Looking for thoughts about Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts

[Guest KCole]

My ds has finished FLL 4, and as a result has a very strong grasp of grammar and diagramming. I am now evaluating the next step for her. I looked into Rod and Staff, which appears to be very thorough. However, I have also been looking at Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts materials, which are intriguing. Does anyone have any experience with these products from Royal Fireworks Press?

 

Thanks in advance!

[teacalm]

I have the complete series up to Academy Writing I, Magic lens, and Word Within A Word. I read through the books but I haven't actually went through it with my kids except with ds when we briefly used word within a word and Magic Lens. MCT have a different way of presenting grammar, composition and poetry concepts. He uses illustrations and pictures that presents grammar and writing concepts beautifully. What I got out of it is that grammar is wonderfully simple. Like out of the million words in the English language, there is only eight different kinds of words (parts of speech). There are only two sides to a sentence: subject and predicate. He emphasizes how easy it is to spot these two components. I find myself applying it constantly when I'm teaching my children. Like, kids let's look at the predicate. What kind of verb is it? Is it action word? Yes. Then look to see if it has a direct object that received the action of the action verb. If the verb is the verb to be (am,is,are...) then we can only have predicate nominatives or predicate adjectives. Reading Magic Lens made me understand how the clauses and phrases works, and in turn, made it easier for me to teach it to my kids.

 

I actually use it more as a teaching tool for now but I'm hoping I'll get around to using it with my kids. For now, i have other materials that seems to do a good job of cementing the concepts in my kids minds.

 

Hope parts of my rambling answered your question, somewhat.:))

 

Lyn

[Matryoshka]

I'm planning on switching over to MCT LA next year. My older two are rising 6th graders. If it were just grammar, I would've started with the Voyage level, as they're strong in grammar. But Essay Voyage looked like a bit much to jump into without a bit more framework. And I loved the look of the poetry and vocab books, which also looked a bit much to jump into cold at that level (especially poetry). Since everything is interwoven, I decided to just start with the whole Town level and go from there. I also like the 4-level sentence analysis. I'm not planning on starting the books till the fall, though, so I can't yet say how they are in practice.

 

However, I have already been trying out the poetry and vocab books at the Island level with my younger dd (8). She loves them so far.

[Spy Car]

I have the complete series up to Academy Writing I, Magic lens, and Word Within A Word. I read through the books but I haven't actually went through it with my kids except with ds when we briefly used word within a word and Magic Lens. MCT have a different way of presenting grammar, composition and poetry concepts. He uses illustrations and pictures that presents grammar and writing concepts beautifully. What I got out of it is that grammar is wonderfully simple. Like out of the million words in the English language, there is only eight different kinds of words (parts of speech). There are only two sides to a sentence: subject and predicate. He emphasizes how easy it is to spot these two components. I find myself applying it constantly when I'm teaching my children. Like, kids let's look at the predicate. What kind of verb is it? Is it action word? Yes. Then look to see if it has a direct object that received the action of the action verb. If the verb is the verb to be (am,is,are...) then we can only have predicate nominatives or predicate adjectives. Reading Magic Lens made me understand how the clauses and phrases works, and in turn, made it easier for me to teach it to my kids.

 

I actually use it more as a teaching tool for now but I'm hoping I'll get around to using it with my kids. For now, i have other materials that seems to do a good job of cementing the concepts in my kids minds.

 

Hope parts of my rambling answered your question, somewhat.:))

 

Lyn

 

Thank you for this informative post :001_smile:

 

Bill

[HSDCY]

I am not familiar with FLL4 so I don't know what's covered in there. However, we have finished Grammar Island series this year and ds has been peeking through next year's Grammar Town on his own for the last couple of days. I can't say enough good things about the program. It makes grammar seem so simple, and it is easy to use, too.

 

If you tell me what FLL covers, I'll probably be able to tell you which level your child should use.

 

P.S. If you have good experience with FLL series, I wouldn't want to change though. Why not continue with R&S as Susan suggests? We've used FLL (the first one) when ds was in 1st grade but did not finish it. Part of it was his maturity and part of it was the presentation. It wasn't a good fit for him. MCT is a great fit for him but might not be a good fit for your child. MCT and FLL approach LA very differently, and I think choosing something that fit you and your student is probably more important. Just my 2 cents:001_smile: