Oops double post

Stacy- spelling power seems like it might work for your dd, cause the lists only tests words you don't know. Cause she is older, it won't seem so "easy" like curricula made for little children. Its meant to be for third grade and up. It is a mountain to understand how to test her in, the quick start is actually not quick, but I found that the placement test was helpful. I am at my wits end with trying different methods, but what works for others isn't what always work for us. The spelling power was developed by a mom whose daughter had spelling delays too and curricula was tested across many student groups. I find many curricula use the see it, say it, spell it, close your eyes, spell it on the carpet, analyze the special spelling, then write it on paper method. Spelling work out and spelling power both do this, they both have you write words you don't know well in a sentence. I was a huge fan of rules because I like to teach sequentially, but when kids can't order the operations in spelling, it leaves us parents frustrated. So, I wish there was something more magical that works for everyone. If any of you come across the why, please let us know! But I like the upper poster's comment about it being a writing function.

I tried four curricula as well. Spelling power, sequential spelling, simplex spelling iPad app, and now rod and staff. We've stuck to rod and staff at the moment to see if it works. I am in a similar boat that I wonder if his spelling would ever improve. An important step that spelling power does that other curricula doesn't do is application of the spelling word into a sentence which I might reinstill. He's had the word "when" in all of those curricula, and still spells it wrong. (Across four curricula) When applying it in a sentence the practice and application of the word in proper context might help them visually see and practice what it means to catch your mistakes to edit and proof it. Something that spelling workout did that I might not have given it credit for, was that it had proofing as well(I had not started teaching ds spelling until second grade, due to lack of time, with my two active dds -and now ds's in mid 3rd grade). I didn't give spelling work out enough of a chance. The spelling power didn't work for us because he was getting the next three words wrong on every list on section b. He was feeling defeated too soon. Sequential spelling tauted for helping dyslexics- he would feel success with word families, but there was no apllication where he would plug it into a sentence and get any of it right. If rod and staff doesn't work after this semester, which I hope it does, then I will be going back to spelling work out. The only busy work in it is the crossword puzzles that I am not sure are useful.But, I'm with ya! Uuhhhg yesterday he spelled sad -sade! Can I cry now?!

Hugs! I love this thread.

Oops, I just realized as far as properly narrating back, he was having problems with some key details in the beginning due in plot and vocab. It's an illustrated classic, so I make sure he reads it out loud so that he's not just looking at the picture to tell the story back to me. When we were doing WWE2 in Second grade we stopped at lesson 28 because writing alone was taking 2+ hours (not including the other subjects.) The language was so difficult for him in some of her examples, that I found myself reading the passage 3 times, and then trying to ask the questions, and then just trying to get him to answer was a tooth puller, through every example. His summarization of these chapters of Red badge of courage was no where near WWE 2 tough. I remember my sister in law trying with my son one of the narration/dictation passages and it took at least 45 minutes with WWE2. He's just not an auditory kind of kid... Spectrum has really easy to follow visual cues for writing. I need a happier medium-- he does do a lot better with Spectrum than WWE 2, it might be a simple problem of just following directions on his part, and my being too busy to instruct every detail when my girls are also vying for my attention. Sad that I would have to add copy work, but hey, maybe copying will get him to see that the spelling is already there, and he won't be so dismayed at all the spelling errors he makes and I have to correct. But he may start to realize that this could supplement a spectrum page and he might rather do that than having to come up with something that he's not ready to produce mentally? Maybe Do half and half? some spectrum on two days and copy work on the other days? It says on the site that they start moving to be able to read and summarize themselves and write the sentences and paragraphs themselves by 4th. But that's what would frustrate him the most is because his spelling was so far behind. I hope to try to catch him up. Just starting 2nd grade R& S spelling in the middle of his 3rd grade year has got to be infuriating. That's a year and a half off of where most writing programs are expecting them to write it seems am I wrong?

Yeah, first language lessons did all that! (the narration part) Even though it's grammar based. Do you know if WWE the hard back has same content as the complete writer workbook? I hate purchasing if I already have the same stuff just in easier form. And thank you for all your time and attention to helping me out... I need to know how to gently do things I am a box checker and to work without certain instructor's guides leaves me feeling clueless, and frustrated. Thanks for the direction!

