WTMCassandra Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 I'm tutoring a student with special needs who is going into 9th grade in the fall (public school). I got him ABeka 8th grade because it was a solid all-in-one program, but the pace is too fast for him. If the student were a bit older, I'd try Analytical Grammar, but I think it would be overwhelming as well right now. I'm thinking about these two possibilities: Step by Step Grammar Straight-Forward English Anyone have a better idea? Anyone have experience with these two choices? :bigear: (The parent would really like the program to include diagramming, if possible.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 Not having taught that age, could I very humbly suggest Shurley? There's just nothing slower, more incremental, more, um, struggle-proof... My Shurley 7 is downstairs, but you can see the scope & sequence online. Or even go back to Shurley 6 if you have to. Better to do a lower book and really understand it than to struggle through something harder. Shurley 6 goes all the way down to 2-3 word sentences. I'd have to look at the workbook for 7, but I think it goes down that far too, all the way back to the beginning. And it takes it so slowly, builds so carefully. The Q&A format along with memorizing the defs might do the trick for him and make it pretty painless. As for diagramming, we just diagram one sentence each day onto a whiteboard. When you start with simple sentences and build up gradually, the diagramming stays painless too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 BTW, somebody just mentioned that Step by Step grammar in another thread and said she liked it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMCassandra Posted July 29, 2009 Author Share Posted July 29, 2009 Trying Shurley is an intriguing idea that I honestly hadn't considered. Would it work since I only see the student once per week? I have heard of Shurley, of course, but my recollection is that it is very teacher-intensive, and I'm concerned about that since I do not have daily access to the student. It's good to know that it is slow and incremental, though--that's a good thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMCassandra Posted July 29, 2009 Author Share Posted July 29, 2009 Cool! Who was it? Or, which thread? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in NS Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 I'm tutoring a student with special needs who is going into 9th grade in the fall (public school). I got him ABeka 8th grade because it was a solid all-in-one program, but the pace is too fast for him. If the student were a bit older, I'd try Analytical Grammar, but I think it would be overwhelming as well right now. I'm thinking about these two possibilities: Step by Step Grammar Straight-Forward English Anyone have a better idea? Anyone have experience with these two choices? :bigear: (The parent would really like the program to include diagramming, if possible.) Only answering, not because of experience (lack of, really:D), but because I've thought about how I might tutor an older child who needed remediation in grammar. I'd like to suggest R&S. It is a thorough program, it has diagraming, and I like its explanations. I'd experiment maybe with level 4 or 5 to start off, and move forward at the student's pace. You could try 5, and drop back to 4 if needed. You can move through it more quickly if done orally, too, with diagraming on whiteboard/chalkboard/scrap paper, and maybe cover a few lessons in your weekly session. And you could call them "levels" instead of "grades" so as not to insult the student. hth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMCassandra Posted July 29, 2009 Author Share Posted July 29, 2009 I'm concerned about the freak-out factor. He's a great kid with a great attitude but I'm concerned he would be stifled by R&S's format and layout. (He is a public-school student.) And I'm not sure how to avoid him having to write out exercises during the week. If I were seeing him daily, working orally would be a snap, but I'm obviously not able to do that. Hmmmm, I'll have to think about this some more. I guess this once-a-week factor is why I'm tending to gravitate toward worktexts or workbooks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in NS Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 I'm concerned about the freak-out factor. He's a great kid with a great attitude but I'm concerned he would be stifled by R&S's format and layout. (He is a public-school student.) And I'm not sure how to avoid him having to write out exercises during the week. If I were seeing him daily, working orally would be a snap, but I'm obviously not able to do that. Hmmmm, I'll have to think about this some more. I guess this once-a-week factor is why I'm tending to gravitate toward worktexts or workbooks. Are you working on grammar with him during the entire tutoring time? If not, then yeah, I could see how it might not work. But if you are just doing grammar...well, here is what I do with ds to avoid as many written exercises as possible: I have him read the lesson part aloud, we talk about anything that is unclear to him, and then I figure out if the written exercises are repeats of the class practice. If it is, we skip class practice (or whatever it's called) and move on to written. Only we do them orally. Doing them orally makes the whole thing go faster. But I guess you'd only want to do that if the student picks up the concepts pretty easily. Cuz if not, you'd be doing maybe a lesson per week and never get through the books! :lol: Maybe other programs contain the same info. as R&S yet do it in fewer lessons? I don't know. I'll be interested to hear what you decide and why, since I often think about taking on tutoring students again, for reading/grammar/writing/spelling. I've only done reading/spelling, but I'd consider doing grammar now that I know some from R&S. But I'd be interested in knowing what other tutors use and why, because tutoring isn't the same as homeschooling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMCassandra Posted July 29, 2009 Author Share Posted July 29, 2009 No, we are also reading books together and discussing them (comprehension/beginning literary analysis)--mostly Sonlight books! :D As for curricula to use in a tutoring situation, AG is going very well with his older brother. I'm really pleased with it. But his brother does not have his same learning challenges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 It was Jen the RD. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116893&highlight=step+grammar Search her more and see if she has other posts about it. She calls it Step Grammar, so you might search just those terms. Shurley would be workbooks, no writing out sentences. The gr 7 is formatted differently from the earlier levels (1-6). I like the thought process of Shurley, the Q&A, but I can't say that it's necessarily preferable to Step, which was written specifically to remediate. With only once a week sessions, the efficiency would be pretty real. Of course you go back to the thought of a dc who's struggling to understand the concepts. In other words, covering less but having him come out really getting it would be better than covering more. You know, this is totally an aside, but my friend, who just happens to teach high school english, was telling me she thinks her students have no reading comprehension, no knowledge of vocabulary, etc., because the extent of their reading is texting and snippets (emails, etc.). I don't know, just thought it was an interesting remark. Might mean that ANY reading, just flat increasing his reading, would help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMCassandra Posted July 29, 2009 Author Share Posted July 29, 2009 (edited) In other words, covering less but having him come out really getting it would be better than covering more. [snip] Might mean that ANY reading, just flat increasing his reading, would help. Yes, I would rather have him really learn some things rather than rushing. Thanks for the link--I decided to order the Step-by-Step Book One to try. And yes, I am well aware of the need to increase his reading, as is his mother. They tend to battle over it, but he is reading for me, so she is jumping for joy. So far he has read Gentle Ben and Rascal for me and discussed them in detail, narrating one chapter at a time. For Rascal, we are also working on a "mountain" diagram. I helped him determine the beginning, climax, and end, and talked about rising and falling action. I sent him home with the task of identifying three major rising action events and three falling action events to add to the diagram. As he gets more comfortable, I will ask him to write a summary of a book, again after we have talked it through chapter by chapter. I also have some neat book report forms that teach beginning literary analysis along the way that I plan to use. I'm not usually a fan of book reports, but I like these. He went home with Incredible Journey this week. I'm hoping that good books that are not too difficult will build his confidence. Edited July 29, 2009 by WTMCassandra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in NS Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 No, we are also reading books together and discussing them (comprehension/beginning literary analysis) You are making me want to jump back into tutoring for pay - what a great job to get paid for!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 What are your book report forms? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMCassandra Posted July 30, 2009 Author Share Posted July 30, 2009 http://www.lovetolearnplace.com/BookReports/BookReport.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMCassandra Posted July 30, 2009 Author Share Posted July 30, 2009 You are making me want to jump back into tutoring for pay - what a great job to get paid for!!!! It's awesome. I'm having a blast! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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