There’s a Reason It’s Called Five in a Row!

Some children read a story only for the plot. When they “know what has happened,” they are ready for a new book. The plot is all they know to find in a book. It takes a bit of creativity and planning for these children to experience the richness of a good story–to find out how much more than just the plot can come to them through a great book!The Five in a Row Curriculum was designed to find many treasures in every story -across several academic topic areas-and to provide a built in review every time you re-read the story. Each day as your child hears the story again, he is saying to himself, “Oh, there is the repetition!” or “Oh, I see how that artist balanced the picture!” or ” I remember that from yesterday .” The repetition, and the repeated opportunities for your child to apply what he has learned as he hears the book over again is an important part of this curriculum.In addition, each day as you read, your child will hear the sentence structure, syntax, style, mood, etc., of a story written by a great children’s author. This repetitive reading of a story for five days can make a huge difference in your child’s ability to read and write (at the proper time). His ear becomes used to good sentences–he may not have memorized them, but the hearing five times works almost as well. Again this will help in both reading and creative writing in the future.Seeing, five times in a row, the great works of art that are contained in the illustrations of the Five in a Row selected titles, works much the same way. Your student’s eyes are being trained not to rush from one set of illustrations to another, but to observe different details each day, as he listens to the book.  There really was a great deal of thought that went into how this particular curriculum was created and structured, for the maximum benefits to occur. It isn’t just a curriculum that uses a book, to just read once, and go on.

Suggestions for a resistant student: So, because there are some monumental benefits to reading the story over all five days, we have some suggestions for those who may have a reluctant student.You can read the story the first day. The second day you can just say you are going to read it again, but this time you are going to make a game of altering the story and see if they can catch you.  Skip a line, add a line or a funny character and see if they notice!Another day you can say that you are going to read the story again, but today your student can be looking for something in the art lesson you are going to do. For example, ask your student to look for every picture that has both orange and blue in it –since later that day you will do a lesson in complementary colors.Have a student draw something about the story, while you are reading one day…not as good because they aren’t looking at the pictures…but it might work for one day.If you do a lesson on onomatopoeia one day, the next day have them listen for the examples and raise their hand or slap their leg when they hear one. Use the previous day’s lessons to spur yet another reading of the book, because it is important.With the above ideas and approach, you are retaining the right to dictate what you will do for school in a gentle friendly way. “This is what we are going to do,” while caring for your student enough to create a helpful environment in which he can get over the hump of the problem, and learn to read a book for five days. Then you have a win-win, situation.I think you will find that after a few units, you won’t have to do so much of this type of  leading because your child will be used to reading the book five days in a row and he will be enjoying it!All that said, you are the teacher and you have the decisions to make. I just thought you might want to know why Five in a Row was created in this way.Blessings on all of your homeschool journey!