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See last post for new questions.

 

 

 

Needing some suggestions on LA for middle school grades. 

Currently we use:

IEW Student Writing Intensive A *** LOVE

IEW Fix It Grammar ** Don't love

Progeny Press Reading Guides ** OK

All About Spelling *** Love

 

So, I'm not 100% sold on Fix it Grammer.  My oldest 2 are finishing year 2 of Fix It grammar this year.  I am considering needing more for grammar.  I LOVE IEW SWI A, so keeping that for writing.  Will finish AAS in the next year of 2, so don't want to change that either.  Needing help with the Grammar & Literature side.  Is there a program that includes grammar and Literature?  We tried TLP last summer and it was ok.  Any suggestions?  What LA do you use?  Thanks for the help. 

 

Edited by freemanfamilyof6
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I used Galore Park.  For age 10 to 11 you would probably choose So You Really Want to Learn English 1.  It's light on grammar but that worked fine for us - Calvin is now at a very good university studying English and Classics.  There is a sample here.  Each chapter has a very similar format:

 

http://www.galorepark.co.uk/Product/9781905735518.aspx

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You asked about a program that is Grammar and Literature together -- check out this recent thread on that same topic: "Grammar and literature together". But in answer to that question, no, there really isn't anything like that at the middle school or high school level, other than going with something like Bob Jones English which is most of the LA subjects all in one -- Grammar, Writing, Literature, Vocabulary. Below are some ideas for your LA areas for middle school. BEST of luck in finding what works best for your family! 🙂 Warmest regards, Lori D.

Grammar
If you are wanting a final Grammar wrap-up for the years of middle school, Analytical Grammar covers everything in the schedule of choice: 3 years, 2 years, 1 year -- the 3 year schedule would cover you for all 3 years of middle school... I also hear good reviews on Killgallon's Grammar for Middle School. (They also have programs for Writing.) I personally felt Easy Grammar was too rote and repetitive rather than actually teaching Grammar, but that is another program that works for a lot of families. EG is a workbook done largely solo by the student. Rod & Staff is quite rigorous and very thorough, but it may be more than what you are looking for. Growing With Grammar (levels for up through gr. 8), is another workbook-based program mostly done solo by the student. Hake's (Saxon) is both Grammar and Writing, so it is not as likely to be a good fit for you, since you have the IEW for Writing.

Literature
Only familiar with the high school level of Progeny Press guides; you might look at the older middle school guides to see if they are more meaty for you. There are also other worthwhile guides out there. 6th grade is a great time to start a gentle transition towards a more formal beginning Literature study for 7th and 8th grades. You could add in something like Figuratively Speaking (for learning about literary elements), and pick some really good books and individual Lit. guides to begin moving towards more formal Lit. studies for later. You could also slowly incorporate some of SWB's Logic stage questions into your Lit. discussions, and begin to look for things like:

- how literary devices are present (esp. things like character, plot, setting, conflict, mood…)
- character choices/consequences
- see / describe similarities/differences
- look for cause and effect
- make connections with current events in the story with what has gone before
- predict/guess what WILL happen, based on what has already happened

Some book and guide ideas:
- Redwall -- Garlic Press Discovering Lit. guideProgeny Press guide
- My Side of the Mountain -- Garlic Press Discovering Lit. guide
- Tuck Everlasting -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide
- The Horse and His Boy -- Progeny Press guide
- Sounder -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide
- Island of the Blue Dolphins -- Glencoe Lit. Library guideGarlic Press Discovering Lit. guideProgeny Press guide
- The Westing Game -- Blackbird & Co. guide
- The Witch of Blackbird Pond -- Blackbird & Co. guideGlencoe Lit. Library guideProgeny Press guide
- Anne of Green Gables -- Progeny Press guide

Or, if you'd prefer a Literature program:
- Memoria Press: 6th grade7th grade8th grade
- Mosdos Press Literature series -- Pearl (6th grade)Jade (7th grade)Gold (8th grade)Cathy Duffy review
- Lightning Lit & Comp 7 = programtable of contentssample pages -- also available as an online class with G3
Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings = (gr. 7-10)  table of contentssample pages
- Words Aptly Spoken (Classical Conversations):
1. Children's Lit: Intro to Literary Classics (gr. 7-9) -- description -- sample pages -- Cathy Duffy review
2. Short Stories (gr. 8-10) -- description -- sample pages

Or an online class:
- Bravewriter Arrow Bookclub -- see 2016 booklist
- Center for Lit -- elementary Literature (gr. 4-6); junior high Literature (gr. 7-9)

Or, Moving Beyond the Page (2 middle school pkg: age 10-12, or, age 11-13) is a full LA program with Spelling, Vocabulary, Grammar, Writing, and Literature.

