How do you know if your kid is ready for WWS? I'm considering using it with my will be 6th grader next year. He's a reluctant writer and wants me to tell him what to do rather than read instructions thoroughly. :O I have three younger kids and don't want to do WWS yet if it's going to be too time consuming for me. Looking at the samples I see, I think he could do it. It would definitely stretch him tho. The WTMA classes are tempting too, but I'm not sure how he'd feel about that. The options I'm considering are: 1) use IEW SWI-b with him next year and use WWS in 7th 2) start WWS next year, but do it half pace, spreading it over two years. Maybe use SWI-b half pace too, alternating weeks? 3) put him in Expository Writing 1 next year 4)ELTL 4 next year and WWS in 7th 5) doing WWS next year, regular pace I really feel he's ready for more, but I'm just not sure if a little time with IEW would help move him beyond bare facts summarizing? Eta: he's currently doing ELTL 3 which has almost no writing instruction at all. I may start using IEW SWI-b now to see if it's going to work for us

These look great! They are just what I need to go along with Singapore math for my 6yo. :D

OK, I may have overreacted when I saw the diagramming master resource in the back of the book. :O I started working through the grammar lessons myself and I'm almost halfway through the book and so far so good. Right now I'm thinking about using both ELTL and IEW. Would this be overkill? Eta: It dawned on me to look at WWS. It does look good! I notice SWB recommends IEW after WWS. Maybe part of the trouble is that I placed him low in ELTL because we hadn't done any formal grammar yet, but I'm wishing he was doing the writing in the next level. When I look at the 'acceptable description' samples in WWS, I know there's no way my son would write anything that descriptive or verbose. I need something to help get him writing more than short summaries. I need something to help him figure out how to write more. I guess that's what I'm looking at IEW for. I'm not seeing tht kind of thing in ELTL and WWS. Is it there and I'm just missing it?

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How to choose between these two?

Bumping up an old thread, wondering if any one is still using Fix It? Care to share an update?

Well ELTL went much better today. Monday I was forgetting we were coming off a three week break. I do think ELTL does a nice job in the grammar teaching sections. I'm wondering if I just had him make a grammar reference sheet, where he defined the terms in his own words, instead of using their definition flash cards, if that would help him 'get' it. This is his first year diagramming and ELTL doesn't use formulaic sentences, so maybe I shouldn't dispair yet. Lol

I will check that out. :) That sounds fabulous! No chance you live in CA? :D

I second or third let's read and find out books. I'm using the animal ones this year for kindergarten and am planning to use the world around us ones next year for first grade. Combined with some fun science kits.

This sentence was taken from the current lit book, the secret garden. I've actually been looking at EIW. I like the set up and the videos, he seems to explain things well. But I don't like the writing prompts, they seem lame, like all writing prompts. :O I'm looking at IEW and Fix It grammar now. I like that IEW is based on literature. When I showed my son the sample videos from EIW and IEW, he preferred the IEW guy. In the past I had written off IEW as being way more structured than I want, but that was elementary. I think for middle school, I'm ready for a little more structure. And I'm really liking what I see of Fix It. Eta: fixed typo, I got my EIW'S and IEw's mixed up.

This is the first year my 5th grader has done a formal grammar program. (I never studied grammar formally in school) In past years we read Ruth Heller and Bryan Cleary books, did Mad Libs, read GrammarLand. This year he's doing ELTL level 3. He's done well with the grammar for the first part of the year, but now that we're mid way thru he's starting to struggle. There are more things to remember for diagramming. I don't think he's really understood the definitions for some of the grammar terms and so is forgetting them now that more is being thrown at him. The grammar definitions probably are using correct vocabulary, but they seem very formal and not very kid friendly. Figuring out sentences that have a helping verb, adverb, and then verb are tripping him up. But today one of his sentences had a direct object and he couldn't figure out what to do with it. The sentence was "You have had a sleep!". I think part of the problem is he's just not interested. Still, it seems like it could be presented in a more straight forward manner? Eta: I'm not sold on diagramming as a necessity. I never learned to diagram, and I don't feel the lack. Lol. I'm wondering if something like IEW's Fix It would suit us better.

Already making changes. I've decided to have my 6th grader read BF CA history on his own, adding in a few other books on CA and early America to stretch this out for a full year. He will also do RS4K middle school physics textbook, TOPS electricity and magnetism, and some science kits to go along with those. I'm adding in BF geography for the whole family, he will participate in that. Not sure if I will drop the DK geography workbook or not.

Well, I had decided to go with Bookshark K history and science, but now that I've decided to separate my 6th & 4th graders, I will probably combine my 4th & 1st graders some. Leaning towards BF early American primary together, but separate science with Bookshark K science for the 1st grader. I will probably still use the Bookshark K read alouds list for ideas.

