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Posts posted by grace'smom
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I was shocked when I clicked on the price too :-(
I only started to understand all the differences when I was trying so hard to understand WHY my handwriting was so bad and what I needed to do to fix it.
I can't believe that when I put Cursive First away, way back before I was starting to understand WRTR and SWR, that I didn't know enough to go back, pull it back out, and look at it with fresh eyes. UGH! Well...at least I have it out now, and realize what a treasure I already own. I'm feeling a little disgusted with myself tonight.
I'm really glad you started this thread. If I hadn't of had the chance to try and be a know it all, I wouldn't have realized how stupid I was :-)
Why oh why didn't someone teach me phonics and handwriting back when I was a kid, so I wouldn't have to be driving myself nuts now?
:grouphug: Don't be so hard on yourself! If you saw how many math and phonics programs I have sitting on my shelf you'd be laughing right now. We all have a few things we bought, forgot about, and went back to later after realizing what a gem we'd missed. And SOME of us :blushing: have things we bought, never used and never will use.
I think it's really great that you are going back and teaching yourself cursive. Our local schools don't teach it anymore so I know there are many adults out there who can't write in cursive at all. I really appreciate your sharing your knowledge in this thread. In fact, you've inspired me to try to learn this fancy Palmer stuff alongside my daughter.
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My daughter hates to read aloud as well. The thing that has worked for us is "partner" reading- where I read one paragraph and she reads the next one, as well as me reading her sections out of the Well Trained Mind where "the teacher lady" says that you are supposed to read aloud for such and such amount of time per week, LOL. She won't do it for me but if "the teacher lady" says you are supposed to do it then it must be OK.
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Have you seen the Spencer Font here?
http://educationalfontware.com/
Are you using the SWR "Cursive First" D'Nealian font or the HWOT font? Maybe we are not talking about the same thing. I always think "Cursive First" is the yellow SWR curriculum.
The Palmer font isn't much different from the SWR "Cursive First" but it is quite different from HWOT. HWOT is very straight and has no slant, and some of the connectors aren't just ugly, but are actually hard to do. I tried HWOT myself and with tutoring a left handed person with a backwards slant, but we both quickly dropped it.
The WRTR cursive I use has clock face, but slants and the connectors are more relaxed. I have NO idea why SWR started recommending the D'Nealian font which doesn't have round letters and requires inferring. EDIT SEE BELOW
I have found that using clock faced round letters, but letting them slant a bit and using natural feeling connectors results in the best handwriting for me.
I like the look of some of the Spencer upper case letters in the link above. Both the Spencer and the Palmer will fit on regular lined paper. It is just the true Spencerian that has the long, tall, skinny letters, that won't fit on regular paper.
Ok, that font that says "Extra Fancy" at the bottom is the kind she likes- she wants to write like they did on the Declaration of Independence. This is all getting a little over my head though- other than the extra fancy I thought that Palmer and Spencer looked the same, and I didn't see where they were really different from D'nelian or Cursive First besides the capital letters. I don't think I have the artistic eye to see the differences in any of these fonts. The Extra Fancy font is very tempting because I know that's what she wanted when she settled on Palmer, but I would feel guilty spending fifty dollars- 20 dollars sure, but 50 seems too much for now. Maybe if she's still asking by her birthday, LOL.
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In general, I'm totally against Spencerian because of the long tails and the reality of trying to cram it into worksheets and lined paper. To do so, means making much smaller letters than if having used a fatter, shorter font.
If you use a font that is based off of clock faced letters and has a verbal script that the child can repeat as they form the letters, it is easier in general to master the letters. To stare at a letter and have to infer how to draw it, just doesn't work for many children. It's just too vague. I was making very slow progress with the Modern/D'Nealian/Cursive First font, even with lots and lots of copy work pages made in StartWrite. The second I switched to clock faced scripted letters I made immediate progress.
Is it the fancy upper case letters that your daughter is attracted to? Maybe you could combine a couple fonts. I am using the basic Writing Road to Reading instructions for my lowercase letters, but am gradually acquiring a few different uppercase letters from other sources. Yes, they need to be compatible and I can't just combine incompatible fonts.
I'm wondering if you could somehow combine a fancier uppercase letter font with a different clock face scripted lower case font.
What about providing special papers, and teaching her some Waldorf form drawing as borders? What about colored pens? What about learning to make her papers special in some way other than a fancy font?
But...if your daughter is an artsy child...maybe you should just go with the Spencerian. It doesn't have clock faced letters, but is one of the most scripted curriculums and it was learned by 6 year olds for what--over a hundred years? She would need to skip lines when using lined paper. She would do best using unlined paper whenever possible. She could also learn a print font to use when she HAD to fill out a worksheet. I don't know, maybe it would be worth it for HER even though in GENERAL I recommend not using it :-0
Well, she already knows cursive- the Cursive First clock face style/HWOT workbook is how she learned it. So she has the regular cursive down and can write that way already- she just detests handwriting. Her fine motor skills make writing difficult. She presses down too hard, tries to write with a hook, etc. So I saw something about fountain pens on here and got her some of those and that is really helping her grip. She is VERY artsy so I think she wants to learn the fancy letters because she thinks they are pretty rather than practical (and I want to encourage her in any way that will motivate her to practice her handwriting, LOL).
