Thursday, April 5, 2012

Reading Plans & Summer Break


DD has several books we keep running at all times. I'm using the Sonlight program (we're doing Core 100 right now for 7th grade) its mostly all reading. Okay, it could probably be so much more but we only seem to find time for reading the books and I do make a point to ask her what she learned in the book. After a roll of her eyes and my thoughts of 'maybe a book report would be better' I ask her what she thought was interesting in the book that I should know, since I haven't read it yet. I tell her not to tell me anything boring! lol When asked in this fashion I hear all sorts of great things I would have never heard about had we stuck with a boring written report. In this way we are actually doing narration in the Charlotte Mason method and hey, I thought I had let that fall by the wayside! Yay me!

In letting DD plan her own schooling and what she covers each day of the week based on what I assigned for the week, she has been splitting her reading books up like this:
Understood Betsy Bk (11 chapters), read M-S, 2+ chapters a day
Red Badge of Courage Bk (24 chapters), read M-S, 4 chapters a day
I think this is a great way to chart and make sure you get the reading done as well as making it seem not so overwhelming. Now if one book gets particularly interesting she continues on in that book and does less of the other for that day. Just as long as she's reading 6+ chapters a day.


I had an epiphany the other day. I keep getting lots of books from the library but somehow never 'have' or make the time to read them. So I sat Monday and made a list of the books I want to read, split them up by chapters (and lengths of books since I try to read a certain amount of pages a week and didn't want to put 3 800 pages books in one week), charted how many chapters to read a day, and voila'! A workable plan! I'm very excited. I'm actually making time!

I've already been working on our reading list for next year's history program, Sonlight Core W (One Year World History). I added several to the the regular list and am having her read 2 books a week during the summer. Do you have your kids read in the summer or am I the only child torturer?

I was reading an article about how public schools send home summer reading lists and expect them to be completed when kids return, some even have tests about the books when the kids return. I think that's outrageous! Yes, I require my child to read during the summer but if we get busy or off on some adventure, I don't sweat it. I just put that practice into play to cut down on the TV time she thinks she might be having all summer...

Do you think kids should mandatorily read over summer break?

3 comments:

e.beck.artist said...

i have my kids read all summer long ... two of them i don't have to try ... one of them is harder ...

Mary said...

We school year round, so yes I believe kids should read over the summer :) We are a family of readers though, so I can't picture any of us letting the summer go by without picking up a book, even if we weren't doing school.

Contessa Kris said...

Yes, my child always has a book in her hand but I am assigning her history books too.

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