choirfarm Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 I was typing out my course of study for next year for my oldest who will be in 9th. Gulp... the English section was overwhelming: TOG literature- 5 times a week for an hour- to read and do the analysis, etc. Writing- TOG writing or IEW C.. and 45 minutes 5 times a week Analytical Grammar or Winston Grammar Advanced( I don't have a clue how much time... 30 minutes 5 times a week??? Vocabulary?? Don't know what to use here Handwriting- it is atrocious, I have Write Now- 15 minutes a day So we are talking 2 1/2 hours for English without a vocabulary program??? That sure seems like a lot. Tog History- 1 hour, 1 hour for Chalkdust Geometry, 1 hour for Apologia Chemistry, 1 hour for Spanish, 1 hour for piano practice (competitions), some kind of computer course since he loves it and that is his passion- 30 minutes, pe for 30 minutes. So, we are talking at least 9 hours so far and that is if Geometry only takes him an hour which it may take more.. Gulp... Seems like a lot. Christine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle in AL Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Our English takes about that time, but I've given it 2 credits. 1 for Great Books and one for English 9. Could you cut Vocab to 3 days per week, handwriting to 2? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwen in VA Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 1) Handwriting -- We don't do handwriting beyond 8th grade NO MATTER WHAT! Even if a student can't write at all neatly, after 8th grade, handwriting is finished. I have one child whose handwriting s totally illegible, but it hasn't hindered him. I still haven't figured out how he manged to have the various readers read his handwriting, but he did do well enough on various AP exams and the SAT writing that we know those readers could actually read it. And mysteriously he is doing very well in college, even on those exams that he has to do by hand. At least with my boys, doing additional handwriting beyond about 6th grade made them VERY resentful and did little for their actual handwriting. 2) Vocab -- Instead of doing straight vocabulary, you might consider having him do verbal SAT prep or at least SAT vocab words. And if he is doing a lot of reading, he really doesn't need vocabulary beyond 8th grade. My mother taught English at the junior high and high school levels for 20 years. When I started talking about vocab programs for 9th grade, she sat me down and told me in no uncertain terms that by high school students should be learning vocab through their reading. (Just her opinion, obviously!) 3) Grammar -- Again, if you think grammar is a real issue for your son, you might have him switch to working through the verbal part of various SAT workbooks. I try to finish up grammar by high school. If your son needs some extra grammar help in 9th grade, that's fine, but formal grammar by itself is actually not a standard part of English in high school. I have my kids do R&S 7 in 7th-8th grade and then do Warriner's Third program in 8th - 9th grade, finishing it up sometime during 9th grade. When they finish up Warriner's, they are done with grammar forever! 4) Writing -- If you are really doing a LOT of work on writing (and it sounds like you will), you might consider giving one credit for the lit portion and then 1/2 credit for the writing. That's what we did when my kids were doing literature through Scholars Online, which requires almost no writing whatsoever. Remember, a good education requires much more time than those pesky Carnegie units give credit for. Kids taking honors-level English in a good high school are probably spending 45 minutes in class plus another hour outside of class, and they will only get 1 credit for the class. All this is STRICTLY my humble opinion. This reflects how my family has approached English. I know that there are MANY ways to approach it and that there is no "wrong" way. JMHO! Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choirfarm Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 Comments/questions in bold 1) Handwriting -- We don't do handwriting beyond 8th grade NO MATTER WHAT! Even if a student can't write at all neatly, after 8th grade, handwriting is finished. Ok, I haven't been doing handwriting. I have stopped it after 5th grade for both boys. My middle one CAN write neatly, but this one seems to have lost all ability. I'm mainly worried about SAT. He has the potential to get very high scores with full scholarships and I don't want this to hinder him. 2) Vocab -- Instead of doing straight vocabulary, you might consider having him do verbal SAT prep or at least SAT vocab words. And if he is doing a lot of reading, he really doesn't need vocabulary beyond 8th grade. 