your children or do they read independently? I have a 15, 13, 8, and 7 year old. My 8 and 7 year olds have special needs and cannot read independently have yet. My 13 year old also has special needs; he can read, but he does struggle with comprehension.
I had been reading about some other teaching methods (and that just gets me confused:), and I had trouble deciding if I wanted my kids to work independently for the sake of busy work or if I should just keep plugging along doing most of the reading to the kids.
I am not sure if I have communicated this very well! 🙂
Thanks,
Amanda
That’s a tough question when dealing with special needs, Amanda. In the typical CM strategy, the older children would start reading more and more of their work independently — from about age 9 or 10. One big advantage to this transition was so they could see how the words are spelled as they read them (plus punctuation, etc.).
It can get tiring if you have to read aloud everything to everybody. Are you able to combine the children for any subjects? Or maybe I should back up and ask how much reading aloud are you doing at this point each day?
The reading that I do daily includes Bible, History, literature, and then I either read poetry, music, science, or artist bio on the other days. I read to all of my kids at the same time. I do have my 13 year old follow along in the Bible so that he can see how words are spelled.
Then I teach math and beginning reading individually to the others.
Add to that a 3 year old who may have special needs, and I am feeling a little stretched! 🙂
Amaanda
Amanda, God has blessed you with a wonderful family and the grace to teach your family. I can imagne you are feeling “a little stretched”, as people always say when they see me at the grocery store, “You have your hands full”.
I don’t have any wise words of advice but I did want to encourage you that God’s grace is sufficient for your everyday needs. And even if that means you are doing most of the reading to your children– if it is working and your children are progressing that is success. God will continually give you the strength and resources to do that.
Shelly 🙂
Shelly, thank you for the words of encouragement. I have to remind myself not to compare myself to other people! 🙂
Blessings,
Amanda
It sounds like you’re on the right track, Amanda. Great idea to have the 13yo follow along in his Bible!
Are you able to spread out the readings throughout the day, interspersing them with other subjects? If you can do that, it will give your voice and your mind a little break. (And Charlotte said that sometimes a change is as good as a rest. 🙂 ) I realize, though, that with special needs kids, sometimes they need to get all the reading done at once. So do what works best for your situation.
One other suggestion: if you are feeling overburdened right now, you could take a break from reading artist and composer bios if you want to. You could just do a picture study once a week and play the selected composer’s music in the background during lunch or something during the week. You could easily add bios back in as you are able later, but feel free to simply introduce the children to the artist or composer’s work and get out of the way for the time being (and give yourself a break at the same time).
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