My boy will be 11 this summer, and I need writing ideas for next year. My goal is for him to be able to take a writing prompt at the end of the year and write a well organized paragraph with topic sentence, supporting sentences, etc. He has trouble setting the pen to the paper and organizing his ideas in his head. He successfully completed WWE 1-3, and CLE 2 and 3 when he was younger. We tried Writing Tales 1, Rod and Staff English in the past, and IEW A and MCT Town this year, but those were all half done and ultimately flopped. He does better with clear instructions and practice step by step. I'm looking for opinions on BJU 5 or CLE 5, either paired with Jump In, Wordsmith Apprentice, it Spectrum Writing 5. Someone gave us Wordsmith Apprentice, but it doesn't look like it would be the best fit. I love the look of Jump In samples, but it's leveled for slightly older kids. Any thoughts on all this? The biggest thing I have learned is that if a curriculum doesn't work, have a backup ready to go.

This is for my oldest, 12yo and 7th grade. She's always been a reluctant writer - both the "putting ideas into words" and the "putting words on paper" steps have always been hard for her (and I have wondered about both stealth dyslexia and dysgraphia). We did WWE2 and half of WWE3 in 4th and 5th, which did wonders for her. Last year we started WWS1 mid-year, after doing mostly-daily written summaries on books of her choice, but the summaries/narrations - i.e. the parts that I thought had been mastered - became like pulling teeth. (She did pretty well at the outlining (easy), and at the writing from an outline (a manageable sort of hard).) So I went back to WWE3 to shore it up, but it was both too easy and too hard. She could do any given assignment easily, especially the oral narration, but doing it day in and day out was too much - after a week or so of written summaries, she started baulking and resisting. After several fits and starts, I ended up finishing out the year with daily free choice writing - either copywork (book of her choice) or whatever she wanted to write. She usually picked copywork, and it was mostly fine so long as it was her choice of book. This year I started back up with WWE3 just until I bought this year's writing program (was originally thinking LToW), and a week into it and she's easily giving an oral summary and melting down at the prospect of writing it down. Sigh. My best guess is that the combo of easy/uninteresting thinking with hard physical-act-of-writing is giving her too little to think about other than how hard (and pointless) the writing is. She's a voracious reader, and in the past year has developed an interest in creative writing. Every so often she pecks away at a story on the computer in her free time. She says she has tons of ideas, but getting them down is hard. When we watched the intro video to LToW, introducing the three canons, she said that the ideas part of writing was easy for her (invention), but the arrangement and elocution parts were hard. (I don't think she consciously thinks about it anymore, but the physical act of writing is still hard for her, too. As is spelling. We've started typing this year (Touch, Type, Read and Spell), which is also hard for her.) Anyway, I had been planning to start LToW - it's a program I really want to use, plus I think she needs something different from what we've been doing. I've been hitting her weaknesses pretty hard with writing so far, and haven't really tapped into her strengths. WWE/WWS1 gives you the ideas to work on, so you can just focus on finding the words and writing the words without having to do the work of coming up with something to say. And this was really good for her at first, when she was rather inarticulate, and she loved the stories in WWE. But now she is bursting with ideas and really wants to write what she's interested in. (Or she says she does, but given the choice she does straight copywork of a favorite book. That gives maximum interest with minimum thinking.) In any case, ideas seem to be her strong point. But I've been worried that she really doesn't have a strong enough foundation in basic writing skills to get the most of out of LToW. Her intuitive sentence structure is good and varied, and her instinctive paragraphing is good, but we've done no formal study of either (and my various grammar program failures have now ruined grammar for her, which makes me really sad, because I love grammar; we've going to have to get it through Latin). We've done no editing (minus correcting copywork), because just getting the words on the page is so darn hard that the prospect of finding weaknesses and making improvements is demoralizing - she cries at the thought. (It's also hormone central here - she cries all the time, at the slightest frustration, whenever anything gets the slightest bit hard. But writing is a long-standing kind of hard.) But I ran across a discussion of IEW and SWI, and I'm wondering if SWI-B might not be the ticket (and do LToW next year). Thoughts?

My oldest daughter is currently using WWS2 and my youngest daughter uses WWS1; it's going great. I love SWB's style and really get it. My middle child, a son, is dyslexic and we did not even get through all of the WWE books. He could barely write a sentence when we started IEW. He can now summarize a paragraph. My problem is I really, really don't like IEW! I can't deny that it's working for him, perhaps not in the way I'd like, but at least he's writing something (and we're both not crying about it)! So the question: does IEW ever teach a true outline form. When he teaches them to outline it's just numbered like so: 1. 2. 3. etc. Does IEW continue on like this forever or will it change as we progress? Do we ever learn how to outline with main and supporting points? If so, when? Which level? I need some hope that this curriculum gets better! Rachel

I'm trying to decide whether to do one lesson weekly or double up. The material says it can be done either way, but I'd love to hear your experiences and thoughts on doing it in 15 vs. 30 weeks, what you based the decision on and whether it worked out for your kiddos.

