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JennGM
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| Posted: June 10 2010 at 12:00pm | IP Logged
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Basic question. How do you schedule read-alouds and reading Assignments?
How do you break down the books? Do you gauge by chapters or number of pages?
What's the average for your different age levels?
If you have audio books, does that substitute for read-alouds, or do you use it as reinforcement?
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: June 11 2010 at 7:36am | IP Logged
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I've hesitated to reply here Jennifer because I have learned to very loosely plan my read alouds. I used to plan them in detail, which books to read, how many pages each day, what to read when we get to that section in science about toads, ...
But, alas, it never worked as I had planned it. My kids would want more, more, more on some days. And on other days a baby's crying or other distractions would make our afternoon read-aloud time a total wash and we wouldn't accomplish anything.
So, now, when I'm planning a school year, I choose read aloud books based on some of the things we will be studying for history or science, and some that are just good literature. I also include picture books and chapter books because I think they both have merit at all ages. I put all these in a big basket at the beginning of the year and we work our way through them. I no longer try to schedule them, but I do make sure we are reading about toads when we are studying toads. 
I have also learned to have various read aloud times throughout the day. I notice that reading to my kids while they eat breakfast and lunch are great times to get the reading done and I can mostly count on it. So, for breakfast, I read from our history read aloud, and for lunch, I read from the science read aloud. Then, in the afternoon when we have tea time (and this is the one that gets messed up at times), I read from one of the books I just categorize as good literature.
I've never really used audio books for this, but my dc love to listen to them at night before they go to sleep or on long car trips. I could see using them next year though, when this new baby comes, or while I'm in the hospital my dh can use them and keep the kids on their normal routine.
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JennGM
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| Posted: June 11 2010 at 7:39am | IP Logged
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I'm glad you answered, Becky, because that's why I asked. Reading seems so fluid and flexible and I've been unable to capture how to pin it down for planning purposes. 
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Angel
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| Posted: June 11 2010 at 8:55am | IP Logged
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Jenn,
I am much less a planner than many people here, but... for read alouds, I make a list for a certain period of time -- sometimes written, sometimes mental -- then I buy the books and I put them all in one place -- a basket or on a dedicated shelf. I usually pick a couple of books, show them to my kids and ask what they want to read. Then I start with that book, trying to read every day in logical chunks (1 chapter, 1 section, whatever). Some days they want to read a lot, some days less.
If I'm reading more than one book aloud, I do them all the same way, sorted by subject with a time of day associated with each.
The little ones choose picture books to read before their naps. I try to keep them rotated in a book display.
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JennGM
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| Posted: June 11 2010 at 8:57am | IP Logged
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Okay, let me add to the question. How do you schedule readings from the spine you are using?
Say I'm using Gombrich or SOTW? How do you factor in how many pages/chapters per day/week?
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Jennifer G. Miller
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dakotamidnight
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| Posted: June 11 2010 at 9:19am | IP Logged
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Angel wrote:
Jenn,
I am much less a planner than many people here, but... for read alouds, I make a list for a certain period of time -- sometimes written, sometimes mental -- then I buy the books and I put them all in one place -- a basket or on a dedicated shelf. I usually pick a couple of books, show them to my kids and ask what they want to read. Then I start with that book, trying to read every day in logical chunks (1 chapter, 1 section, whatever). Some days they want to read a lot, some days less.
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Same here mostly - except we do a reading "Theme" for the year. This coming school year will be the works of Thornton Burgess and related stories, so we'll be reading all the Thornton Burgess books we have and adding in The Complete Works of Beatrix Potter as Thornton Burgess borrowed characters from her.
We then add in extra reading pertaining to what we're learning in each subject, but I consider Read-Alouds for the Theme to be a subject of their own - does that make sense? I think of it as Literature Exposure.
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Angel
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| Posted: June 11 2010 at 2:34pm | IP Logged
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JennGM wrote:
Okay, let me add to the question. How do you schedule readings from the spine you are using?
Say I'm using Gombrich or SOTW? How do you factor in how many pages/chapters per day/week? |
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I've used both those texts, but like I said -- I am not as much of a planner as some people. If you wanted to break it down into page numbers/week/day, it would be a simple matter of division. But with those texts specifically, I used them as general introductions to whatever period or geographical area in history that we were studying. So, when we were studying the Sumerians, I started off by reading aloud the first chapters in Gombrich, then I read from SOTW: the Ancient World, the Sumerian chapters, and then we read picture books and also Geraldine McCaughrean's Gilgamesh the Hero. Because we take more of a unit/interest-based approach to history, I couldn't just divide those books up into a certain number of pages/day, etc. Even if you use SOTW the way Susan Wise Bauer suggests, you are still stopping after every chapter to do some further investigation. So you might allow a week to read the chapter and however much time you want (or that interest dictates) for further investigation. Gombrich's book gets spread out even more because it's more condensed.
