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Has Anyone Used MCT All the Way Through Level 7?


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Since no one else has posted, I'll share.  Keep in mind I'm stronger in math/science, and not much of a language arts person.  Also, it's been a couple of years, and my memory is foggy.  

 

Grammar

We enjoyed the grammar island, town, and voyage, though analyzing so many sentences gets tedious, it did drive home the lessons which they've retained.  I used Magic Lens with my daughter, but we just managed to scrape by.  I think there was a lot of information to process (present perfect?  plu perfect?  I can't really remember all the terms), but not a lot of practice using them.  Anyway, our thought was kind of "huh?"  And a lot of it was review from the previous books.  I didn't end up using it with my younger daughter.  

 

Vocabulary

We loved loved the Caesars English books.  Both of them.  So very excellent.   In contrast, WWW is such a disappointment and so annoying for so many reasons.  You are buying a gorgeous book that contains lots of color photos of greek and roman antiquities, and there are essays about various aspects of greek and roman history.  But we skipped them for time.  Which is weird because I am in fact teaching ancient history to my younger daughter.  If those essays had been packaged into a separate history book, we would have used them.  But in our vocabulary book they are ignored.  Another annoying thing?  All I need from the parent manual is a copy of the exams and an answer key so I don't have to create my own tests and it's easy to grade.  They provide that along with the entire copy of the student's book.  I don't need a second copy of the student book.  We already own a copy.  And MCT insists on printing the answer key on the sheet opposite of the exam, right there for all to see.  Would it have killed him to put it somewhere else in the book so I don't need to cover it with another piece of paper?  And when I get "lucky" and the answer key is printed on the back of the test page, now it's nearly impossible to grade without having to flip the page back and forth.  Yeah, I know, first world problems, but I'm paying first world prices, right?  Final complaint:  some of the words are obscure.  Dd complained that she now knows 3 synonyms for tightrope walker.  Yeah, that'll come in handy.  

 

Poetry

We don't really like poems, so we skip that.  (Did I mention I'm more into math/science?)

 

Writing

By middle and high school we had switched to a writing tutor where they have thrived.  Academic Writing I was fine, but hard for me to implement.  My tutor used it a bit, but then I just trusted her to do what she wants with my kids, and they seem to be writing well.  

 

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Since no one else has posted, I'll share.  Keep in mind I'm stronger in math/science, and not much of a language arts person.  Also, it's been a couple of years, and my memory is foggy.  

 

Grammar

We enjoyed the grammar island, town, and voyage, though analyzing so many sentences gets tedious, it did drive home the lessons which they've retained.  I used Magic Lens with my daughter, but we just managed to scrape by.  I think there was a lot of information to process (present perfect?  plu perfect?  I can't really remember all the terms), but not a lot of practice using them.  Anyway, our thought was kind of "huh?"  And a lot of it was review from the previous books.  I didn't end up using it with my younger daughter.  

 

Vocabulary

We loved loved the Caesars English books.  Both of them.  So very excellent.   In contrast, WWW is such a disappointment and so annoying for so many reasons.  You are buying a gorgeous book that contains lots of color photos of greek and roman antiquities, and there are essays about various aspects of greek and roman history.  But we skipped them for time.  Which is weird because I am in fact teaching ancient history to my younger daughter.  If those essays had been packaged into a separate history book, we would have used them.  But in our vocabulary book they are ignored.  Another annoying thing?  All I need from the parent manual is a copy of the exams and an answer key so I don't have to create my own tests and it's easy to grade.  They provide that along with the entire copy of the student's book.  I don't need a second copy of the student book.  We already own a copy.  And MCT insists on printing the answer key on the sheet opposite of the exam, right there for all to see.  Would it have killed him to put it somewhere else in the book so I don't need to cover it with another piece of paper?  And when I get "lucky" and the answer key is printed on the back of the test page, now it's nearly impossible to grade without having to flip the page back and forth.  Yeah, I know, first world problems, but I'm paying first world prices, right?  Final complaint:  some of the words are obscure.  Dd complained that she now knows 3 synonyms for tightrope walker.  Yeah, that'll come in handy.  

 

Poetry

We don't really like poems, so we skip that.  (Did I mention I'm more into math/science?)

 

Writing

By middle and high school we had switched to a writing tutor where they have thrived.  Academic Writing I was fine, but hard for me to implement.  My tutor used it a bit, but then I just trusted her to do what she wants with my kids, and they seem to be writing well.  

 

Thank you for sharing your perspective.  I appreciate how candid you were.  Sometimes the curriculum seems flowery and verbose, but then I saw Michael Clay Thompson speak, and I wanted to buy everything right then.  He has such an amazing way with words.  (I am a math and science person, as well, but his talk on poetry made me want to drop everything else and study it.) Thank you!

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