Guide
A sample week, Monday to Friday
One week of the Faith Readers reading sequence, taken from the published catalogue rather than invented: the same five-day rhythm at three different grades, with real skills, heroes, verses and words.
Checked 31 August 2026
How long does a day actually take?
A reading day is 10 to 15 minutes of student work on five pages, and that figure is recorded identically for all 1,050 daily lessons in the catalogue, Kindergarten through Grade 5. A full reading week is recorded as 50 to 75 minutes of student work. The adult's preceptor guide for the week is seven pages, about 15 to 20 minutes of reading.
That is the reading lesson only. Math, handwriting and any practice pages you add sit on top of it. Faith Schooling does not publish science or history, so a full school day will draw on other material as well. What we can state precisely is the part we publish.
The five-day rhythm
Every week in the sequence runs the same way, so neither child nor parent has to work out what happens next. The rhythm is Introduce, Reader, Handwriting, Apply, Check. Monday sets up the week, Friday closes it, and the three days between practise the same pattern in three different ways.
| Day | Lesson | What happens | Pages | Student time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Introduce | Hero, virtue, Scripture and the new pattern | 5 | 10-15 min |
| Tuesday | Reader | Decodable reader and narration | 5 | 10-15 min |
| Wednesday | Handwriting | Handwriting, tracing, copywork and word work | 5 | 10-15 min |
| Thursday | Apply | Grammar, comprehension and written application | 5 | 10-15 min |
| Friday | Check | Weekly review and mastery check | 5 | 10-15 min |
Week 6 in Kindergarten
The hero of the week is Noah and the virtue is trust. The phonics skill is the letter Nn and its sound. The memory verse is Genesis 6:22. The focus words are Noah, tools, on, an, trusts and us; the sight words are was, he, to, you, it and of.
Monday introduces Noah, the virtue, the verse and the sound of Nn. Tuesday reads the decodable story built from that sound and the words already taught, then the child narrates it back. Wednesday traces and writes. Thursday applies the pattern in grammar and comprehension work. Friday checks whether it stuck.
Week 6 in Grade 2
The hero is David and the virtue is humility. The skill is soft c and soft g continued, with the -dge and -ge endings. The memory verse is Psalm 139:23. The focus words are bridge, page, edge, judge and stage; the sight words are very and many.
The shape of the week is identical to Kindergarten's, but the load has moved. By Grade 2 the child is reading connected text on Tuesday rather than sounding out single words, and Thursday's application asks for written grammar and comprehension rather than a traced line.
Week 6 in Grade 5
The hero of the week is Augustine and his City of God, and the virtue is humility. The skill is the Latin root civ, meaning citizen. The memory verse is Ephesians 4:2. The focus words are civil, civilization, citizenship, civic and civilian; the sight words are pilgrim and republic.
By Grade 5 the phonics work has become morphology. The week still opens with a person, a virtue and a verse, still reads, still writes and still checks on Friday, but the pattern being learned is a Latin root and the words it generates rather than a letter and its sound.
How much help the adult has to give
The catalogue records an expected level of adult help for every daily lesson, and it steps down as the grades rise. That is a real planning number: it tells you how much of your own attention a reading lesson will take when you have more than one child in the room.
Kindergarten and Grade 1 are recorded as high adult involvement on every lesson. Grades 2 and 3 are medium. Grades 4 and 5 are low, meaning the child can largely work the page and bring it to you. Student time does not change; your time does.
| Grade | Student time per day | Pages per day | Adult help |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kindergarten | 10-15 min | 5 | High |
| Grade 1 | 10-15 min | 5 | High |
| Grade 2 | 10-15 min | 5 | Medium |
| Grade 3 | 10-15 min | 5 | Medium |
| Grade 4 | 10-15 min | 5 | Low |
| Grade 5 | 10-15 min | 5 | Low |
Where this week comes from
The weeks above are not illustrations written for this page. They are read out of the published Faith Readers scope and sequence, which is generated from the week overview page of each grade's student textbook and printed in full on every grade page.
A grade year runs 35 instructional weeks, numbered 2 through 36. The weekly lesson library holds 210 weekly sets across six grades: 1,050 daily student lessons, 210 preceptor guides and 5,250 student pages. The same sequence in textbook form runs to 8,952 student pages with 3,530 pages of teaching guides.
Adding math to the week
Building Number Sense is the sequenced K-5 arithmetic series and runs beside the reading week rather than inside it. Kindergarten through Grade 2 have a student text, a coordinated practice workbook and a teaching guide. Grades 3 to 5 currently have the student text; the series is sequenced and growing, and we do not call it complete.
If you want extra pages on a single skill rather than the next lesson, the Practice Library is the place for that. It is practice, not instruction: the first three worksheets in every set are open to everyone so you can see what you would be printing.
Common questions
- What happens if we miss a day?
- Nothing breaks. The sequence is mastery-paced rather than calendar-paced: a child moves on when the skill is there, not when the date says so. A missed Wednesday becomes Thursday's lesson and the week finishes a day later. Friday's check exists to tell you whether the pattern actually landed, which is the only signal that should decide whether you move forward.
- Is the weekly set the same content as the textbook?
- Yes. Phonics, Decoding and Early Fluency and Faith Readers Weekly Lessons follow the same week-by-week sequence; the difference is packaging. The textbook is the whole year in one student book, also offered as four quarter-sized print editions, with a teaching guide. The weekly sets are 25 student pages and a seven-page preceptor guide, printed a week at a time. Most families choose one format.
- Do I need the preceptor guide?
- It is where the teaching is. The seven-page weekly guide tells the adult what to say and do, and is recorded as about 15 to 20 minutes of reading for the whole week. In Kindergarten and Grade 1, where adult help is recorded as high on every lesson, you will lean on it heavily. By Grades 4 and 5, where it is recorded as low, you will use it for planning more than delivery.
- Can we start mid-year?
- Yes, and starting at the right week matters more than starting in September. HARVEST takes about fifteen minutes in the browser and names a starting point in the sequence rather than assuming the child's age. Every grade page also publishes its full scope and sequence as text, so you can read the weeks and see for yourself where your child belongs.
- Do we have to print it?
- The weekly sets and textbooks are print-ready PDFs, and the page counts are shown before you print. Teaching guides for the reading textbooks are readable in the browser page by page. Free Apostolic Academy material opens in the same online reader, so you can read a whole book on screen without printing it.
Sources
- Faith Readers reading scope and sequence, generated from the student textbooks: hero, virtue, skill, Scripture, focus and sight words for Weeks 2-36 — checked 2026-08-31
- Faith Readers weekly-lesson catalogue: 210 weeks, 1,050 daily lessons, five pages and 10-15 minutes per day, seven-page guides, adult-help ratings by grade — checked 2026-08-31
- Phonics, Decoding and Early Fluency textbook manifest: six grades, Weeks 2-36, 8,952 student pages, 3,530 teaching-guide pages — checked 2026-08-31
- Building Number Sense manifest: student text for all six grades, workbook and teaching guide for Kindergarten through Grade 2 — checked 2026-08-31