We have more often used SOTW in audio format. My 2 older kids have listened to all 4 volumes on audio, more than once, and not because I made them. That gave them an overview of the time frame and freed me up to read other history read alouds for a deeper view.
I guess I haven't ever felt the need to do *too* much detailed planning of how many pages to read each day because reading aloud is so dependent on the kids every day. Some days they're very interested and we read 3 chapters at a gulp. Some days the little boys make reading impossible. I have to have a balance so I know which books to bring to the table in the morning... but I haven't put so much energy into planning them out that I can't change my expectations in the light of reality, if that makes sense. 
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JuliaT
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I am not a planner either because my plans never work out. For read alouds, though, I do have to plan so that I can buy my books. I use AO as my read aloud list for each child. I make a list for each child of the books that I want to read during the year. It usually takes us a month sometimes longer to read these books.
When I was using SOTW, I would schedule the first section of the chapter for the first day of history, the second section would be read on the second day and if there were extra books to read that would be done on the third day.
I am not good at reading history chapter books along with our history. I am going to do things differently this year so I am hoping that we will be able to read more historical fiction than in other years. Here again, though, I am only going to have a list of a few books and then just read through them. No plan involved.
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Erin
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JennGM wrote:
Okay, let me add to the question. How do you schedule readings from the spine you are using?
Say I'm using Gombrich or SOTW? How do you factor in how many pages/chapters per day/week? |
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Generally it is more a case of planning by time, 30 min to 1 hour. This is dependent on how long my voice holds out for and how much the children do/or don't beg for more.
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SallyT
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We've often worked backwards -- gotten involved in a good read-aloud, then picked up information/text-type books to flesh out the larger picture.
I am planning our 1st/2nd-grade history project next year as a series of unit studies on the Old Testament, which will include a long sojourn in ancient Egypt as well as forays into other ancient cultures contemporaneous with events in the Bible. I haven't got firm day-by-day plans, because I'm lousy at following them, but I have *grouped* -- I'm one of those people who would have made bubble outlines had that been permitted when I was in high school -- lists of resources, including read-alouds.
So for instance, we'll read the story of the Creation in Genesis, do some art and copywork and historical/geographical research, and also read The Magician's Nephew as a read-aloud, probably for bedtime as opposed to school time -- but it will resonate with the study stuff. I'll probably start the book early, maybe even before we start the other work, to give us plenty of time to finish. Generally I try to stick to a chapter at a time, though if people really ask for more and I can keep going, I will.
But I never really know how long something will take until we're doing it, and I think I'd drive myself insane if I scheduled pages. I can do that with my older kids and their self-led assignments, but not with books we want to enjoy together. So I've tried to make myself under-plan in terms of what I aim to get through (like, really, NOT the entire ancient world in one year, which is the kind of vision I start out with), to give us time to do justice to what we do do. I especially want us to savor the books we read together, so that they don't feel like part of school even if that's really why we're reading them.
Sally
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Becky Parker
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I don't know if this will help or not Jenn but we're enrolled with MODG and I can tell you how Laura Berquist does it.
She uses a different text for a spine but she first figures out what chapters from the spine she's going to use (she uses the same text for 3rd - 5th grades so she has it divided up by year.) So lets say there are 16 chapters to cover. That means in a 32 week school year she can allow two weeks per chapter.
Then, for each chapter there is usually a good book that goes with it. For one of the chapters about the Gold Rush, my dd was to read The Great Horn Spoon. Laura Berquist counted the number of pages in The Great Horn Spoon and divided it so that the student (or parent doing the read aloud) knew how many pages to cover a day in order to finish that book in two weeks. For some of the books, like Johnny Tremain, more time was given because it is longer and more difficult to read. So, in that case we read Johnny Tremain while we covered a couple of the chapters in the text. (Likewise, a few of the books were short and sweet so we were able to cover that chapter of the text in only one week.)
Does that make any sense at all? It's hard for me to find the right words to explain it.
Of course, we did get behind, as I mentioned in my first post but we still had a guideline set up for the history reading so I knew about how long we should be reading.
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Sarah M
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| Posted: June 14 2010 at 11:26pm | IP Logged
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Erin wrote:
Generally it is more a case of planning by time, 30 min to 1 hour. This is dependent on how long my voice holds out for and how much the children do/or don't beg for more. |
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Same here. I schedule in a certain amount of time (30 minutes first thing for school, 30 minutes at lunch time, 30 minutes before bed, etc) and we just grab one of the books from the basket and read for that length of time-- unless the kids beg for more, of course.
I have a separate basket for "school books"-- those that I want to make sure we get to. This seems to strike a good balance between planning particular books and allowing us to get through them at our own pace.
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Planning Read-Alouds and Reading