This morning I gave her a print out of some sentences written in Getty Dubay and in Palmer and she said she wants to learn Palmer. I didn't even give her real Spencerian as an option, LOL. Do you think the Palmer letters would be a problem on regular paper? But if the Palmer letters don't fit on a certain paper that she is using, I am sure she would just revert back to her other style, right?
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Thanks for the advice guys, I have printed off samples of Getty Dubay and Palmer from our Startwrite program and I am going to tell her to choose from one of those to start. If she's still interested in Spencerian in fifth grade (she is very artsy so I can see the draw for her) we will try it at that time.
The only issue is that Startwrite doesn't have directions on how to make the letters, just dotted outlines, so I think I am going to have to get a workbook or directions somewhere....
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OK, my six year old daughter (who HATES handwriting) has expressed a desire to learn "that pretty handwriting" that she "saw somewhere." She knows cursive according to the Cursive First/HWOT font and a basic hodge podge manuscript. She has poor fine motor skills.
I'd like to encourage her in any way I can since she is expressing an actual desire to practice handwriting. I looked around online for different samples and she pointed out Spencerian Script and said that's what she wants to learn. Obviously, this is way too difficult for small children. Does anyone know a good program that would be a good compromise and give her a "pretty" feeling that she can accomplish? Maybe an italic style or something would do?
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Here is a pic of a binder ring. You can either hole punch your booklet to put it on the ring or put your books in ziplock bags and put the bags on the ring. Ziplock bags are easier because you can open them and take out the book without removing the bag from the ring.
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I've seen people store them using ziploc bags on binder rings and then hanging them on the wall.
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fwiw, there is a site online that streams the magic school bus videos online for free - I used to have it bookmarked but lost it when I had to wipe my PC for a virus.
It's what we used last year for science for K - it was a big hit.
I used to have that website saved too but when I looked at it recently they had removed all the links.
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I diagrammed in the 7th grade in the 80s. I don't remember it before or after that. But I remember enjoying it :). I think I was the only person in my English class that enjoyed it.
I also have fond fond memories of my "Little Brown Handbook" from 9th grade English. :) I guess I'm weird.
My son is diagramming a bit. I wondered too if that is ever taught in schools anymore.
I STILL have my Little Brown Handbook, LOL! We were taught diagramming in high school and I graduated in 1995, but I lived in a very good school district.
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:grouphug::grouphug:
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I got this book after a suggestion on this board the other day and it looks really good. We're planning to do a civics/government thing next fall due to the elections.
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Ok, thanks so much for the responses! That's a relief. Wedell, I walked my DD through them exactly the way you described, but I was so worried that maybe because she needed assistance that there was something we needed more practice on before moving to the next level. When it's a mastery program I get concerned about moving on if there are struggles. It's good to know that other kids had the same challenges so maybe it's just meant to be a brain stretching exercise. Laliasmum- she was able to to two of them on her own after I had helped her with some of them, so I guess she got something out of it. Razorbackmama, she really does understand place value- she doesn't understand the concept of digits. I kept telling her that digits are like letters and they mean something by the way you put them together so you can always just take them back apart and use them as digits- she kept going "No, mommy, you cannot just add six and five together because that 6 means 6 tens NOT just six. The answer is sixty-five when you add them, not 11!" I think she understands place value but not digits- and I can't find where I missed in explaining that concept to her. I never thought to explain it before but now I see that was a big oopsy on my part.
Thank you guys so much for the advice. I was sitting there thinking last night "OK, if she's supposed to be able to do this without my help then we're in big trouble."
On a funny note, we always tell her that when you work hard at school your brain gets smarter, so when my husband got home last night Grace ran up to him and said "Daddy, my brain got MUCH bigger today! I'm VERY smart now!!!" She cracks me up!
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We're using MUS and Math Mammoth this year. We have been having a lot of trouble with the Math Mammoth for the past few days. Has anyone else had a hard time with, for example, page 35 in 1B?
The page is called Mystery Numbers and More Practice...
It is basically logic questions such as putting down a mostly empty 100 chart and having the child "find the number that is 1 ten and 1 more (11) than each underlined number." It sounds easy but it blew my daughter away trying to figure that out.
Then there are different questions like
"This number has two more tens than forty and the same amount of ones as 17"
"This odd number between 60 and 70 has two digits that add together to make 11." (in this one I realized she has no idea what "digit" means and after spending so much time learning that the number in the tens column means that many tens I felt like I was breaking down her comprehension of place value by trying to explain it. )
"This number is between 84 and 92 and it doesn't have any ones."
