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Reading
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This is our second year to homeschool and our first year to go total CM. When I tell my son that he needs to read his books he grumbles and says that he does read! He reads usually at night in his bed, mainly animal books or someothers he has at his bedside. Twaddle to say the least. He does very well with narrations when I read to him. He says that when he reads it is boring, doesn’t sound right. I told me he needs to work on how he reads and pay attention to punctuation. I want to know how to get him to read more of him books on his own. I don’t want to read everything to him, even though I love to read and like to know the stories myself. I thought if we take turns reading aloud together to start then transition him to reading by himself and narrating back to me.
I also have a 7 year old who is working on reading and wanted some book selection ideas for her to read aloud to me. I have a McGuffey on hold at the library, but wanted some other suggestions.
Thanks
How old is the son?
if it “doesn’t sound right” when he reads it to himself, it is possible that he is finding the book too hard….
For your 7 year old who is working on reading… My daughter really enjoys the Billy and Blaze book series. She also liked reading Mr. Putter and Tabby books and Amelia Bedelia. I’ve heard the Treadwell readers are good (free online). And she also enjoyed reading the Pathway Readers as well.
He is 9. When he reads aloud it is flat and sometimes he does not pay attention to punctuation. I keep telling him to watch for those things. The book we were reading from is called Meet Christopher Columbus. It is a very easy read. I know he can read harder books. I have been reading him Stories of Beowulf to him but I want him to read it to himself. So if we took turns for a while I would like him to proceed on his own. I like the CM method but I need him to read his own books.
I had/have a similar problem with my 8 yr old son last year. He grumbled about reading which really bothered me as I want all my kids to enjoy it. First thing was I kept him reading aloud to me once or twice a week, sometimes making him say the word period or comma when he got to that punctuation in the sentence. The other really important thing I did was get a large stack of books from the library at or a little below his reading ability to see what books interested him the most. I found that if he wasn’t liking what I had him reading he didn’t want to read at all. (Duh, right?) That helped us a lot and this year he is reading quite a bit better at age 9.
HTH
Does he need more time to transition to independent reading? Maybe you could have one book that you read to him, one book that you take turns reading, and one book that you assign for him to read independently. Have him narrate for each.
Of course, don’t do all of this back to back. Break up his readings into shorter passages if reading is difficult. Continue to coach him with oral reading. That may help him when he reads alone.
What I found worked amazingly well at this 8-9 year old stage -where we REALLY want them reading decent (very decent) literature but we’re not entirely sure they are ready for it (or interested in it)….is to do the books via audio book. I would sit my kid down with hard copy of the book in hand, locate the story on librivox or books-should-be-free and have them do two chapters a day. We’d have three books going at once, so all in all, this was a LOT of reading, but I’d spread the feast throughout the day. One sitting first thing the morning, then, 30 minutes of seatwork, then another sitting with an audiobook, then another 30 minutes seatwork, then, repeat the cycle a third time…you get the idea. They follow along in the book as the librivox audio reader is reading and so they are SEEING – continuously – the example of good reading, good fluency, new vocabulary, and attention to punctuation. Now, I would keep an eye on my boys from time to time to make sure they were actually following in the hard copy, and not just listening with their eyes closed to a great story. But you know what – before long, I didn’t even have to check up on them. They LOVED it. And in a year, the reading level and interest in reading has skyrocketed.
For your 7 year old, I agree with books mentioned above and would add “Frog and Toad” to the list. Another that my second son LOVED but that is not exactly “CM” because it’s not the original text is a book called The Robinson Crusoe Reader published by Christian Liberty Press. Did using this “reader” probably ruin my son for the proper unabridged Robinson Crusoe? Perhaps. But I don’t care because this previously reluctant reader began to seriously LOVE reading while going through this reader.
good luck!
Blessings, Angie
Thanks for the ideas. He did show an interesred in the book “Man in the Iron Mask.” I have not read it, so would it be appropriate to listen with Librivox and follow in the book?
Hi…I’m not super familiar with that title, I’ve only read one review and it seemed to say adult reading level and complex plot with extraneous material (?) You could do a quick search for the plot summaries and book reviews available on that title before you go full speed… it’s pretty easy to find out more. I personally don’t have my sons read anything that I haven’t chosen for them from a CM or other “good literature” book list. Once I pick a title from one of these lists, I usually google for a plot summary if I haven’t read the book myself. The day I found out about plot summaries and reviews available on the internet was a very happy one for me! A great list that you could build from has been wonderfully compiled by a dear lady here on the forum, missceegee. It has thousands of title and is divided by age and literature-type. If you search the forum for book lists and her name, you will find the link, it has been posted often (I just don’t know how to link it in here…) Or missceegee will see this post and she will probably reply with the link, as she is always great about checking the forum and helping us!
Blessings, Angie
Man in the Iron Mask is by Dumas, and unless it is a specially abridged version for children there is no way that is appropriate for a 9 year old!
Dumas also wrote ‘Three Muskateers’ and ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. These are great literature from a writing perspective, but there are moral issues discussed that some would feel are innappropriate for all Christians.
Approach with caution :). And I would go to the curriculum choices SCM has picked out (see the curriculum guide) to find good reads for your son.
Thank you all for your advice. I am trying to download the book list but my computer doesn’t want to download Adobe flash!
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