FairProspects Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Would anyone care to help me decide what order to work on language skills? When it all needs work, and I can't for the life of me remember what order we worked on these skills with older ds, I need all the help I can get. Here is where we are at. Reading - a bit below grade level probably around grade 2.5, but not by much (he is a rising 3rd grader). He will continue to work on fluency over the summer Grammar - strong grasp of parts of speech and types of sentences, has not attempted diagramming or anything yet Spelling - really coming along, set to finish AAS 2 by the end of the academic year Writing - working on Sentences to Paragraphs 2, good grasp of complete sentences & writing well structured sentences Vocab - needs help He has a short attention span and is only 8, so I can probably pick 2 areas to work on over the summer, more than that might cause a revolt. Options I'm thinking of: 1) Complete Rewards Intermediate & continue Sentences to Paragraphs over the summer, pick up with AAS 3 in the fall - no grammar or vocab 2) Work on Sentences to Paragraphs & Dynamic Literacy Foundations 1 (vocab) over the summer, pick up with AAS 3 & start Rewards in the fall - no grammar or summer phonics 3) Work on Grammar Island & Sentence Island over the summer, pick up with AAS 3 & Rewards in the fall - no vocab or writing or summer phonics What skills & or programs would you choose to remediate and in what order? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymonster Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 My son is a rising fourth grader, and he's pretty behind in Language Arts. If I were in your shoes, I would do the following: 1. This summer, work on phonics and vocabulary. I would try to read to him as well as have him listening to audio books, as well. If he is not solid on reading, then writing and spelling seem lie they will be more difficult to excel in. 2. Next fall, I would keep on with phonics, spelling, grammar, and writing. While my DS enjoyed MCT grammar, the rest of the MCT program was too fanciful for him to be able to apply what he read to his writing. He really needs explicit, incremental work on writing and mechanics. This year (in third), DS did Grammar Island the first 6? weeks of school and then we started alternating a workbook on mechanics with the MCT practice sentences. It seems to be helping. This is my personal crazy-lady theory, at least as how I have tried to prioritize things for DS9. I rank writing as the highest priority, but the last skill to acquire because it is the most complex and relies on the other skills. As a foundation, reading and vocabulary are my first priorities -- a person needs to be familiar with the language and understand how to access it. Then, I would say spelling and grammar are my next priority -- being able to manipulate the language. Finally, writing. It is the most complex and requires all of the other skills to be successful. This year was our spelling and grammar year. I have a sneaking suspicion that *every year* will require focus on spelling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 You could combine phonics and vocab with the 1879 McGuffey readers. Or, Marcia Henry's Words combines phonics and spelling and eventually word root study. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 That's a tough one. There is so much to cover and yet everyone needs breaks. I haven't used most of what you are considering so I cannot speak to those specifically. I am brainstorming something similar however so I guess I will share some of my thoughts in case it helps. Since Barton lessons deal with reading/spelling/light grammar/some writing and we are continuing Barton through summer I guess for us those just gets covered irregardless. We are also going to continue Fix-It Grammar, though, since it is very short but is helping DD. I intend to keep this to 3-4 days a week most of the summer, but nothing on Friday/Saturday/Sunday except reading out loud or audio books unless they choose to read something on their own. DS and DD need practice with the physical act of writing as well as how to write but I am keeping that light over the summer. Just what we are doing in Fix it and Barton. We have so much going on this summer. I don't want to lose ground but I don't want to overwhelm them. FWIW, we are going to work a lot on vocabulary this summer. DD needs a lot of help linking words (spoken or written) to meaning. Fix it is helping with this and so is the vocabulary work in CLE Math but we need more. So besides Barton/Fix-It we are working on vocabulary. Could you do daily reading but maybe spelling and grammar and writing just 3 days a week in short sessions so there is nothing lost, a bit of gain, but summer is still lighter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pen Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Reading daily. Vocabulary 1 or 2 days per week, writing 1 or 2 days per week. (no grammar, or spelling) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 Reading daily. Vocabulary 1 or 2 days per week, writing 1 or 2 days per week. (no grammar, or spelling) I think this might work best for us. I maybe should clarify though that while AAS is spelling, I really use it more as OG phonics, so the emphasis is less on spelling and more on reading/phonics decoding. I still think that we could probably break from it for the summer and work on Rewards (morphology) and see if that will help with the reading too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 Honestly, you sound like you are doing great. I have nothing to add other than slow and steady wins the race. :D 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 Honestly, you sound like you are doing great. I have nothing to add other than slow and steady wins the race. :D Aw, thanks!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 Whoa, I just checked the level of the book he is reading and it is 4.4. It is hard for him and definitely at instructional level, but maybe he is reading better than I thought. Fluency level on his own is more like 2.5, but we will just keep plugging away regardless. Rewards might help even out some of this too. A lot of what he is missing in bigger words is suffixes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted May 1, 2015 Share Posted May 1, 2015 REWARDS covers vocabulary in every lesson, so maybe that'd kill two birds with one stone. We are 8 lessons in on REWARDS -- my goal is to finish this summer so (in the fall) we can finally drop formal phonics/remediation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted May 2, 2015 Share Posted May 2, 2015 It sounds like he is doing really well. Maybe just read heaps and see if you can find vocab games if such a thing exists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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