Where to go with LA for DD?

[Mama2Three]

My DD is a 5 1/2 yo kindergarten and is moving along with leaps and bounds with her reading/writing. She will sit and read for hours if I let her, and can easily read Boxcar Children or Magic School Bus chapter books in a day. Right now she is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is purported to be a high 5th grade level per Scholastic book wizard. Every once in a while she'll ask a question about pronouncing a word (symptom was the last word she couldn't figure out), or what something means, but if I ask her what's happening in her story she'll give quite a lengthy and detailed summary. For phonics she is on book 5 of ETC. We were working through Phonics Pathways but stopped because I got bored with it. :tongue_smilie: She finished HWT 1st grade printing book in October and we've started cursive because she asked to. Unprompted she will copy a page of a picture book she is reading and draw a picture. She sent a letter to Santa and wrote "For Chistmas I want a Baby Alive please. Love, Sarah" and she addressed the envelope to Santa, North Pole. I reminder her of the r in Christmas and a period at the end of a sentence, but she spelled everything else correctly with proper spacing, etc. This stuff is fun for her. For math, she is probably a little ahead -- finishing up SM EB2b, she can say numbers through 999 and has a good number sense -- but not to the extent as she is for LA. For science, Bible, and some math, we've loosely been following MFW K but leaving out the phonics work.

 

So, my question is where to go next with her. We just started AAS, which I thought would be fun for her and a nice change of pace from ETC. I had planned to work through the ETC books up to 6 and then wait on books 7 and 8. I also planned to start FLL/WWE in the fall, doing the exercises in cursive. Part of me feels that we should start at least WWE now (in manuscript until she is far enough along with her cursive practice to transition to that), so she gets more practice with proper structure (capitalization, punctuation, etc). The other part of me says that she is doing just fine on her own and more formal work can wait. Thoughts?

 

For the fall (or sooner?), I would love to do an open-and-go lit based program for her, but I can't find one that I think would be a good fit. Sonlight's books become quite mature (she is a sensitive girl like her DM and will cry during books and movies), LLATL books seem easy for their respective grades but I couldn't skip too far because the grammar skils become more advanced, WP is too focused (I don't want to spend a whole year on animals), MFW 1 is too bible-based for my preference and for MFW Adventures I've read that youngers can become bogged down in the state work. We already use Sonlight, AO, etc for read alouds.

 

Help, please! What would you do now and for first grade?

Edited December 24, 2009 by Mama2Three

[KristenS]

Have you looked at Five in a Row? Even though it's picture books, the subjects can get quite deep when you want to. And the Beyond program uses chapter books, like Boxcar Children. It might be just what you want, for literature.

 

Or just keep a running book list, with a few narrations thrown in, if you have to do a portfolio. Maybe some lapbooks from homeschoolshare.com or something?

 

It sounds like her reading and comprehension is fine, and you just have to wait for the motor skills to catch up ... which you are working on. So I'm not sure that you would need a formal reading program.

[Carol in Cal.]

You have an opportunity to expose her to a lot of great non-fiction at this point, and since she is such a good reader you can send her off for that to some extent. I would suggest that you give her the Magic School Bus books and have her read them, and then discuss them with her. That way she will pick up a range of scientific information that will serve her very well going forward.

 

I don't think that there is anything to be gained by pushing ahead of her motor skills with writing, but I would suggest separating her composition development from her physical writing by encouraging her to dictate stories, summaries, and science reports to you to write down. Obviously you want her to practice copywork and learn cursive, but with her brain going so much faster than her hands at this point, it's good to encourage those comp skills.

 

Also, have you found some sort of immersion experience in a foreign language for her? She's at an age where this can really stick and where she can develop a 'native' accent pretty easily.

 

Since she has learned her basic skills so easily, you have the luxury of being able to spend time on these enrichment options.

[StephanieZ]

For writing, my dc have LOVED to dictate stories to me at that age. Can't get enough of it!!

 

I find it easiest to type it into word and then print it for them. I will edit very minor grammatical errors on the fly, but other than that, I try to be very true to what they dictate.

 

I advise starting short -- give her a one or two page limit. Otherwise, my dc tend to babble on and on and could keep me typing all day. Keeping it short will help her stay focused on a story line (how does it END?). . .

 

Type in a big font (18 or larger), double space it, and set up your pages with a top margin of 3 inches or so. . . When you print it, help dd read it aloud, edit it if she *wants* to change/fix anything. Then invite her to illustrate each page in those big top margins.

 

I need to take the time to do more of this with dd7, as she still LOVES this kind of thing. . .

[rowan25]

:lurk5: We're in a very similar boat, so I'll be watching this one!! :)

[Donna]

Last year, when dd was 1st grade age, she did Reading Detective, Spelling Power, began grammar with her brothers using MCT, Wordly Wise for vocabulary, and wrote her own stories, notes, poems, etc... constantly. For reading, I used Suppose the Wolf's An Octopus type questions for the books she was reading. I would have loved to have found Lightning Lit for her level but that was the best I could come up with. She didn't always read the books used in that book but everything she read was good literature (also read a lot of myths and poetry) and I modelled the questions we discussed on those in the Octopus book.

