Independent reading

With my eldest child, B8, we are following Ambleside Online Y3's schedule (with a few minor tweaks).
I started off this term reading everything to him out loud, but as the term progressed I have slowly started giving him the responsibility of doing his own readings. I tell him which sections to read, sometimes writing down a few points that I want him to be aware of, and then send him off to read it. He then comes and narrates back to me what he has read once he's finished. I use the quality and detail of his narration as an indication of how well he has understood what he has read.
It is been very very successful, and has lifted a burden off my shoulders as well, as it frees me up to do some work with R5.

The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading. … This habit should be begun early; so soon as the child can read at all, he should read for himself, and to himself, history, legends, fairy tales, and other suitable matter. He should be trained from the first to think that one reading of any lesson is enough to enable him to narrate what he has read, and will thus get the habit of slow, careful reading, intelligent even when it is silent, because he reads with an eye to the full meaning of every clause. –Charlotte Mason

engrossed in Alice in Wonderland

B8 has been able to read well for many years, and (like many boys) he's always been particularly interested in non-fiction books.
A year ago, when he was just 7 years old, I lamented the fact that he didn't seem to have any interest in reading fiction chapter books. A veteran home schooling mother said not to worry, because there is a big difference between 7 year old and 8 year old boys, and that he will start reading more as he gets closer to 8yrs old....and that is exactly what happened.  Of course, I do need to encourage him and free reading is on our daily timetable, but over the last few months he has read many of the free reads on the Ambleside Online for Year 3, and has enjoyed them! 


Most of the work I do with R5 is reading.  We make sure we do some every day. We are still using Reading Eggs, which I still recommend for any mothers who don't really know how to teach their child to read. This will do the work for you!
We are also working our way through the Treadwell Primer books and he is doing well and can read them. Some people wouldn't start reading with a 5 year old, they may start later, but R5 is ready now in a way that he wasn't a year ago for example, so it's working well and he wants to do it.

I am happy too, because I realise that helping them along the road of independent learning is to get them to be able to read. It opens a whole world up for them.  Next year, when R5 starts doing Year 1, I anticipate reading everything out-loud to him, and similarly for Year 2, but when he is in Year 3 I hope to start transferring some of the work. And not having to read everything outloud to every child is, of course, the key to a Charlotte Mason mother's sanity and to lessen her workload.


Great article on independent reading from Brandy at Afterthoughts blog.