His reading now -red badge of courage (in line with the history time period) was what we were doing for reading comprehension. So, kinda confused at his placement. I made him skim 4 chapters (one at a time) last night. He read and was instructed to give me a sentence or two after each chapter of the story. He couldn't keep it down to a sentence or 2 per chapter it was more like four or 5 (sometimes run on) sentences for 3/4 of the chapters. So you are saying that I should go back? further to shorter stories? I did WWE 1 and 2, in first and second grade, and he did ok --- I can't say phenomenal. It's been a half a year and so he's rusty with that format. So, I should go back that far to build stamina? I don't know how well is "well." In fact, I just got my dd 1st grade to do the Aesop's from FLL rabbit and the turtle- for a complete sentence. I need lots of hand holding as you can tell. Maybe finish WWE 2 and just go into WWE3? I am not by a long shot a good english teacher that could retain what I've done without a book to keep me in check. The reviewer was big on writing prompts, so , should I table it for narration/dictation/copywork? I can't imagine doing even more writing for ds.

I have had cc thrown in my face for years, I know what you mean, cause Half of my friends are in it. It's ' shown me how unsuccessful I am as well as how I am successful. I have done a four year history cycle, but have been troubled at not being able to incorporate memorizing facts like they have. So I've been all about context. My son remembers some, not others. In fact, we took Konos and streamlined it to match our four year cycle as much as we could. I was impressed at the parroting of stuff, but in the end felt empty because of the practice of something without character development. Yes, we also took the money we saved and spent it on other curricula like sotw and moh and apologia. It's made me want to join because I do lack the rote memorization follow up I would otherwise have had. But, yeah, I decided to try many methods, cm -apologia, classical history and LA, unit study Konos with biblical character building, and well, it's working but also not... I am stressed trying to manage everything and getting burnt out faster... Trying to keep up with it all. I can't imagine how to do this change from this year into the next.

Endurance: I understand : I can finally have him copy the preamble to the constitution or some thing. What to say? : I don't understand : when you talk about going from short to chapter books. Are you talking about dictation? Where I write down what he has to say to capture his thoughts? what do you mean by length? Are you tying this into reading for him? He is reading red badge of courage right now an abridged version. We did already read Abeka for all of the 3rd grade readers except for Swiss family Robinson and pilgrims progress, which I planned on doing after red badge of courage. But he has been doing well with Abeka readers because they are short and within his reading range. Two weeks per book. Red badge will take 3 weeks. I will have him read 10-15 pages or two chapters a day. I was doing one chapter – until I realized that it was only four - seven pages per chapter because of all of the pictures in the abridged version. Should I combine this into a book report where he dictates to me a sentence per chapter to summarize? And when you say drop spectrum for awhile, you mean like for one or two weeks? Because if I don't get level 3 spectrum done, then he won't get mechanics of writing in he will understand order of how to write a good paragraph like time order words, sequencing events, character, plot. Or should I use their scope and sequence to try to do it orally with what the book wants? Just from red badge? So we can combine? I want to know how to help him speed the process, yes or no to timers? He takes so long to form ideas. Having problems applying it to our weeks ahead to get the speed happening with appropriate content. Cause grade four seems like a BEAR. I have this blessing and curse: I got ALL of the abeka books grade 4-8 for free. What I have with all the other language arts only goes through 3rd grade. That being said, Looking at all the text book type of answer and fill in the blank activities for everything seems so much more difficult than what I have been using. Words are harder, print smaller. Maybe it's just me pms'ing, but I have to get him a little more independent and Abeka seems rigorously teacher intensive. I want something open and go. I ditched abeka Kindergarden teachers manuals, cause I just couldn't do it without issues. Prek 3 was fine. I love abeka for it's christian world view. But some things were annoying like the reader praising Robert E. Lee as a great general. I had to explain that people even though great in how they organized people and troops would fight for him and even for his safety, they were on the wrong side. One person's color should not determine whether they have rights over another. By the way Silvermoon you are the silver lining in my cloud today!!!

oops, i was in edit mode during your post...