 

She had always been very good at retelling the story and guessing what might come next but I wanted her to get into more higher level thinking when reading. I had her reading tested by a reading specialist last year and it was many levels (6+) above her grade level. The higher level thinking/inferencing seemed to be her "weakness" or where she began to get answers wrong as the level increased. That may have been due more to her young age and lack of life experience but it did give us something to work on.

[Mama2Three]

Thanks, everyone, for your responses. I will start doing dictation work, where she dictates to me. I love the idea of leaving a space at the top of the page by adjusting the margin. She'll love this!

 

I have some Spanish background -- studied it for 6 years and spent a summer in Spain -- so I planned to start teaching her Spanish myself in the fall. At one point I was pretty fluent, but that was 20+ years ago. :tongue_smilie: I will look into an immersion program for her, too. Did you mean a Rosetta Stone-type program or an immersion class? I'll need to do more research for foreign language. She has a sign language alphabet poster on her wall in her bedroom and she is picking up signing from that, as well as a few other ASL "baby" signs (eg, more, all done, book, music, etc), but we haven't done much with Spanish yet.

 

I'll also look at Reading Detective and Suppose the Wolf Were an Octopus. Again, this is a new area for me and I'll need to research more. I do ask questions as we read together, and she gives lengthy narrations for her own reading, but I think it would be good for me to focus a little more.

 

Please, keep the ideas coming. This is a very exciting time for DD (and me :001_smile:), and I really appreciate your suggestions! :001_smile:

Edited December 26, 2009 by Mama2Three

[Crimson Wife]

If you decide to use FLL, I would recommend skipping the 1/2 book and just starting with FLL 3. All the grammar covered in 1/2 is reviewed again in 3, and you'll have to do less "tweaking" to get the appropriate pace for a gifted kid.

 

My oldest was at a similar reading level when she was a K5 student. She did a heavily condensed version of FLL 1/2 that year but I wish I had just waited until 1st and then started with FLL 3.

[Mama2Three]

Crimson Wife, Thanks for your comment. I have FLL 1/2 and was reading through it today. I like that it's "gentle," but it does seem slow for her. That said, I'm afraid to rush things too much. How much review does FLL 3 have? Does FLL 3 cover FLL 1/2 at the beginning of the book, or does it incorporate the review throughout the book, then take each concept a little further?

 

Right now for 1st grade LA I'm leaning towards WWE 1 (and 2?), FLL (level?), AAS, and finishing up ETC 6 (she's flying through 5 so it might already be completed by the end of this school year), plus something for Spanish. I've been keeping my eye on the MCT threads, too. And I've also researched Beyond FIAR, which looks interesting. But, of course, it's still a work in progress. :)

 

Thanks again for the Hive's comments!!! :)

[Heather in VA]

How about looking into Classical Writing? It's a fully contained program except for independent reading.

 

Heather

[Lovedtodeath]

Right now for 1st grade LA I'm leaning towards WWE 1 (and 2?),

This is the only thing I have experience with... and I just want to say that you will most likely need WWE 2 IMO.:)

[Bird Girl]

My DD is advanced in LA too, and I would encourage you to take another look at Sonlight. When DD was 5.5, she was very sensitive--too sensitive to watch most Disney movies, for example, and we did not have any problems with the books in Core 1. I would guess that most things in Core K would also be acceptable. I thought that we would zip through Cores 1 and 2 and then be stuck, too young to proceed to Core 3, but once we got started in Ancient history, we found many, many things to hold her interest, and actually took 18 months to go through Core 1.

 

I didn't care for SL's LA program; it is very writing intensive, and it seems to me that there is a mis-match between the writing level and reading level expected of the student. We used MCP's Plaid Phonics for spelling, Getty-Dubay's Italic handwriting, and copywork for LA for the first grade year. I bought Michael Clay Thompson's Island level for LA for the second grade year, and we are slowly working through that; it's very challenging, yet not too intensive on the writing front. I would not recommend it for ages younger than about 7, though, unless your DD is very, very advanced; I would guess that it assumes a reading level somewhere north of sixth grade, with a fair amount of ability to abstract. However, keep it in mind for the future--I've found it incredibly valuable.

[Crimson Wife]

Crimson Wife, Thanks for your comment. I have FLL 1/2 and was reading through it today. I like that it's "gentle," but it does seem slow for her. That said, I'm afraid to rush things too much. How much review does FLL 3 have? Does FLL 3 cover FLL 1/2 at the beginning of the book, or does it incorporate the review throughout the book, then take each concept a little further?

 

Sorry for the delayed response, I've been offline for the past couple of weeks with a move.

 

From what I recall of previewing FLL 3, it covers each topic individually and then builds on to what was introduced in the first book. SWB designed the book to be used by older students new to grammar, so I think it could work well for a gifted younger student.