MCT (oh, no!) - time? Level?

[Laura Corin]

I'm intrigued by all the chat about MCT. I feel that Calvin could do with a new challenge next year, his last year before going to school. If we did all the elements in the programme, how much time would it take us per week? And what level would he start at?

 

He's very bright with an excellent vocabulary. He rarely writes a sentence fragment or fails to make all elements agree. He knows his parts of speech but hasn't had very much formal grammar instruction - I hadn't been planning on giving him more, but I'm wondering about this programme. He can structure a simple essay but still needs prompting to remember to reference and expand his points. He will be in 8th grade, in US terms.

 

Thanks

 

Laura

[MariannNOVA]

I'm intrigued by all the chat about MCT. I feel that Calvin could do with a new challenge next year, his last year before going to school. If we did all the elements in the programme, how much time would it take us per week? And what level would he start at?

 

He's very bright with an excellent vocabulary. He rarely writes a sentence fragment or fails to make all elements agree. He knows his parts of speech but hasn't had very much formal grammar instruction - I hadn't been planning on giving him more, but I'm wondering about this programme. He can structure a simple essay but still needs prompting to remember to reference and expand his points. He will be in 8th grade, in US terms.

 

Thanks

 

Laura

 

Hi, Laura: I will let someone who has been using MCT for a longer period of time than me answer this, but I did want to say that what seems to take up the largest chunk of time with MCT is keeping up here with the fast-moving threads about it :lol::lol::lol:.

Truly, though, my kids are willing to spend as much time on it as I would let them -- the twins are on track to complete Grammar Island in about 2 weeks -- which does beg the question, perhaps I could have put them in the next level, but I was so unsure about their level of knowledge I started at the beginning -- DD10 - who has an excellent knowledge base in LA is breezing through it as well and loving it - she is in Voyages and has already completed 3 years of IEW in private school.

[HSDCY]

I am giving you a bump here.

 

Not many responses I guess because the majority of users are using their elementary material. I know Julie in MN is using their secondary material, if she does not respond, maybe you can PM her. But calling RFWP is probably best.

[StephanieZ]

:lurk5:

[LanaTron]

I know it would be an international call, but I've heard from others that the folks at RFWP are very helpful in determining which level to use.

[Vida Winter]

I know it would be an international call, but I've heard from others that the folks at RFWP are very helpful in determining which level to use.

 

:iagree:

[Julie in MN]

I am giving you a bump here.

 

Not many responses I guess because the majority of users are using their elementary material. I know Julie in MN is using their secondary material, if she does not respond, maybe you can PM her. But calling RFWP is probably best.

 

Aw, I feel special today!

 

I'm using MCT with an 8th grader who sounds much like yours -- intuitively good at reading, writing and vocab, perhaps because my son's siblings are so much older. He only had one year of basic parts of speech as far as formal grammar. However, my son is probably not pushing himself or producing as well as yours sounds like he is (maybe yours is an oldest? I had one of those once :) ).

 

I originally purchased the whole Magic Lens level. The grammar at that level is going well, using Magic Lens-1 & 4Practice-1. Since we're new at MCT, we've spent more like 4 months going through all the basic grammar, rather than the usual 1 month, but it's still faster than most programs. The rest of the year, we'll do the "loops" in those books, which include some various exercises keeping the grammar fresh. The 4Practice books present one sentence at a time for analysis. So, we might analyze 2 sentences at most for a day's work when we're in the practice book. They're complicated sentences with high vocab, so they're sentences which actually benefit from discussion. The answer key to the 4Practice book gives thorough information for all levels of discussion for each sentence, from interesting parts of speech to vocab definitions to poetic techniques.

 

For vocab, here are the choices I think you'd have:

(a) Word Within the Word. Benefits are that it coordinates with Magic Lens and it challenges at a higher level. It has regular-sized, smaller print. There are 25 roots per lesson, with lots of example words for each root. I don't get the "conversational" feel of other MCT materials, but WWW does have interesting exercises for working with the words. The exercises felt a bit more "classroom" oriented to me, but I didn't actually try using it yet. The MCTLA group advised me that I would eventually find the exercises that worked best for us. I think it will work well once we've completed the 2 books below, but I've heard of other kids who dive into WWW with gusto.

(b) Caesar's English-I is 2 levels down from WWW. It has bigger print and more "conversational" lessons and exercises. You get 5 roots or 5 advanced words to study each week. First you'll read about the meanings and many, many examples of literature that uses the words. The easiest literature referenced would probably be Peter Pan and Tom Sawyer; most is more advanced than that. Then you'll have exercises like choosing the best synonym from amongst various options, or rewriting a sentence in simpler terms, or doing some analogies with the words. There are 20 lessons in the book, and we did the first 10 at a pace of 3-4 days each, but are spending 4-5 days on the second 10, because quizzes are cumulative so we're past 50 words/roots to review.

© Caesar's English-II looks to me almost the same as CE-I except there is some review of CE-1 words & roots, and it correlates with Essay Voyage. The correlating thing isn't as big a deal as I had expected, since all the books have rich vocab discussion.

 

For writing, the Academic Writing-1 matches the Magic Lens-1 level. It is way into MLA formal writing, and my son needed to work more on organizing his writing. He's a youngest & has plenty to say but wants to be joyful and casual about it. I went back a level to Essay Voyage and reading that has helped bring him to a higher level of accuracy, but I just ordered Paragraph Town (back still another level) because I still don't think he's convinced that his paragraphs need a little more organization. PT looks like it will go quickly, and your son might not need that at all.

 

I haven't started the poetry yet, but the Voyage level is quite easy, with some very young rhymes included. However, the later levels of poetry step up quickly and the Poetry & Humanity level has quite advanced poetry from Sylvia Plath & the like. I decided we'll start with Building Poems for fun & go thru it quickly next semester, but the poetry is all speculative for me at this point.

 

 

HTH,

Julie

Edited December 13, 2009 by Julie in MN

[Laura Corin]

Many thanks, Julie. I think we might go with Magic Lens for now. MLA format is not going to be exactly the same as what is expected in the UK, so it makes more sense to use a UK programme for writing. I'm happy with the programme we use for everything else.

 

Thanks again,

 

Laura

[Melissa B]

Laura,

 

There is a yahoo groups for MCT programs.

 

MCTLA - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MCTLA/

 

In my opinion Magic Lens I / Word Within the Word I would be a great fit.

 

We are only doing grammar this year and it takes about 15 minutes per day if we do it daily. I dropped vocabulary for the younger years, but am still on the fence about Word Within the Word next year. How long it takes will depend on how you want to use it. You can do it all orally or have the student write out some of the responses. If we decide to use the vocabulary next year I am going to budget about 30 minutes daily or an hour 3 days per week for Word Within the Word I.

 

I agree that the writing program at that level will not be helpful to you. It is very format driven and much would not even apply. I haven't seen the poetry book at this level as I decided not to pursue the poetry after using the first two books.

 

Best Wishes,

Melissa