From TWTM reading section p61 " Continue to make notebook pages at least twice a week, summarizing the books the child is reading. By third grade, your student should be able to narrate the plot back to you and write it down himself without the intermediate step of dictating and then copying. In short, he'll have gradually worked his way up to doing book reports. Aim to memorize and recite twelve to fifteen poems and speeches during the 3rd grade year." P65 Dictate a short sentence slowly to a child as he writes. Choose sentences from from phonics primer, history, science, or word correctly. Give him all necessary help with puncutation and spelling... (... indicates Paragraph/s later)... But do it for a brief time-- three days per week. Ten to twenty minutes per day on a regular basis will result in a rapid improvement in writing skills.... Also during second grade, ask you child at least once a month to write a letter to a friend or relative.... As soon as possible , the child should begin to use his writing skills by composing short letters to relatives and friends... ; help a third grader write his own stories and poems without a written model... By third grade, encourage the child to do all formal work using cursive writing. Third graders should continue to do dictation exercises three times per week. Most third graders can now progress to complex sentences or two or three sentences at a time." "In third and fourth grade, the student should continue to do dictation twice a week. Third grade dictation should involve longer and more complex sentences" WWE - (my son still struggle to write.) The complete writer - My son has already done 1, 2 and stopped at week 26 of level 2. He hasn't done 3 because we don't own it. I am lucky to get him to do his writing of 3 sentences once a week with spectrum writing. He fights me every time he has to proof anything or rewrite or revise, as if I am taking his whole paper and putting it in the trash and shot his idea to bits. Of course, this is not what I am doing, I am simply helping him reword it with the correct grammar. My husband spent an hour on Saturday just reading the directions of Spectrum writing to him, cause he refuses to read and follow the directions, this was how it was with WWE as well. Helping him summarize is/was a struggle even a year ago. The language in the WWE selections are sometimes pretty difficult. My SIL taught him one lesson and it took him and her an hour. (Better than my-- 2 hours) but there is no way summarization narration dictation takes anywhere near 30 minutes for my kid. Spectrum was a little less intimidating, and he was crying a lot less. Here is what is covered in Gr 3 http://www.rainbowresource.com/pictures/003862/db354148fa040c639feab0b4 Writing. We are missing out on the great lit examples provided by WWE and "Learning literature by spoken stories" type of learning. Which is really detrimental to the classical and CM methods. Don't know how to get out of this funky ness.

So when you said new book learning curve, I am trying to understand practical application. He already finished spectrum writing 2 for winter. He started spectrum writing 3 and is on page 14 and has just followed the prewrite, draft, rewrite, proof and publish. For at least 3 sentences ( my qualifications). Sometimes I make him publish it on the computer and take a separate day for that. Shouldn't this happen in one day ,every day of the week? Not over several days? Meaning the whole writing paragraph process ? And, are you saying I should add back wwe3? ( I don't have that book) I have TWTM and have read bits, I know I should reread. I am not required to do book reports or wwe.

I need to know how to relax or have a more laid back atmosphere, I am not enjoying homeschooling language arts with my son. Help me know what's realistic? In third grade now, and for my DS I am using Spectrum Writing because my evaluator had problems with me after just doing WWE2 last year and not doing any writing prompts and helping my son categorize things into webs etc. My ds' spelling has gone through 4 different curriculums and just now on lesson 5 of R&S 2nd grade. His paragraphs are only 3 sentences long. Switching out WWE2 (meaning not going forward with WWE3 this year) and using Spectrum Writing Gr 2 and Gr 3 instead helped him a little, but also hurt us because I was no longer doing the naration /dictation 3 times a week as suggested via TWTM. But he has gotten the mechanics of writing a friendly letter and incorporating things into his (3 sentence) paragraphs that weren't there before. I just received a free Abeka curriculum for grade 4 and cringed. I am facing curriculum overload and burn out cause just when I thought I'd found my groove, I don't have it in me to learn yet another way a curriculum works. I wish someone else would teach him language arts or find something all encompassing. I just purchased 18 classic novels. Hoping we would go through them. Reading - Abeka readers or a random classic novel that pertains to our history year (1750-Contemporary) (10-15 pages a day)(I ask him what happened in the story, have him write down words he didn't understand ) Spelling - Rod and Staff 2 Writing -Spectrum 3 -Just started it, is writing 3 sentence paragraphs. Grammar - Easy Grammar 34 (1 page a day) Handwriting - Using his Apologia Science Journal's Scripture passage and doing it in cursive. (once a week) He's missing vocab lists. He hasn't memorized any types of poems or preamble or anything literature based this year. He still manages to take 3-4 hours on Language Arts alone because he HATES writing. I look at other standards and I see that kids are filling out 10-12 book reports a year and feel like a failure, or examples of paragraphs from 3rd graders that are stunning and and just feel so far behind.