Spelling
Once you are done with AAS, if still needing/wanting something for that subject, you might look at Megawords, which is for grades 4+. Many of the words are great vocabulary words for into middle school/high school, so it's easy to use the program for both Spelling and Vocabulary exposure. Megawords teaches vowel patterns and syllabication rules for help in breaking long words into smaller "bites" for spelling attack (or even reading attack). Or, you might enjoy making your own individualized Spelling/Vocabulary using The ABCs and All Their Tricks.

Edited by Lori D.
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We loved IEW, too. If, at some point you need a change, Jump In is working well right now for my 13 yo.

 

We use Rod and Staff English and I love it. ymmv

 

For lit we used Tapestry Books. I love Lori's list. One thing that is working well is that I have a book club once a month for a group of middle school students and we discuss a book using ideas from Deconstructing Penguins and Teaching the Classics.

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As usual, Lori D has great ideas so I'm not sure what more I could add.  But I'll throw a couple ideas in the mix anyway :)

 

Grammar:

there are traditional grammars like BJU and Abeka that many use and like.  We used BJU grammar up until 7th grade.  To change it up, I used Growing with Grammar. 

Analytical Grammar is quite good. 

Winston Grammar uses a totally different approach IMHO.  I'm very glad we used this one. 

 

Literature:

Drawn into the Heart of Reading goes up through 8th grade.  We enjoyed that quite a bit

Scott Foresman's Patterns and Traditions books are good.  Youngest liked those so much we used the series for high school

 

Doesn't IEW have a literature program now?

 

Lightning Literature has an interesting program

 

 

 

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Silver Moon -- Maxwell's School Composition -- is that this old, public domain work? And if so, how do you guys use it/schedule it? Thanks! :)

 

This one.  Mine did one of the writing exercises rather than all of them, and we did all of the usage/practice exercises. Like in the very first lesson exercises 1-3 are all separate writing assignments; we chose one and moved on. Then we would have done the 4th exercise orally. Later on there are some lessons that we broke into 2 or more days, and if their story was pretty rough we'd drag out editing and polishing and produce a final draft. In the latter situation I might have them do another run with one of the exercises we skipped. It was all decided on the fly as we went along.

 

 

eta: The one you linked would come next after the one I linked. It looks like something I could place my 7th grader into now, but he's in a happy rut and I don't want to mess with it...lol.

Edited by SilverMoon
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This one.  Mine did one of the writing exercises rather than all of them, and we did all of the usage/practice exercises. Like in the very first lesson exercises 1-3 are all separate writing assignments; we chose one and moved on. Then we would have done the 4th exercise orally. Later on there are some lessons that we broke into 2 or more days, and if their story was pretty rough we'd drag out editing and polishing and produce a final draft. In the latter situation I might have them do another run with one of the exercises we skipped. It was all decided on the fly as we went along.

 

 

eta: The one you linked would come next after the one I linked. It looks like something I could place my 7th grader into now, but he's in a happy rut and I don't want to mess with it...lol.

 

Thanks so much! The exercises in the version you linked would be something I might be able to use from time to time as part of the Comp. portion of my Lit. & Comp. co-cop class! :)

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  • 11 months later...

Needing some suggestions on LA for middle school grades. 

Currently we use:

IEW Student Writing Intensive A *** LOVE

IEW Fix It Grammar ** Don't love

Progeny Press Reading Guides ** OK

All About Spelling *** Love

 

So, I'm not 100% sold on Fix it Grammer.  My oldest 2 are finishing year 2 of Fix It grammar this year.  I am considering needing more for grammar.  I LOVE IEW SWI A, so keeping that for writing.  Will finish AAS in the next year of 2, so don't want to change that either.  Needing help with the Grammar & Literature side.  Is there a program that includes grammar and Literature?  We tried TLP last summer and it was ok.  Any suggestions?  What LA do you use?  Thanks for the help. 

Well I'm thinking about curriculum for 2017/18 now in February again.  Ha.  I'm predictable.