Ok I had her write two of those sentences again just now... Water the plant evry day Remember only a little bit of water eech time She used her SYS method of writing words a few different ways to see which looked right. It took her five tries to get water, three to get to evry, six tries to get only, and eech she knew was wrong but didn't know how to fix it. That seems like a pretty good improvement after just 6 weeks of SYS.

This sounds doable. It probably depends on personality too. I get torn between wanting to do it with them and thinking it's good for them to be reading their own books.

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned we are doing a history block right now. He's also doing SOTW 2 with the family. I guess I'm just not sure how much reading to assign him. The beginning of the year it definitely felt too light. I increased it some, and now I'm increasing again. I guess I'll just see how this week goes if it's too much reading or not. I wish there was some kind of guideline for this... How many pages per day or week a 5th grader should read. :) I think this week I've assigned at least 250 pages, so 50 pages a day.

She's only been reading fluently for less than a year. Right now she can read rescue princesses, the littles, horse diaries, stuff like that. I think her spelling has improved, but it's hard to say because she doesn't write on her own. She knows she isn't spelling things right and is a perfectionist. I've used reading lessons thru literature with her for spelling, book one last year, and we started book two this year... But the number of different phonograms and all the different sounds they make, well theres just so many she began to melt down. She's aware there's several ways to spell each sound and just shuts down because she doesn't remember. I've been using spelling you see level b part 2 with her for the past month and I already see her doing much better with the dictation, she is now willing and able to try a couple different spellings till it looks right. And she's spelling almost everything right (the dictation comes after chunking and copying the passage three times). I was thinking of trying RLTL again next year, but I don't think it has the repetition she needs. With everything she learns, she does so in a slow, gradual way, not really 'owning' it till she's repeated something many times. It would be nice if spelling you see would be enough for her, it certainly has lots of repetition since you work on the same passage every day for a week. If she used it for the next five years (based on the current number of levels) she should certainly be able to spell common words. But she doesn't really make leaps applying one thing to every similar thing, and if I'm going to end up having to do something like AAS or apples and pears, then I'd rather start sooner so we can get it over with. Lol

We are starting our new semester Monday and as I'm filling in my 5th graders weekly checklist, I'm worried I've added too much. :o Does this seem like too much for 5th grade? Every day: (edited to lose redundancies) piano practice MUS page copywork 3x or dictation 2x math game 2x, typing 2x, or geography 1x spanish (duolingo for 5 min) oral narration 3x written narration 2x ELTL lesson 3x RLTL spelling 2x Also, each week I give him a list of readings and he picks which ones and how many to read each day. For this week his list is: 5 bible related readings, 2 pages each 3 chapters from the book assigned in ELTL 3 (very short) chapters in Munche Science Reader 3 Norse Myths ch 1-3 Norse Myths ch 4-7 Norse Myths ch 8-11 Norse Myths ch 12-14 Vikings intro-ch 2 Vikings ch 3-4 Vikings ch 5-6

I can never decide if I should worry about my daughter's spelling or not. :D Here is a note she wrote to herself last summer, right before she turned 9. wotr the plant evre day!!! remebr that remebr onle a litll bit av wotr eth tim (each time) the plant is ovre thar now wotr the plant!!!

Did you keep them combined all the way thru high school? Or did you separate them at some point?

I'm an INFJ married to an ISFJ. I want to like every post in thread! :) I think one of my biggest challenge has been teaching an S kid. Lol. We just think so differently. I have a question for other INFJ's... I used to use AO, but once I had two kids in separate years, became totally overwhelmed. For the past few years I've combined my oldest two kids, but now that my third kid is school age it just doesn't seem to work to combine him with the older two. The interest levels of an 11yo and a 6yo are too far apart. I also find myself thinking how nice it would be to read to one kid quietly, instead of reading in the middle of a four ring circus! If I were to separate everyone, I would eventually have four different school threads going and I'm worried that would be overwhelming. What do you do? As an INFJ, is it easier for you to combine or not?

I wish I could like this post again. :D Your words stuck with me, and I've gotta say as I contemplate how the future is going to go, I really think I need to move in this direction. It's going to work better for the kids, to have something aimed at them, and for me because the noise and chaos of working with four kids at once is too much for me.

Well I've decided not to use FIAR. The year I used FIAR with my daughter was her favorite year, she still remembers it. But my second son and my daughter are polar opposites, and I don't think he'd enjoy it. I've decided to go with Bookshark K instead.

Has anyone used these? I was thinking of adding some geography next year and these seem easy to use.

After debating between BF, Bookshark, and FIAR... I've decided on Bookshark K history and science. Math... Settled on Singapore 1 as a better fit for his personality/learning style. I'm thinking I'll also have him do explode the code 4 and DK geography workbooks once a week (the latter just cause they're short and sorta fun and he likes to do whatever the big kids are doing). These will also help spread spelling you see level B over the year (since he's already started it). He also wants to start piano next year.