Considering God's Creation- Christian based, VERY inexpensive, best quick lap book, with hands on games and observation sheets, and cd song science from creation to the sixth day of creation, covering astronomy to geology, botany, marine bio, zoology, and human anatomy with apologetics. You could do as fast or slow as you want. I use it to fill in gaps with any science aside from chem and physics.

Ok, I am stuck again, I decided to try out Spelling power and the rule number 10 is ridiculous about long U School isn't a long u sound. I feel like I am starting to go back to square 1. My son just took the long term retention test and spelled play pllay, school- sklle, goes - gowes. This is after using the teacher's guide (yes I read the encyclopedic quick start guide (which is NOT quick)of the way to teach my kid and explaining their rules- which are arbitrary and don't make sense with certain phonograms. Help - at my wit's end doing spelling workout, sequential spelling and now spelling power. My son has done ALL of OPGTTR. So, he knows all his phonics... HELP! I skimmed through uncovering the logic of english, having problems with application as a spelling program.

Ok, my DS has done explode the code, FLL 1&2 Ordinary parents guide to teaching reading (THE WHOLE BOOK), Spelling workout A, Abeka readers up to 2e or 2.5. All bob books, fly guy series, Frog and Toad series,. Sequential spelling up to lesson 77. Writing with ease 1 and 2 (up to lesson 27). He's a third grader this year and I started him at age 4 and you'd think that he would be at least up to his level. On the Abeka readers he's still missing about 5 words per page. And tested at 2.5 for placement under spelling power. How can it be that my kid is still a half year behind? My hubby's words were - he can't spell his way out of a hat. That's why I changed spelling programs this week to Spelling power. My kid hates writing, and he's also already done cursive and can write cursive better than his print. (I tiger mommed it all). I need moms with Boys to chime in on what to do. Or maybe just some encouragement. I don't want the same to happen with my daughter. I want learning the math and lang arts to be fun... this is not fun for me. I'm looking at all these curriculums, even free ones, and thinking, I am starting to feel the frustrating burn of wasted time and non-enjoyment. School shouldn't be that way.

Jen, thanks for that. I am not totally nuts and illogical. SWB says it best in her analogies. To clarify my point about our children not having a point of reference, I meant this paragraph by SWB. From second grade on, rather than putting the written model in front of the student, you will dictate sentences to him. This will force him to bring his memory into play, to picture the sentence in his mind before writing it down. Eventually you’ll be dictating two and three sentences at a time to a student, encouraging him to hold longer and longer chunks of text in his mind as he writes. Many students who struggle with writing put down sentences that are lacking in punctuation, capitalization, or spacing—a clue that they have never learned to picture written language in their minds. Others can tell you with great fluency exactly what they want to write; if you then say to them, “Great! Write that down!†they’ll ask, “What did I just say?†Both are clues that students have not learned to visualize sentences and hold them in mind—both essential if the student is ever going to get words down on paper. Moving from copywork to dictation develops these skills. Every day I get the deer in headlights look about just putting things down. If he was given public school curriculum, he would probably be struggling to trying to help him come up with ideas. I feel my kid is the avg kid. I hear all the time that many parents are finishing their kids' homework for them. But I also pray that one day I wouldn't dread have to put him in PS even more than I do now. If I did, would he be ok? Maybe, maybe not. Most likely not, now that I am aware of what's going on in school- he'd be behind everyone that wasn't taught these prompts, with no prior knowledge, then suffer esteem issues of not doing well. Which would probably be not working at his pace. So I'd have to immerse him in other curricula to catch him up, leaving me overwhelmed. It takes long enough to complete what I already have. Therein lies the cramming hours of other "stuff" that is philosophically different and practically pencil to paper different. From what I gathered - SWB essay doesn't think that it's age appropriate. I seriously wonder if me- as an under qualified instructor in most things in advanced placement courses in high school would ever get confident enough to homeschool all the way past elementary or even 3rd grade. Cause economically speaking, affording lab equipment and all the other opportunities and some attention to things that I probably couldn't provide that a high school or even middle school does - puts me in a "grass is greener" mode of thinking, in some respects, and "heck no!" in regards to relationships, religious views, and curriculum control. This is why my being able to maintain that choice to be able to put my kid into PS is important to me. My reporting guidelines are not changed. But just the fact that state evaluators may expect this from parents is not cool. My evaluator probably won't enforce it. Requiring it and looking for it is different, yes. But it's only one step away. KWIM? Very fine line.

