Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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AmandaV
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Posted: May 08 2012 at 11:38pm | IP Logged Quote AmandaV

So the other day, I gave my son (turning 8 in July) Grammar land to read a chapter or two. He had not been interested in it since I bought it last Fall. He really didn't want to so I said, just one chapter then tell me how you like it. Read about Mr. Noun. So he reads. Then he reads the next chapter. Over the course of his free time in the day and the next morning he reads the whole book. All the while he finds me to tell me about each character and the words they own. I see this as unprompted narration. Since then he'll bring up a character or a funny part, or suggest a game where he says a word and I name the part of speech. His dad asked him about it (he was an English major) and my son was super tickled that my husband knew, without reading the book, what words each character "owns". So I think he basically loves grammar now. We've only used a little bit of KISS grammar, just to get our feet wet, and its very nice. We'll use a a few times a week along with the regular CM methods as he gets older. And lots of reading. So I wonder, should I have said, wait, you need to read this more slowly, because you need to digest it? I really think he digested it thoroughly and actually silently narrates when I'm not around to tell back to.

Have any of you had a reader like this? I'm sure you have. I don't want go against CM methods because I believe in them, so far as I can at this point, but if he can absorb many more pages/day than others, do I roll with it?

is it a discipline issue as well, of just reading a bit of each book per day/week, and I need to teach him to delay gratification? Finally, should this type of reading be part of Free time/ Unschooly time/ free reading and not part of the curriculum?

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CrunchyMom
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Posted: May 09 2012 at 8:05am | IP Logged Quote CrunchyMom

AmandaV wrote:
Finally, should this type of reading be part of Free time/ Unschooly time/ free reading and not part of the curriculum?


This is my strategy.

You can get lots of books and "strew" them for free reading, and your son can read them at his preferred pace. If he comes and talks to you about them because he is excited, even better! That is the natural instinct behind CM's method.

But, then, for school, I would be reserved, not assigning heavily simply because he is capable. And, yes, I do believe CM would say that slow reading over time is important for some things. There is time for savoring as well as processing that helps one internalize in a different way than rapid reading.

My son reads rapidly at an advanced level, but I do not plan to make his school assignments longer, though his reading level does afford the freedom of assigning meatier books at this age than I otherwise might.

Even with emphasis on a Living education and for all our "life of learning" ideals, there is just *something* different about reading for pleasure at one's own initiation versus a reading assignment for lessons. I would not want to make more of reading a "lesson" than was necessary. Imo, that would be a burden to such little shoulders and run the danger of squelching that natural love of reading and learning.

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CatholicMommy
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Posted: May 09 2012 at 8:24am | IP Logged Quote CatholicMommy

I'm with Lindsay.

Our school reading is broken into very tiny chunks, sometimes even portions of pages. Because we want time for contemplation, discussion, follow-up, percolation.

But free reading is just that - free reading. AND it is more likely to be read over and over and over (and over!).

We want to teach our children to read in such a way they get the most from it the first time they read a selection, recognizing that some things don't stand out until a 2nd or 3rd or later reading anyway. Hence we do a lot with short selections so we have time to dwell on them (as well as to develop anticipation, foresight, etc), but in this case we have to both sides of the spectrum so that our children can SEE the benefit of and drawback of both ways of reading - and be selective in their own lives as to which type is needed for each situation.

I'm not going to take a week to read a daily newspaper - I will read it quickly. But I will want anything I read that I want to *change* or develop me (spiritual reading) to be taken slowly, paced out, so that it becomes baby-steps.

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Posted: May 09 2012 at 10:09am | IP Logged Quote Mackfam

I set the pace/page-count for books I require for lessons.

I allow a delightful child-set pace for independent reading.


Charlotte Mason purposefully asked for short readings so that the child would have time to digest ideas, turn them over in his mind, make them his own, narrate well, and explore if that were his inclination. There is a great deal of wisdom in this approach. Certainly books that are scholarly benefit from a slow and thoughtful reading, but also books that are rich and delightful.

If you think of Ms. Mason's banquet of ideas analogy, we bring the children to a rich feast of ideas, and they are RICH! If we allow a gluttonous feasting on them, there is much indigestion, and many of the nourishing nutrients are lost as the child gulps and gulps. If we present the rich feast and assist them in feasting with moderation, slowly, enjoying every morsel, then the feast of ideas is digested and enriches the child.

