Secular Charlotte Mason

OOPS  I mean TOO Fast.

I have a long list of books planned for our Kindergarten and First Grade year.  My son is kinder level for the 3 R's but 1st grade or higher on the read-alouds.  Here is a pic of our CM bookshelf.  

My question has to do with how fast or slow to read the selections.  I probably won't stick with a strict schedule so I organized our books by subject and plan to pull something interesting off the shelf when we feel inspired.  I could esptablish a routine where we study History after breakfast or have a list of subjects to cover in the morning.  The problem is that my son doesn't want me to stop reading.  I feel we are going through the material faster than CM suggested.  I want him to have plenty of time to think about it.  I'm not asking for narration yet because he asks so many questions that I know he's "getting it."   How much is too much at once?  If his eyes start to glaze or he gets impatient then I stop and suggest something else.  Sometimes, we can read for an hour before this happens.  Perhaps if I ask for narration that will slow us down?  What if he refuses to do narration when I ask?  BTW He just turned 6 yo.

Chai Mama,

I know Cm advocates reading books slowly but that just does not work for my girls. Works for Drakon and myself but I think when they are younger it is okay to go somewhat fast because some younger kids have trouble keeping the storyline in their brain for that long and/or they tend to flit from interest to interest when young. I did try to slow KodyGirl down at one time but all it did was turn her off of her "school reading". Instead I tend to find one book that I can use for analysis and comprehension type skills just to be sure she gets what she needs in that area. We also need to keep in mind the differences between having a child with you 24/7 and a school (even a CM school) having the child for just a few hours everyday. What works well in a school setting doesn't always translate well to a home setting and vice versa. I will say that, as an adult, I tend to read several books at once and take forever to do it but I was the complete opposite as a child.

You may also want to check the archives over at the SecularCM yahoo group. Seems to me this topic came up earlier in the year.

Hmmm, that's a good point about having them all day.  I haven't really tried to get him into several books at once (in one day anyway).   I will read from a book one day and then another book another day.  We probably have about 3 books going right now but I'm not switching books within minutes.  I do find that the chapter books stay in his mind longer since it does take several days to read them...

I certainly don't want to frustrate him with not giving him "enough" at once.  He seems to be remembering details.  For example, he was able to point out at least 3 differences in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the newer movie when we watched the movie 2 weeks after finishing the book.  Things I didn't remember.

Hi, Chai mama,

Jack is six and a half, so about a half year older than your son?

I know it has taken a while to get Jack used to reading a bit of a book at a time. Like your son, he wanted to read books through to the very end as recently as three or four moths ago.

I found that the best way has been to suggest that we switch to another book for a while. As time has gone on, he has gotten happier to do this and is now able to hear "that's enough for now, lets read some more tomorrow".

I don't know whether the difference is one of maturing enough to postpone the gratification or whether it was a matter of gradually getting him used to the idea. I do know that latel;y it seems like as long as I suggest somehting else we can do together, he is much happier to read just a chapter at time than he used to be.

I'll ask Rod whether that's true during the day, too.

Misti

PS can I come to your house and read your books?  tehy look like such fun!

Ham turned 6 in Sept.  Jack and Ham are probably a lot alike.  Oh, how I wish I lived closer to CM friends.  I do have one CM devoted friend in town and we rifle through each others bookshelves and swap books when we visit each other's homes.   We watched that Simply CM DVD together too.  I'd love to have more friends locally since this is such a fun way to educate and it does take some encouragement to be different.

Losing laptop battery...will check in later.  Yep, I finally got a laptop but I think it has a crappy battery.  Still learning the best way to use gadgets. 

Please someone, post something you liked even if it's a page number...which is easier than typing the passage.  If that's OK next time I'll post a page number. Does that work?

Gina, thanks, I haven't posted in a while on the yahoo group.  I've turned off all the yahoo groups.  I'm mostly just checking this site and facebook.  It takes too much time...even now, I'm sitting outside on a laptop instead of playing with my kids.  gotta run.

some of this is on the wrong topic but I couldn't fix it because my laptop battery quit.