I believe it is because the US math sequence after that is different from that of other countries. US home educators seem to be unwilling to take up Sing NEM or Discovering Maths or other series since the progression is different. In the US, schools focus on Alg 1 in one year, then Geom the next, then Alg 2, then Trig, Calc, etc. In other countries the years after gr 6 cover all these concepts in each year. If you look at yr 7-9 and the GCSE year of MEP, you will see this combination of topics. I do see some US home educators starting on NEM but most seem to do Lial/Harold/Dolciani/Foerster etc instead.

Found a couple of posts reg. WwtB, fyi. One Two

And if these are not enough (:)) Don Potter has a video on youtube in which he reads out the syllabary.

Hi Elizabeth, Thank you for the reply. I do agree that over-teaching in multiple ways will help to cement the knowledge well. Thank you for guiding us to be teach correctly and make the most of these wonderful resources. :-)

We have not used Write with the Best, but I have seen their sample and it looks very attractive. I may be wrong, but I can't see why WwtB would not be considered WTM-style writing. After all, it uses good writing as guideline and teaches the student to emulate that writing style. As far as I can see, there is no grade recommendation for WwtB. So, in theory, you can use it with Writing Tales. Maybe alternate 2 weeks of WT and 1 lesson of WwtB through the year, or take a few weeks off from WT to do WwtB?

I did a quick search for you. I had better luck searching for "algebra tiles". They are manipulatives for solving quadratic equations. They are from the Cuisinaire company; you can make your own as well. These were among the top results I got and the info looks good. Hope these help. Algebra mats: http://www.mathedpage.org/manipulatives/alg-manip.html Teaching with Algebra tiles: http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/educ/reid/Virtual-manipulatives/tiles/tiles.html HTH

Hi Lisa, At what age did your dc make their parts of speech books? Please post photos of some pages if you can. I would love to take a look.

Hi, Here is my earlier post reg. these three reading programs. I think Webster's Speller makes a good follow-on to either Blend Phonics or Word Mastery.

Hi Elizabeth, Now I am confused. Why would we need to teach both? Take for example, the word 'flake'. In Word Mastery (which teaches phonograms - ake, ape, etc), the word would be taught as f + l + ake In Webster's speller (which teaches the syllabary - fla, fle, fli, flo, etc) the word would be taught as fla + ke As I see it, both are different approaches. While both roads lead to Rome, why would a child need to take both roads? TIA ~ Nandini EDIT: I do use both resources, but in different ways and independent of each other. Dd has already learnt to read using Blend Phonics. We use the Webster's Speller for multi-syllabic words and Word Mastery as a follow-on to Blend Phonics.

There are some free resources for adults learning to write italics (or wishing to improve their handwriting). 1. www.briem.net 2. http://www.studioarts.net/calligraphy/italic/hwlesson.html 3. http://homepage.eircom.net/~swordsourtown/staff/handwriting.htm 4. handwritingrepair.info 5. Penny Gardner's videos on youtube 6. Nan Jay Barchowsky's videos http://www.monkeysee.com/swansbury 7. Monica Dengo's site http://www.freehandwriting.net/educational.html

Yes, they are the same. Most italics writing styles that I found are almost identical (with the exception of a couple of letters such as w and k). Penny Gardner's book is a good course for learning italics through copywork. Yes, but (in my experience) it is difficult to start writing in cursive directly without getting the letter shapes correct first. It would be more systematic to learn the basic italic letters first, then progress through each of the joins, gradually adding each join to the child's writing/copywork. jmo.

From what I've read, the pencil grip for italics is different from the pencil grip for cursive writing. The muscles used are also somewhat different. I can't recall the exact info now but will quote it here if I can find the source. I have the Write Now book by Getty-Dubay. I will scan the half-page that shows the pencil grip and post it to this thread tonight, if that helps.

I use StartWrite, because I got the previous edition for free. If I would have had to purchase one of these two, I would have paid the extra $ for the fonts from Educational Fontware. They provide much more flexibility. Moving between pages in a StartWrite document is a pain. It is also not easy to have different font styles on the same line; you have to create one text box for each style. There are a few very good and free Italic fonts (I've posted the links in the Free Curriculum thread) but they don't come with guidelines or arrows. They would be good for an older student. I plan to use the Queensland cursive italics font in future to make dd's copywork, when she no longer needs the triple guidelines that StartWrite provides.

I agree! You could use MM as a spine (for your own reference) but do verbal, informal math with her instead, using playing cards, M&Ms, real coins etc. You may also try the math book from The 3 Rs by Ruth Beechick, or Games for Math by Peggy Kaye for more guidance.