So, I should go to an umbrella (paid)that aligns with a different long term goal? You have to understand- this was coming from my state reviewer, which means that countless other family's that have reviews from their state or county will probably face these same issues. Once someone sets a standard it affects most of us and now that it is federally adopted - we have to decidedly avoid their pamphlets about cc- who go to county reviewers (free) to not feel behind and justify to them, that we don't care about their standard, or else we should integrate their standard, because that is what they will expect in their review of our children. I find this affects us homeschoolers. I now have my answer to how this affects me and maybe be better equipped to make a standards decision for my child, but still not happy that I had to undergo that review, made to feel stupid that writing prompts weren't introduced to my children, now thinking that maybe that their system still stinks, and just want something that works for my kid. Pass me the tinfoil 1630's dunce cap. (Oh wait, no tinfoil back then...) Here's the why I considered marrying the cc to my homeschool. What if I had to put my kids in ps? Being prepared to enter a public school as a viable option is important to me. Wouldn't it be the best to have them have that choice? Now he is behind their standard, and currently, I am limited to homeschooling only now because if he attempted to goto ps, he would fail because they've supposedly covered items we have not and build onto their foundation. Same with my entering kinder gardener. I no longer have that option, because who would, put their kid into ps knowing they would have already failed the public school standard. But according to the curriculum choices with the methods I have used we thought we were doing well. So do I fail or pass as a suitable teacher?

Jen offered great examples of expository writing for k and first from ps?. Maybe, it's just me, but I don't remember writing that stuff until end of 4th, or 5th when I was in school. Maybe gen x was the less intelligent generation? Yes, I hope my kids are smarter, but after looking at it, and we've done wwe1 and 1/2 of wwe2 neither of which does expository writing. And were created by our favorite WTM authors. You can see the plethora of curricula in my sig line. Marry all this classical Ed stuff with these standards, and tell me where they line up to cc. How could you implement this stuff and still maintain the WTM way of teaching with WTM curricula? It takes my average gr 2 ds 45 minutes a day just to summarize what's given and we are at week 24 of WWE 2. I have been tiger momming it unfortunately. How could you fit it ALL in, in what seems like 36 weeks to just finish wwe2? Do you see where I thought my kid was ahead and now behind? I am glad we aren't in public school, but maybe I should put my kid in? After all, their standards are higher than ours now... Let someone else take care of matching curricula? I get people telling me my son would have been red shirted, I started with abeka k3, and everyone in the homeschool communities told me to take it easy on my young ones. I guess not? Or maybe i should? Finland doesn't start school until age 7. And they rank ahead of us in national standards. So what is a classical educator to do?

I am not required to have a state reviewer, but I have one rather than an umbrella. I am not required to adopted cc now, but this moved drastically from last year's 'just show forward progression to -- here's a paper from MD state cc that might help you in curriculum choice for language arts and other subjects. I am slightly perturbed to be shown this standard by which now shows my son as a year behind, rather than what I thought was a year ahead. Most of us using ps standards as guides and wondering where our kids compare to the ps school system, whether they like to admit it or not will be considered behind, or will eventually be required to complete curriculum at a alarmingly stressful rate, unless the curriculum is cc compliant. All state and other testing will reflect this going up to SATs. It's a lot off putting with those that struggle with the standards before. I student taught music in the public school, and remembered the behavioral issues in the classroom that was bad before, and us just trying to get the kids up to the previous standards and classroom management from my teaching friends and coworkers trying to comply with literally no time built in the school day to plan. So I just don't see how this helps anyone, when overwhelming class size and discipline issues hurt their performance rate then they reclass people into remedial classes. Raising a standard to see more fail? This is yes, my opinion, feel free to ignore it support it what have you. I just wanted to know if there was validation that I am not the only one that feels this way.