 

Update from this year:

IEW Student Writing Intensive A Continuation Course** LOVE

IEW Fix It Grammar 3 (every other week, taking 2 years to complete) ** Liked better this year

Figuratively Speaking (every other week) ** great addition, loved having this book

Memoria Press Reading Guides 6 with scheduled lesson plans  ** Like, good fit for us and the schedule provided better structure

All About Spelling ** Still liking

 

Plan for next year:

Memoria Press Reading Guides 7 with scheduled lesson plans

All About Spelling (will finish during the next school year)

Maybe MegaWords after done with spelling

IEW Fix It Grammar 3 (2nd half)

IEW SWI CC B????

????

 

So my questions and thing I need help with for next year are:

1.  Planning to do the 2nd half of IEW FIx it Grammar 3, but would like another book like FIguratively Speaking to pair with it.  Open to suggestions.... Can be in a diverse array of LA topics but not vocab or spelling.  Open and go as far as teaching or self paced would be best.  A supplemental book is fine.

2. What is a good next level after IEW SWI CC A?  Is it IEW SWI CC B?  May consider a topical IEW instead.  We will be studying Medieval History.  

3.  What level do you begin with MegaWords?

Edited by freemanfamilyof6
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So my questions and thing I need help with for next year are:

1.  Planning to do the 2nd half of IEW FIx it Grammar 3, but would like another book like FIguratively Speaking to pair with it.  Open to suggestions.... Can be in a diverse array of LA topics but not vocab or spelling.  Open and go as far as teaching or self paced would be best.  A supplemental book is fine.

2. What is a good next level after IEW SWI CC A?  Is it IEW SWI CC B?  May consider a topical IEW instead.  We will be studying Medieval History.  

3.  What level do you begin with MegaWords?

 

1. similar to Figuratively Speaking:

Walch's Toobox: Prose & Poetry. Much more of a focus on forms of poetry. There is a bit of overlap of literary devices in section one, but also new literary devices. Then section two and section three cover types of poetry. On the other hand, you may not need anything further like Figuratively Speaking, as the Memoria Press guide may work with literary devices and dig into the Literature, all in one, for you.

 

Other ideas (no personal experience):

Figurative Language -- very similar to FS, but with fewer literary devices and more worksheet practice

Story Elements -- half-step up from FS; focuses on major literary elements in analyzing/discussing Lit.

Forms and Elements -- similar to Story Elements, but another half-step up in depth and practice

 

 

2. IEW:

Can't help with what level of IEW to follow up with, but my thought is that it might be a good year to try another writing program that works on lots of different types of paragraph writing to put into practice what was learned in IEW. OR, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" -- and continue with another IEW, whatever others recommend. ;)

 

In case you do want to explore, other writing programs that might be a good fit at this stage include:

- Wordsmith -- gentle, written to the student, paragraphs, ends with a longer multi-paragraph assign.

- Jump In -- worked well for my struggling writer; similar to Wordsmith, but more in-depth

- Brave Writer: Faltering Ownership

- Lost Tools of Writing: level 1 - more formal program; might be better for grade 8

- Cover Story -- if the student enjoys Creative Writing, enjoy a year of practicing writing creatively

- Killgallon: Paragraphs for Middle School -- if needing to just get solid in writing paragraphs

- CAP: Writing & Rhetoric Book 5 and Book 6 -- more formal program; rated for gr. 5-6, but would fit for a gr. 7 student who is just starting to "click" with writing paragraphs and longer writing (possibly Book 7 and Book 8, if the student is a pretty strong thinker/logical argument builder/writer)

 

 

3. Megawords:

There is a rather pricey assessment book ($27), so if that's more than you want to spend, you might just look at the table of contents and sample pages of the different student book levels to see what would best fit your student's needs.

 

Here's a quick list of what each of the 8 books cover:

 

Book 1 = compound words; VC/CV closed syllables, and then with silent-e and then with r-controlled syllables; V/CV syllabication; VC/V syllabication; -cle syllabication; V/V syllabication

Book 2 = consonant suffixes and plurals; vowel suffixes; -ed sounds; common prefixes; summer of Latin Roots

Book 3 =  -al and -ic endings; it -ite -et and -ate endings; "schwa middle syllable; -ant -ance -ent and -ence endings; -ive -ice -ace -ine and -ain endings; accent patterns

Book 4 = -er -or -ar -ard and -ward; -tion; -sion and -cian; -ous and -age; -ture -tu- and -sure; -able -ible and -le; accent patterns

Book 5 = vowel combos with "o"; with "a"; with "e"; vowel sounds of y; vowel combination patterns