She really, really struggled and I couldn't find anywhere that there was a "gentle" lead up to these types of problems in the prior lesson pages.
Are these pages like brain teasers and if I have to walk her through them STEP BY STEP (I'm leading her on a string) it doesn't matter and it's just an exercise to challenge her---or does it indicate a problem in her understanding that I need to work on? It's kind of crazy to see how intense these problems are compared to MUS Alpha, LOL. She can do alpha in her sleep!
I think overall the issue that I saw with DD is that when you throw her a curve ball she didn't know where to start or how to take the problem apart in her head and break it into steps. Is this something that maybe comes in time with practice?
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I've had this same question myself. My goal is for my first grade daughter to do one narration a day. Sometimes more, but the goal is just to do one per day. I am not sure if that's right or not, but it's right for her.
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We use MUS and Math Mammoth. MUS is done so fast with the one page a day, and MM covers a year's material with about 1.5 pages a day. So she only does two pages of math a day and still gets the variety of two programs. We usually skip a page or two here and there when she seems to know the concept well in MM, so we haven't had any issues with needed to do more than one page a day.
We're only in first grade so I don't know how this will change in later years as concepts become more complicated, etc., but we bought the whole MM program a year ago during the co op sale and will continue to supplement with it.
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We did RS Level A and then switched to a MUS/Math Mammoth Combo.
We went from RS A into MM1A. It was a lot of review but I don't think math facts can be reviewed too much at this age and it was confidence building- we added in MUS and Miquon for fun. When we switched into MM 1B we skipped the first chapter because it was place value/abacus and that was covered fully well in RS A.
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Here's ElizabethB's thread on teaching Webster's reading method with kindergarteners. She is an amazing lady. I asked her lots of questions last year and she was always kind and willing to help.
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My daughter had the same issue. She has auditory processing "delays" and it makes it difficult for her to distinguish vowel sounds. What we did was drop Phonics Road for a while and use ElizabethB's kindergarten lessons for the Webster's book. It made all the difference. You go through many days of blending only two letters before getting into CVC at all.
Webster's is free but it's a lot to print. I would recommend that if you are not planning to stick with it in the long run you might print off 5 pages at a time. Once my daughter started doing CVC words well we used Blend Phonics (also free and amazing) and then moved back into Phonics Road later.
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You could get a Harcourt or Scott Foresman textbook off ebay or amazon for the grade level you are interested and make sure you cover the same topics. Those are often used in the public schools. Also, you could use the ITBS test prep booklets to give you an overview... However, I agree with the previous poster- it's probably hit or miss until middle school.
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Not to hijack, but how does a fountain pen help with writing and grip? Is there a type you recommend?
O.P.- how receptive would your daughter be if you told her that you made a mistake with her brothers that it's too late to correct, but you think you can help her avoid the same mistake by helping her with her cursive? Maybe you can require cursive copywork but let her print her other papers, just so she will know the correct formation when she's older and wants to use it from time to time.
Thanks!
Hailey
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I see that others have used MCT with children younger than 3rd grade, and I am tempted to try it. But I really feel responsible for preserving dd's childhood, so to speak. She is a child that loves to get lost in her imagination. As much as I think she would enjoy MCT even now, I think she needs to use her time differently than that at this point. I think we will stick with WWE for the next year, skip grammar for one more year, and then jump into MCT the following year.
I had never thought of it this way. You make an excellent point!
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My daughter is in the second half of first grade. How much writing should she be doing a day? She does one short sentence in cursive and one short sentence in manuscript in her journal each day OR the WWE copywork (she always picks the short sentence and it's no use to argue over the longer when she sees the short one right there on the page). For math, she often asks me to be her "secretary," for spelling she writes on the white board rather than on paper, and she rarely writes for any of the other subjects. Usually her handwriting journal assignment will use a sentence from science, history or art and then she colors a picture, so we kind of supplement those subjects a bit that way. She is fine motor delayed and gets fatigued from pressing down too hard on the paper- we've tried many things to help this and nothing has worked.
I'm just wondering if this is enough for her age... Should I be trying to gradually increase the amount or is this just right? In total- she's writing two sentences per school day and 5-6 spelling words on the white board.
Thanks!
Your Thoughts on Spell to Write & Read (SWR)
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted · Edited by grace'smom
left word out of last sentence...
I think the SWR/Phonics Road/WRTR approaches (Spalding) are great because they teach analysis. In learning to analyze the words the child develops a valuable skill they can apply in other academic areas. I don't think of it like we're spending "too much time on spelling." I don't think of it as just spelling. It's almost like an area of logic: you find all the smaller pieces of the word, take it apart into smaller units to work with a bit at a time (syllables), scan your mind for rules that apply to the problem, create the solution (spell the word) and review what you know to make sure it's correct. My daughter is practicing the process of solving problems over and over again, every day. She'll be able to use that later.