My STATE reviewer was recommending this to us. Our SAT standards and many teachers teach to test, state tests included. You're right, they might not choose one curriculum. But, this affects all of us even if it's public school because that means we all will have to up their standards to meet post secondary requirements. So I guess throw away our current bought curriculum that doesn't match? Grr... I hope that they don't start requiring test scores from us other than SAT but, personally it burns me out cramming more down my kids throat, in order to fulfill a federal mandate.. More power given to the government to tell the public what to do and how to do it which trickles down to homeschoolers, is getting kinda hectic.

http://mdk12.org/sha...iting_grk-2.pdf Tell me this isn't egregious in a negative way for a 1st and 2nd grader? I was told by my homeschool reviewer who is a state reviewer "I wanted you to be aware of the national core and state core standards. Have you considered teaching him about writing prompts?" (Writing prompts? Wasn't that what I learned that in 9th grade? I was a year ahead of my PS system with my ds, now I am behind by a year according to their standards. And, for teachers to scramble to help a 2nd grader write an opinionated paragraph seems ludicrous. How many kids are going to fail that class, when half of the kids are struggling to write one sentence well? I think they want our babies - preschool- is it going to be mandatory too? I totally feel a socialist educational system around the bend. Core standards were already not being met. If they are upping the ante so to speak and federalizing it, what makes you think that teachers who will be scrambling for curriculum writers to help them implement these standards wouldn't just go with one publisher just for ease of cost and to assuage the Federal mandate with indoctrination sewn in? I feel like everyone is screaming - NO! the world is flat - there is no other text books other than these that meet the national standards, because these standards are higher and better- our kids will be brighter now with a boat load of more homework that they won't be able to fit in a day and teachers scrambling to teach larger than life concepts to young kids who have no points of reference and who will get fully divided attention. (Someone throws a paper airplane, and kids are flipping pencils behind the teacher's back, the teacher can't follow up that idea, time has already ran out, class over - class, submit a cursive paragraph tomorrow.) What? Somehow the next gimmick instead of "Your baby can read" will turn into "Your baby will right a thesis." Please tell me I'm not the only one that feels this. I just talked to a mom of a public school kid who attends the school of the 2nd best county school system of Maryland which has the best school systems in all of US according to http://247wallst.com...orst-schools/3/ . Her kid didn't learn these concepts last year. No I don't want america to be dumbed down, but for pete's sake, in a scramble -- states please don't go with one curriculum to brainwash them all. And, government please don't be pesky to us home schoolers when it's our differences that make us unique and thrive. Also, we are ranked 6th according to some sites as far as smartest countries of the world. 6th isn't bad...

Oh, He's in the grade 2 Abeka readers. It's a good 20 minute read time per chapter/story. We did bob books too when in k and they did match up with OPG in some instances. It was much harder to work the lessons in the beginning, because I forgot to do the 2 review and one new. We finished the summer before 2nd grade. I found that www.progressivephonics.com a great tool for my dd. I love OPGTTR, I just wish that some illustrations would help them want to read. I knew it was really hard for my 2nd grade ds - visual learner. Can't figure out my dd yet. I just don't want to have the same struggles. Yes, the library does that. But researching it is easier with the librarians that I LOVE! I have issues researching it at home too! LOL .

I was at a loss staring at all the easy readers that were at the library, and couldn't find any that moved up by levels that were similar to one another. Deciphering which adapted to Ordinary parents guide, or another phonic program was difficult. After some fly guy books, and frog and toad books, and some Dr. Seuss, I finally settled on Abeka readers because my cousin gave them to me free. Then I found a source for free viewing of certain McGuffy readers. Then I saw that Ambleside online had a list that I could goto the library to check out. (Lots of work to keep track with my littles hiding books and causing my library bill to go up. My ds still loves the pictures, and Abeka seems to slowly ween them away. Which is nice. What did you find most effective? And, did you find any that fit into a history spine. Like we do classical method whereby we are using MOH vol 3 reformation to 1750. Any easy reading books that have stories that go along with that type of era for younger students? I did find a book on pocohantas that my ds read. It was a good match.

So, my ds had his portfolio review, and my reviewer asked if I implemented any of the US core standards. I didn't even look at the core standards this year and thinking I was ahead -- now feel extremely behind. http://mdk12.org/share/frameworks/CCSC_Writing_grk-2.pdf My son is no where near writing paragraphs or forming opinionated pieces in 2nd grade -- much less the 1st grade core requirement for my state. He is still in WWE 2 and is doing only summarization, copy work and dictation of one sentence. No real writing prompts as discussed in the core curriculum standards were implemented. He has already completed penmanship in print and cursive. He isn't putting his thoughts on paper easily. Summarization is difficult too. Although we did all of WWE 1 and am in week 23 of WWE 2. Maybe give up with this approach? and use something else? My ds is 7 will be 8 in August and don't know where to go? Should I finish WWE2? He gets FLL 2 but we don't do any of the dictation and narration in there because wwe 2 takes REALLY long.