Book 6 = sounds of "ch" "ph" and "qu; soft c; soft g; vowel-r-vowel combos

Book 7 = unaccented i -- different vowel pronunciations; "ti" and "ci" endings; advanced v/v combo

Book 8 = prefixes of com- ad- sub- ob- dis- ex- syn- and in-

Edited by Lori D.
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Oldest used Jump In and really liked it.  I can't say she loved it because she has never liked writing.  She is now in college and her Brit Lit professor just praised her writing ability, so I'm thinking something worked :)  She also received A's in her Writing Comp Class and Survey of Lit class.  She used BJU Grammar...again, okay, got the job done.  For literature, she really liked Drawn into the Heart of Reading.  I think she liked this program because she could chose which books to read and which genre to study.  The discussion questions and activities were interesting as well.

 

Youngest used Growing with Grammar and liked it.  We rounded out her grammar by using AG for 7th and 8th grades.  She really like Scott Foresman literature.  The old text books Patterns and Traditions.  I enjoyed using those as well.  We read literature I don't think we would have selected in another program. 

 

Forgot to add Word Roots.  Both dds worked through this program.  I helped prepare them for high school biology.

Edited by HollyDay
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Well I'm thinking about curriculum for 2017/18 now in February again.  Ha.  I'm predictable.

 

Update from this year:

IEW Student Writing Intensive A Continuation Course** LOVE

IEW Fix It Grammar 3 (every other week, taking 2 years to complete) ** Liked better this year

Figuratively Speaking (every other week) ** great addition, loved having this book

Memoria Press Reading Guides 6 with scheduled lesson plans  ** Like, good fit for us and the schedule provided better structure

All About Spelling ** Still liking

 

Plan for next year:

Memoria Press Reading Guides 7 with scheduled lesson plans

All About Spelling (will finish during the next school year)

Maybe MegaWords after done with spelling

IEW Fix It Grammar 3 (2nd half)

IEW SWI CC B????

????

 

So my questions and thing I need help with for next year are:

1.  Planning to do the 2nd half of IEW FIx it Grammar 3, but would like another book like FIguratively Speaking to pair with it.  Open to suggestions.... Can be in a diverse array of LA topics but not vocab or spelling.  Open and go as far as teaching or self paced would be best.  A supplemental book is fine.

2. What is a good next level after IEW SWI CC A?  Is it IEW SWI CC B?  May consider a topical IEW instead.  We will be studying Medieval History.  

3.  What level do you begin with MegaWords?

SWI CC-B follows CC-A

 

The topical ones are good, too.

 

 

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Rod and Staff here. My odd used spelling and English including the composition assignments through middle school and is using in high school. She has worked some through WWS. We pick it up and put it down as time allows.  And we have done all of the WTM style writing over the years across the curriculum. Lit has been WTM style almost exclusively. We threw in one MP study guide last year for a Shakespeare play. It wasn't anything special, so I decided one a year for some guided study is good. So for 9th this year she has done the reading and writing using WEM and WTM, but I bought one MP guide again on top of her R&S and WWS.  My next one is moving through R&S and WTM literature as well. For her though, R&S spelling doesn't work. She is more right brained, so we have picked up some Dyslexia Games workbooks for her to work through. Both do Latin as well in the Form series through middle school.

 

 

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So, I know this isn't exactly a Classical mindset but ...I pushed through with grammar for my son who was good at learning from workbooks and he used four years of Abeka.  We didn't do strong grammar in 7th and 8th but he did have quite a bit, including diagramming sentences.  So he had four years of Abeka grammar and two years of Calvert grammar which is strong but not as much review.

 

He is in 9th grade.  He has pretty much forgotten all of it in one simple year.  Not only that, but he is doing great with his online German class because the class really doesn't use grammar terminology very often.  When it does, the teacher introduces it.  

 

With my younger daughter, she struggled a LOT with all grammar programs I tried.  She would literally forget every term we taught, the day after we taught it.  Every day and every week and every month, it seemed the previous day, week and month never happened. I finally gave up last year in 6th grade and I am not worried about it at all. 

 

Both of my kids are truly excellent writers, and have a way with words.  My son takes a very intense local writing class intended for 11th and 12th graders and is getting a straight A.  My daughter is consistently told she is the best writer in her English class. 

 

So, I would say to not worry about grammar.  Focus on writing. Focus on reading excellent literature both aloud and to herself.  And, if you continue with a grammar program, and your child really grasps it, that's great.  If not, don't sweat it.

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