I am looking into supplementing writing with my 5th grade dd with some 6-trait material. I would love to hear of others' experiences and opinions of Ruth Culham or Evan Moor materials. How does it compare to IEW?

Hi All, We are fairly new to homeschooling and wanted to know if someone can tell me the difference between the IEW writing program and the Analytical Grammar Beyond the book report program. We have finished the Analytical Grammar Jr books (both) and are now starting the Analytical Grammar work books. Can someone please chime in and tell me what they recommend for writing? I am working with kids that were yanked out of public school at 4th & 5th grade in November 2016. They have both excelled with AG and are now doing 6th grade reading and writing. Thanking you all, Nini

I'm specifically interested in hearing about your children's experiences with these instructors: Beatty, Cardinale, Osborne and/or Murphy. My rising 8th grade ds may be taking SWI B online next year but I don't know where to begin as far as selecting an instructor. Several time slots would work so it well may come down to instructor reviews. Thanks in advance! : )

If anyone has any experience with either of these, I'd love some input! DS1 (nearly 10) is in the middle of Barton level 5 and DS2 (age 8) is in Barton level 4 (during which we repeat/stick with each lesson until he "gets it"....this level is just so stinkin' difficult!) I have had them do copywork, but have not addressed "writing" (as in, composition) thus far (or at least, not "formally"!) Now, though, I am debating between IEW (institute for excellence in writing http://iew.com/ ) and Here to Help Learning (http://heretohelplearning.com/). I have researched IEW alot and know it is a great program with many people who love it. I saw Here to Help Learning at our recent local Homeschool Convention/Conference and it looks promising - and entertaining (a big bonus for my boys). For what it's worth, I went to the convention expecting that I would leave there with the IEW products I had planned to purchase there....but, then saw the Here to Help Learning booth. Talked to the person there (the husband/owner) and watched some of the video stuff. Then, I wasn't sure which one might be a better fit for us!?! (grrrrr.....sometimes too many choices just makes homeschooling life more difficult ;) )

Help! I have two kids, a rising 4th grader and a rising 1st grader. The 4th grader is the harder one to hs. She reads pretty well, about a sixth grade level, but has some speech and grammatical errors, slow to process, and EF problems. She's slow to write and has a hard time organizing her ideas. I'm strongly considering the following two programs together, but worried it's too much. IEW- She has problems summarizing succinctly. I think this will help quite a bit and the sequence of routines should help. I don't think it's enough grammar though so I'm considering ordering MCT. I know they say it is written for gifted students. She has some 2E learning differences, but grammar is not one of her talents. She's artistic though so I think the illustrations and the story book format will appeal to her and help her remember the grammar. I could just buy grammar island and practice island, but they both love doing poetry tea so I could see using Music of the Hemispheres too. Are both of these something I can conceivably use together or will it take me forever to get through both of them throughout the year? FWIW, for reading, we loosely follow a reading through history sequence and we use Singapore for math. TIA

So my 4th grade daughter is not in love with writing. We started in 2nd grade with WWE and went through WWE3 with lots of tears and fighting before we gave that up. This year we've tried a multitude of things: 6-Traits from Evan-Moore, online class through charter school, and finally hit on a gem, IEW Student Writing Intensive (SID-A). This has been working better than anything else we've used so far, but we're not very far into it yet to make a long term decision. However, I'm having to buy my curriculum for next year within the next month or two before I have much of IEW under my belt. As much as I like IEW, the DVDs are a little annoying to both my daughter and me. We don't like being told something we can read much faster. BUT, it's working and I don't want to mess up a good thing. On the other hand, I like that WWS is written to the student and seems to follow similar methods to IEW, and it leaves behind the narration/dictation that caused such tears in the past. BUT I've also heard it's quite difficult. So what I'm wondering is if should we continue on with with IEW and get the SICC-A and continue to put up with the DVDs? Or should we move over to WWS1? I don't want to leave gaps in her learning, so I'm honestly willing to do both, SICC-A followed by WWS1, if that is a better sequence. Does anyone have any wonderful pearls of wisdom for me on this one? Anyone used both and can give me some perspective? Thanks for any help you can give!! Amanda

I'm looking for a writing curriculum for next year. We are currently working through R&S English 2, which teaches grammar. Next year we'll use R&S 3, but from what I've seen the writing portion is pretty dry. We tried FLL but that was too much mommy talking for my boys and I'm afraid that's what WWE 3 may become. (I began to sound like the teacher in Charlie Brown, "Wha, whaa, wha, whaa.") Is it possible to use any of the theme based books without having viewed TWSS? I've written a master's thesis, so I have writing skills, but I need some structure teaching them. I'm more of a science and math, logical brain type, so I need some balance with finding appropriate selection of "fun" reading for kids. I've looked at many of the samples and I'm torn between WWE 3, IEW theme based (especially the geography based, All Things Fun and Fascinating, etc.) or maybe W&R Fables. Purchasing TWSS is out of our budget, and I don't think any of our co-op members use it. Please post your suggestions/experience. THANKS!