Here's how this works in our home:
    ** I set clear expectations on paper (lesson plans) for the number of pages to be read in a day for a particular book.
    ** I include a post-it as a bookmarker with the younger children's books (older kids are now in the habit of making these for themselves). The post-it says "Read "x" pages on M, W, F"
    ** I often pencil in the *start* and *stop* points in the Table of Contents of particular books if that book is read more by chapter and less by pages. (Example: read two chapters/week)
    ** I train the children to move the post-it to the end of their reading for the day BEFORE they begin reading. Now there is a clear visual for where to stop.
    ** It is not unusual for a child to bring me a book and ask for it to be removed from the lesson rotation because they'd like to read at their own pace and they'd like it to be considered independent reading. Sometimes it happens once a term....sometimes it might just happen once a year. This just happened this past term with my older daughter and With Pipe, Paddle and Song. She was enjoying it so much she really wanted to read it at her own pace. I removed it from her schedule and she enjoyed the book on her own.
    ** I replace the book removed from the lesson plans with another book.
    ** I have denied this request to move a book to independent reading before, and would again, if I felt the book was important to digest slowly, and if I really wanted narrations from it.
    ** Or, I might allow the book to be read at the child's pace if the child agrees to narrate as they go to me and I'm comfortable with their understanding.
    ** Or, I might allow a child to read the book at their own pace if they agree to return to it on my terms later.
    ** I always keep independent reading options generously strewn in baskets because I, too, have readers that will devour books!! These are not restricted in any way, but are open for reading at a child's leisure.
There are lots of options really, and just for emphasis, not every book is paced - only those books that land on the lesson plans. This is one of the reasons I really carefully consider adding what I know will be treasured pieces of literature like the Lord of the Rings trilogy to our lesson plans. They are treasures unto themselves and familiarity with them comes not so much through slow and careful reading, but in layers of relationship which grow and develop with each REPEATED reading. I did include a literature treasure one year - the Anne of Green Gables series - and though the year was a definite delight, my daughter and I had to compromise more in how we approached the Anne books because they resist pacing. We approached the year more as a unit study in which she paced herself and it worked out well, but that has to be pointed out as a clear departure from more structured CM methodology!

Which brings me to my final point: how closely choose to follow this will depend on how closely you'd like to follow a CM philosophy.

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AmandaV
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Posted: May 15 2012 at 10:15am | IP Logged Quote AmandaV

Mackfam wrote:
I set the pace/page-count for books I require for lessons.

I allow a delightful child-set pace for independent reading.

.....
Here's how this works in our home:
    ** I set clear expectations on paper (lesson plans) for the number of pages to be read in a day for a particular book.
    ** I include a post-it as a bookmarker with the younger children's books (older kids are now in the habit of making these for themselves). The post-it says "Read "x" pages on M, W, F"
    ** I often pencil in the *start* and *stop* points in the Table of Contents of particular books if that book is read more by chapter and less by pages. (Example: read two chapters/week)
    ** I train the children to move the post-it to the end of their reading for the day BEFORE they begin reading. Now there is a clear visual for where to stop.
    .....


I definitely think I'm going to be using the post it idea.

I ended up focusing on these options...

Mackfam wrote:

** Or, I might allow the book to be read at the child's pace if the child agrees to narrate as they go to me and I'm comfortable with their understanding.
** Or, I might allow a child to read the book at their own pace if they agree to return to it on my terms later.


This of course appeals to me as I know that he will narrate to me no matter what the pace. But I am still mulling this:

Mackfam wrote:

** I always keep independent reading options generously strewn in baskets because I, too, have readers that will devour books!! These are not restricted in any way, but are open for reading at a child's leisure.There are lots of options really, and just for emphasis, not every book is paced - only those books that land on the lesson plans. This is one of the reasons I really carefully consider adding what I know will be treasured pieces of literature like the Lord of the Rings trilogy to our lesson plans. They are treasures unto themselves and familiarity with them comes not so much through slow and careful reading, but in layers of relationship which grow and develop with each REPEATED reading. I did include a literature treasure one year - the Anne of Green Gables series - and though the year was a definite delight, my daughter and I had to compromise more in how we approached the Anne books because they resist pacing. We approached the year more as a unit study in which she paced herself and it worked out well, but that has to be pointed out as a clear departure from more structured CM methodology!

Which brings me to my final point: how closely choose to follow this will depend on how closely you'd like to follow a CM philosophy.


Thanks for your thoughtful reply Jen and others! Life's been busier than normal over here but I have been considering everyone's thoughts.

I've also been thinking about this quote from John Henry Newman:
Quote:
“Nothing is more common in an age like this, when books abound, than to fancy that the gratification of a love of reading is real study...there are many, who certainly have a taste for reading, but in whom it is little more than the result of mental restlessness and curiosity. Such minds cannot fix their gaze on one object for two seconds together; the very impuls e which leads them to read at all, leads them to read on, and never to stay or hang over any one idea. The pleasurable excitement of reading what is new is their motive principle; and the imagination that they are doing something, and the boyish vanity whi ch accompanies it, are their reward. Such youths often profess to like poetry, or to like history or biography; they are fond of lectures on certain of the physical sciences; or they may possibly have a real and true taste for natural history or other cognate subjects;—and so far they may be regarded with satisfaction; but on the other hand they profess that they do not like logic, they do not like algebra, they have no taste for mathematics; which only means that they do not like application, they do not like attention, they shrink from the effort and labour of thinking, and the process of true intellectual gymnastics. The consequence will be that, when they grow up, they may, if it so happen, be agreeable in conversation, they may be well informed in thi s or that department of knowledge, they may be what is called "literary"; but they will have no consistency, steadiness, or perseverance; they will not be able to make a telling speech, or to write a good letter, or to fling in debate a smart antagonist, u nless so far as, now and then, mother-wit supplies a sudden capacity, which cannot be ordinarily counted on. They cannot state an argument or a question, or take a clear survey of a whole transaction, or give sensible and appropriate advice under difficulties, or do any of those things which inspire confidence and gain influence, which raise a man in life, and make him useful to his religion or his country."


My husband and I have been working on my ds's diligence at chores and such, and there's often heard " Put down that book and... (make your bed, get pajamas on, etc.)" Reading is so highly prized these days, but I have to remind myself its not the be-all and end-all.


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