MFW and reading?

[mom2jjka]

We are going to be using MFW's RTR this upcoming fall for my oldest two children, who will be in 4th and 6th grades. (We did SOTW Vol 1 - so we are skipping CTG and going in to the second year of the MFW cycle.)

I know that MFW has a 'book basket' where the kids get to choose books for free reading - but is it enough?
Do any of you also use a separate reading program/curriculum?

I already have tentative choices for grammar, spelling and writing, but I want to make sure that I have everything covered.
I was wondering if I should use something like CLE, R&S Pathways or DITHOR?

Would any of them be compatible with RTR - or would it just be adding be 'too much' into our day?

[Cadam]

Are your kids not reading fluently? Book basket is more about learning to enjoy and explore reading. It is not at all a leveled reading program. I make sure to include some books at dd's level in our library bin and I have her read to me but she is still finishing OPG too. I think my 6th grader would be insulted if I made him read aloud anymore, but he can pretty much read anything you put in front of him.

WTM and MFW advocate using real books for reading practice but if a program with leveled readers works better for your family then you would need to get that outside of MFW.

[dhudson]

I agree with Christina. Once my children could read fluently, I stopped using reading programs. I have them do book reports on some of the book basket books and have them read some of our required reading outloud but that's it.

[mom2jjka]

They are reading fluently.

I just didn't know if it would be good to have them use something that works on vocabulary/comprehension/character analysis, etc.

Up until this point my DS has been reading the Pathways series and using the workbooks that go with it. (He likes the books, but finds the workbooks tedious.)

Other than Book Basket and a recommended reading list, I didn't see any reading plans in the MFW schedule, so I didn't know if I should find something and incorporate it as 'language arts.'

[Lori in MS]

My dc do book basket where they get to choose what they want to read. For the 30 minutes of independant reading each day, I choose books from the book basket list for them to read. Usually it is historical fiction or a biography. I don't think you need a seperate reading program. We do reading comprehension and character analysis informally. I usually ask them to tell me about the book and ask them questions. At this point I want my children to love reading and don't want to make it tedious. In grades 7-8 MFW recommends doing literature analysis, vocabulary etc more in depth with the Progeny press guides.

[Cadam]

You choose Language arts yourself, although they do have suggestions. Lit analysis is done with Progeny press guides in Jr. High

[Donna A.]

You could use a separate Reading program, but it isn't necessary. The tools of narration and copywork are really quite powerful, and that combined with the notebooking and other activities in MFW will give your children plenty of practice and retention. Also, if you use PLL and ILL for language arts, they'll glean reading and other LA skills from those sources, too.

[ssexton]

This will be our first year using MFW, and we'll be using RtoR with a 4th and 5th grader. It's probably not necessary to use a seperate reading program, but we are going to be using the Elson Readers. I love the look of them, and by incorporating the Teacher's Guides we'll be getting vocabulary and some discussion of literary elements. And, I'll be able to check comprehension, too. My kids are reading fluently, but I want to keep stretching them a bit. I noticed that the MFW schedule has a time slot for both book basket (15 minutes) and reading (30 minutes), so I'm hoping to be able to squeeze in both. I won't expect them to read aloud to me, though.

Shannon

[Momofeat]

My dd(9) loves the book basket and willingly reads much more than 30 minutes whenever she has the opportunity. My dh works at a library and brings the books home for us. It's like Christmas every time! :D

Every now and then, I'll choose a book from the book basket to study more in depth and use a Progeny Press guide for a few weeks, but we're not currently using anything more than that.

(We're using Exploration to 1850).