3) Grammar -- Again, if you think grammar is a real issue for your son, you might have him switch to working through the verbal part of various SAT workbooks. I taught high school English, and we did intensive grammar in 10th grade and some in 11th when I taught. Ok.. I guess I worry about testing here. He is in 8th and these have been his testing results: 6th grade- reading vocabulary 56 percentile, reading comprehension 88th percentile (now how can you comprehend but not get vocabulary???) language mechanics 48 percentile and expression 95 percentile 7th grade Reading vocabulary 88 percentile, comprehension 79 percentile Language mechanics 59 percentile, expression 98th percentile For his SAT 10 testing every year he is in the upper 90's for math, science, and history. Many times 99th percentile. ACT with Duke- He made a 21 in English, which meant that he scored better than 78 percent of the gifted 7th graders that took the ACT. He made a 22 in Reading which put him better than 81 percent of the 7th graders that took the test for Duke. Reading is his weakest subject. We do TOG and then he reads some on his own, though not nearly as much as my middle one. He is currently enjoying Sherlock Holmes and AGatha Christie books. They found two huge annotated Sherlock Holmes books, and they were so excited. They have always read anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 pages every year. But I often ask him about what words mean and he doesn't know. He cannot read between the lines. He is very literal. When we did formal grammar a couple of years ago, he always got an A on his work. It makes sense to him. So I think one intensive year either 9th or 10th would be good. JMHO! Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karenciavo Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 I was typing out my course of study for next year for my oldest who will be in 9th. Gulp... the English section was overwhelming: TOG literature- 5 times a week for an hour- to read and do the analysis, etc. Writing- TOG writing or IEW C.. and 45 minutes 5 times a week Analytical Grammar or Winston Grammar Advanced( I don't have a clue how much time... 30 minutes 5 times a week??? Vocabulary?? Don't know what to use here Handwriting- it is atrocious, I have Write Now- 15 minutes a day So we are talking 2 1/2 hours for English without a vocabulary program??? That sure seems like a lot. Tog History- 1 hour, 1 hour for Chalkdust Geometry, 1 hour for Apologia Chemistry, 1 hour for Spanish, 1 hour for piano practice (competitions), some kind of computer course since he loves it and that is his passion- 30 minutes, pe for 30 minutes. So, we are talking at least 9 hours so far and that is if Geometry only takes him an hour which it may take more.. Gulp... Seems like a lot. Christine A couple of things: 1. Putting things down on paper always seems like more then what actually happens, e.g. does Spanish really take 1 hour? 2. Unless your want your son to have a literature credit and an English credit you can pare down. Cut out some of the lit questions and some of the reading assignments. Definitely cut out handwriting practice and keep grammar and writing to 1 hour combined. Even with vocabulary you can keep English to under 2 hours a day. I don't count music practice as part of the school day, I have sons that compete and my oldest has a job as a bassist - I know practice is important, but if they were in a traditional school setting practice would be after school. Now we're at 6.5 hours. Much more manageable :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cedarmom Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Instead of doing grammar/vocab/writing all year can you do a mini-unit of each one at a time? We dropped full time grammar when my son started highschool. We do it 2-3 months of the year. The same with writing. We don't do a vocab. program. I have him find words in his great book reading that he does not know and look them up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Seems like too much time to me, considering that our classes in school were an hour a day, and they included grammar, composition, and literature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 (edited) Similar to Michelle and Gwen above. FWIW, below is what we do for high school English that matches up with what you do. BEST of luck in deciding how to count your credits and determine how much time to devote to English! Warmest regards, Lori D. 1. TOG is enough to count as 1 History credit, 1 credit English, AND 1 credit "Great Books". (We don't use TOG, but we do both a lit. program for part of the English credit, and a separate "Great Books" study for an elective credit.) 2. Vocabulary comes thru combo of reading/spelling, not a separate program. 3. Spelling is only 5 min/day, 4x/week. 4. Grammar is more review to stay fresh at this point: 10 min/day; 2-3x/week. 5. No handwriting program; we practice handwriting through a weekly timed essay practice from past SAT essay prompts (and other sources) instead. (And the timed essay practice takes the place of regular writing on that day.) Edited February 9, 2009 by Lori D. added info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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