You may print out one unit of KISS Grammar and see if he likes it. I like that KISS Grammar uses sentences from literature. Another option is the Grammar Handbook from My Pals Are Here (a Singapore publication). It is very simple and colourful and easily doable by the child himself.

:iagree: I don't think you will need any more drill than what MM provides. If you buy the CD/download for MM, you can re-print some of the pages for drill/testing.

Hi, I liked the samples on RR. Just curious, which handwriting style is "Cheerful Cursive"? Is it D'Nelian? Where do you print the worksheets from? Edit: Never mind, I found your post where you've linked the site.

I don't have any experience with the higher levels of MEP, but, based on a recent (similar) discussion on the MEP Yahoo group, I would say that your ds is perhaps too old for MEP Year 6. To paraphrase what I learnt in that discussion, if you still want to supplement BCM with MEP, you should use Year 7 - 9 and then move on to the GCSE material. Year 7 and 8 are fairly easy and your ds may probably move through them fairly quickly (cover both in about a year,) but Year 9 is challenging. As I said, this is just my guess, so please take these with a grain of salt though. You may want to join the MEP Yahoo group and ask your question there. HTH

As I see it, the lines in Penny Gardner's book won't help ensure the rule "Lines of writing are far enough apart for ascenders and descenders not to touch." If you are mainly interested in the sequence in which she introduces the letters, you can follow the sequence from her ToC. She also has a video on youtube which shows the sequence (and strokes) for all italics lowercase letters. HTH

StartWrite is a software that lets you create copywork inside its own window using the fonts that it provides. You cannot use those fonts outside of StartWrite in any other program (such as Notepad or MS Word etc). The documents created in StartWrite can only be re-opened or printed through StartWrite. Each piece of text is in its own textbox. You can decide the font, size, whether to show guidelines and arrows etc for each textbox. The guidelines are red and blue. You can try out StartWrite by downloading the one-time-use trial software. If you choose to keep it, you can pay on the web site and they will send you a key to "unlock" your trial software so that you can keep using it. Educational Fontware sells a bunch of fonts that you install on your computer and use them in any program. Then you can create documents (copywork) in that program and print from within that program. You can choose the font style, then change the size or colour. If you want to show guidelines, you have to choose a different font in the same font family. The guidelines are black. You cannot try out these fonts; you can only view samples on the Educational Fontware site. Hope that makes it clear.

Copywork tailored to the child's interest helps, but I think, ultimately, the motivation comes from within. Perhaps someone else's (parent/friend) good handwriting may inspire your dc to improve their own. It may also help to try a different handwriting style. Some children print badly but improve with cursive. Other children are drawn to the calligraphy-like form of italics. HTH

I can't really help you with your GDI question, but if you're still undecided about italics v/s Peterson cursive, do read through the pages on this site. Hopefully this post will bump up your thread.

Here is another option: Delightful Dictation with Spelling available as a paperback or ebook on lulu.com. Unless you are keen on teaching the spelling rules, you can use a phonics program for dicatation. There are some free phonics/spelling books available on donpotter.net that include short sentences with the words already taught in the previous lessons. Three that I can recall off-hand: - Easy Steps to Reading by Harry Hattyar - Easy Steps in Spelling by M W Hazen - McGuffy's Readers HTH

Isn't it true that in StartWrite, every copywork page has to be a new document? Also, it is somewhat of a pain to insert images or background when we want to make the copywork more interesting. Another option is to buy the fonts from Educational Fontware, Inc and make your copywork pages in any word processing program (Notepad, Wordpad, MS Word, StarOffice, etc). Of course, the fonts cost $50, whereas StartWrite from RR is $32, but you may prefer the flexibility of having the fonts. HTH

imho, it doesnt really matter. Pick any decent style you like, find (if you can) a free font or software or web site for generating the copywork and just get the child to do it on a regular basis. Most people (and many children) modify their handwriting style as they grow and most people ultimately settle for a combination of cursive+italic or print+italic, depending on their profession and their preference. >>How did you decide which to use? The way I decide something is to research it to death :-P I read library books/web site articles by various handwriting experts and handwriting repair experts. I realized that italics is the easiest style with which we can write quickly and legibly. But if you like (say) ZB cursive, you could teach your child in that style and later (once they are about 10 or so - old enough to appreciate the need for speed) show them how to modify the style to write faster while keeping it legible. e.g. avoid the loops in f, y, g, change some uppercase letters to more like print script, make some letter joins 'in the air' etc.