Do you put together your own reading program or buy one already together?

[hsmom]

I have not found a reading program that has jumped out at me. So, I have decided to piece together one this year. I am not worried about the grammar or spelling because I have those covered really well.
But I was curious what others do. If you do put together your own what do you use? Also if you buy yours what program do you use? What are the pros and cons?

[Eliana]

I have not found a reading program that has jumped out at me. So, I have decided to piece together one this year. I am not worried about the grammar or spelling because I have those covered really well.
But I was curious what others do. If you do put together your own what do you use? Also if you buy yours what program do you use? What are the pros and cons?

What do you mean by 'a reading program'? When I hear the term, I think of phonics, but if you're doing spelling and grammar, then that probably isn't what you meant... (If you are looking for reading practice: we use Phonics Pathways, OPGTR, Bob books, Mr Putter & Tabby books, easy chapter books, etc. I try to find things that are within a child's abilities, but that provide a little bit of a stretch.)

We read books and talk about them. A lot of our reading is loosely tied into the 4 year history cycle

We read Sutcliff's Black Ships Before Troy and Wanderings of Odysseus to the younger ones when we're studying Ancient Greece, and the older kids read the Iliad and the Odyssey. We read Serralier's spectacular adaptation of Beowulf when studying early Britain, and the older kids read Heaney's beautiful translation.

We also read classic works of literature (children's and 'regular') - many of which appear on Ambleside's reading lists. We read and watch Shakespeare's plays, read and memorize and recite poetry, and my older girls read essays, memoirs, and other works of prose for literature reading and as composition models.

The kids narrate their readings periodically (it would be burdensome to have them narrate everything we read!), and we talk about what we're reading... nothing fancy, and I never quiz them - I think reading comprehension questions are really time consuming way to make children hate reading... but I'm very opinionated!

What are your goals? What kind of reading experience do you want to have with your children? What have they done before? What do they read now?

[WagsWife]

I have not found a reading program that has jumped out at me. So, I have decided to piece together one this year. I am not worried about the grammar or spelling because I have those covered really well.
But I was curious what others do. If you do put together your own what do you use? Also if you buy yours what program do you use? What are the pros and cons?

The last couple of years I made my own reading lists. We had been using Abeka, and one day I found Classical/CM and realized I wanted my daughter to be reading more classic type books verses short stories. I just put together a reading list using ideas from Ambleside and Veritas Press. We have been very happy with the result. This year I wanted her to learn more about plot and other elements in Lit, so we added LL7, however she still reads books from our reading list at the same time.

[one l michele]

we use SWR, then transition to spelling not needing a phonics program.

For actual reading comprehension we use Sonlight readers & guides.

[Beth in Central TX]

For a reading/phonics program, I use R&S from 1st to 4th grade. For literature books, I put together my own list from 2nd to 6th grade based upon the recommendations found in TWTM and VP. In 7th grade, I will switch to the Omnibus series.

[hsmom]

Well I found these books http://rainbowresource.com/prodlist.php?sid=1205501603-1172540&subject=6&category=992 and I bought them to use for our reading (well part of it) and to add to our writing. I am not actually on the look out for phonics, but I am interested in adding to these for more reading comp..
I guess I should have made my post a little more clear.

[MIch elle]

CLE reading gives us an excellent literature base. Here's what's included in CLE reading 5:

SUNRISE READING 500 – Open Windows
LightUnit 501
Vocabulary words
Cause and effect
Identifying strong, active verbs
Describing story characters
Identifying similes
Defining words from context
Choosing facts to support a statement
Writing progressive degrees of a concept
Working with personification
Proving or disproving statements about a
story
Identifying and interpreting figures of
speech
Completing analogies
Inferring facts not directly stated
Understanding circumstantial evidence
and proof
Defining and using homographs
Understanding the term idiom
Interpreting common idioms
Answering five W questions
Numbering story events in order
Telling what story characters learned from
the way God worked
Listing traits of story characters
Working with rhythm and rhyme scheme
in poetry
LightUnit 502
Working with vocabulary words
Defining words from context
Understanding a proverb
Creating an alternate story title
Identifying character’s feelings
Identifying the most important event in a
story
Completing analogies that have more than
one correct answer
Understanding a nonverbal message
Predicting what happened after the story
Inferring facts not directly stated
Marking poetic rhythm
Using principle and principal
Scanning for answers or topics
Evaluating story characters’ actions
Identifying a story’s main lesson
Understanding the meaning of prejudice
and its foolishness
Identifying a biography
Defining foot as used in poetry
Identifying metrical feet in a poem
Thinking about race prejudice
Working with synonyms
Marking rhythm in a poem
LightUnit 503
Working with vocabulary words
Inferring facts not directly stated
Telling what could have happened
Identifying main ideas and summaries
Describing story characters
Identifying a characters fears and hardships
Learning about other inventions of
Benjamin Franklin
Marking poetic rhythm and meter
Working with perfect and imperfect rhyme
Numbering unstated events in order
Identifying figures of speech
Defining and identifying metaphors
Finding evidence to support statements
Outlining a simple story plot
Explaining a figure of speech
Identifying metaphors, similes, and personification
Defining words from their context
Suggesting others whom the sinking of the
Titanic would have affected
Comparing a poem and a story
Identifying main ideas of paragraphs
Explaining the meanings of sentences
Understanding conflict, internal conflict,
and external conflict
Identifying areas of conflict in the story
LightUnit 504: Out in Nature
Working with vocabulary words
Identifying cause and effect
Identifying the story purpose and details
that further the story purpose
Working with guide words
Using the dictionary
Finding metaphors in the Bible
Inferring facts not directly stated
Defining biography
Identifying a metaphor in a poem
Scanning to locate facts
Writing an essay imagining he is Peter
walking on the water
Identifying a metaphor from the story
Defining words from their context
Marking the rhyme scheme of a poem
Writing another title for the story
Making a prediction
Categorizing natural resources
Naming reference books needed to find
answers to given questions
Identifying hints of how a character will act
Defining free verse
Identifying main ideas, story lessons, and
summaries of stories
Completing a poetic couplet
Reading about KJV Bible
Rewriting KJV phrases in modern English
Identifying characters, setting, external
and internal conflict in the story
Understanding a character’s actions
Imagining what might have happened
LightUnit 505
Working with vocabulary words.
Understanding story characters’ actions
and feelings
Describing story characters
Working with main idea, story lesson, and
summary
Thinking about idle words
Working with personification
Making a simple outline of a story
Categorizing words
Explaining an idiom
Identifying emotions as shown by words
Interpreting figures of speech
Defining circumstantial evidence
Scanning for answers
Imagining details not given
Imagining story characters’ feelings and
explaining possible reasons for their
actions
Telling what might have happened
Defining words from their context
Inferring facts not directly stated
Identifying similes
Choosing exact, specific verbs to replace
weak ones
Learning the term epigram

I highly recommend CLE Reading. Join the CLE yahoo (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/christianlightfamilies/)group to see samples & the rest of the scope & sequence charts.

[hsmom]

Thank you Michelle!

[strider]

I really like many of the books on the Sonlight reader and read-aloud lists, and have in the past bought them.

I also do whatever books strike our fancy. For example, right now my dd (11yo) and I are reading Oliver Twist, after which she would like to do The Hobbit. She's such a quick reader that it's more of a challenge to keep her supplied with enough books.

I was an English and Rhetoric major in college, so literature is my thing. I haven't felt a need to depend on a curriculum. We read, discuss, and evaluate together. As she continues to grow older I will likely require her to write some analyses in a report, or compare more than one work by the same author.

[Novafan]

What age and approximate grade level reading are you looking for?

[mcmom4]

CLE Reading program, no matter what grade! We all love them and my children have learned so much!:

[hsmom]

I am looking for 5th grade.