MCT-what do the students "do" each day?

[home4school]

All this MCT hype has got me looking again. I perused before, didn't seem too impressed, blew it off. But, of course, with all the threads I keep going back. We really need something to improve retention.

 

I just can't see exactly what the students "do" each day. Is most done orally or just even the reading until they do the practice book at the end of the grammar book?

 

I have two ds, 11 & 13, and was looking to the Town set bc we aren't crafting great paragraphs. But, WOW, the vocab is something. It seems like it would be an effort just to keep up with him in his word usage in general. Do you find your kids struggling with his use of advanced vocab, even in the explanations?

 

Also, do you all use the poems? i just can't see my boys giving a fig about that.

 

Thanks!

Kim

[Miss Marple]

We haven't started poetry yet. I'm waiting for a few things to calm down around here first. But here's what my boys have done the past 2 days (we're using Magic Lens level 1)

 

1. We went over the worksheet in the grammar book where they take 20 sentences and determine the part of speech of a specified word. They had done this on their own; we corrected it orally.

 

2. Then we did Mystery Spelling orally. (Word Within the Word)

 

3. They answered the Mystery Questions orally. (WWW)

 

4. They then worked on the Classic Words and Analogies alone (WWW). We will go over those together on Monday.

 

5. On Monday, after reviewing WWW, they will take their Lesson test. That will be all the vocabulary for the day. But they will end up doing a lot of reading for Grammar in Magic Lens. We try to do this together - then they move on to the worksheet. The reading will include looking at the 4 level analysis of a couple of sentences.

 

None of this is particularly onerous and since my boys have already had a good foundation, they don't take very long with the grammar. The vocabulary is hefty, though. But that's a good thing, IMO.

 

Altogether, they probably spent 30-45 minutes each day on language arts. I would guess that I'm doing this a bit more relaxed than others.

[abbeyej]

Have you read through the pdf on teaching with MCT materials?

 

http://www.rfwp.com/samples/LA-ELEM.pdf

 

I found that was really the selling point to me. Before hand, looking at samples, I wasn't terribly impressed. This helped me see how everything fit together...

 

Also, I think the poetry books are absolutely vital. There aren't actually all that many poems (I've only read Building Poetry -- the Town-level poetics book -- so far, though I have the next two books on order), but he does a fantastic job of telling kids simply (but with some depth) *how* poems work and what elements they can look for. I think it's a fantastic approach for kids who love poetry -- and for kids who *don't*. And the information he covers then comes into the writing and the literary analysis he suggests, etc, etc. I could see skipping the grammar (for a child who has covered other grammar thoroughly, I mean -- the 4-step analysis could be covered quickly and easily without his materials, if absolutely necessary) and going straight to the practice sentences before I could see skipping the poetics materials!

[Jen500]

I am using the Town level (all components) with my 10 yr olds. They had little previous grammar, so we started with the grammar book. If you've had a lot of grammar, the writing book reviews most of the grammar. Now we've been alternating the other books (CE1, PT, Building Poems) and doing some practice sentences. We usually work for an hour and then stop. We read through the books together and discuss, and then they'll do the writing lab or write a poem on their own. I wasn't sure we'd like the poetry book, but it's a hit....a few days ago they decided on their own to write some poems using different types of rhyme. I also try to read a few poems a week aloud before we do the poetry book.

[jenL]

Have you read through the pdf on teaching with MCT materials?

 

http://www.rfwp.com/samples/LA-ELEM.pdf

 

I found that was really the selling point to me. Before hand, looking at samples, I wasn't terribly impressed. This helped me see how everything fit together...

 

 

 

Thank you so much for posting this! Like the OP, I was wondering about the MCT hype since I looked into it too, but I couldn't see the draw when I believe there are other wonderful programs out there. Now I see the connection, and even though we're not ready for it yet, I'll be keeping it on my "list".

[Julie in MN]

I just can't see exactly what the students "do" each day. Is most done orally or just even the reading until they do the practice book at the end of the grammar book?

 

I have two ds, 11 & 13, and was looking to the Town set bc we aren't crafting great paragraphs. But, WOW, the vocab is something. It seems like it would be an effort just to keep up with him in his word usage in general. Do you find your kids struggling with his use of advanced vocab, even in the explanations?

 

Also, do you all use the poems? i just can't see my boys giving a fig about that.

 

Thanks!

Kim

 

My ds started MCT at 13, now 14. Right now, we're using 2 books from Town (and grammar with ML; we haven't started poetry):

 

1. CE-1, we read through all of this together except the word finds and reviews/quizzes. If I really need to, I can have him do some of the other exercises on his own and pencil his answers into the book, but that's not the preferred method by either of us. During the first half of the book, we spent 3-4 days per unit, but now we're spending 4-5 due to the fact that quizzes are cumulative (75 things to review for lesson 15). It's only about 15 minutes daily for his age.

 

2. PT, I read the chapter (or portion) aloud & we're silly with it. Then on another day, he re-reads and enjoys the visuals more. Other days, we discuss the summary page and do the "lab." We've skipped most of the grammar reviews, until we got to the clauses, where we need all the review we can get. This can take 15-20 minutes or so, depending on how much we read, but we didn't even start this until recently and only do it about 3 times a week.

 

If you do it with your kids, it's not an effort to keep up with the higher vocab. And reinforcement is in all the different MCT books and stories, so you're getting the same things from different angles.

 

During CE-1 this week, there was a "wordy story" where MCT makes up a little story & tries to put as many vocab words in there as possible. As I read it aloud (ds is very auditory), I had my son raise his hand every time he heard one of his vocab words (his hand went up a lot!).

 

Later that day, when he was doing a writing assignment for something totally different (Lightning Lit assignment about setting), lo and behold his MCT vocabulary appeared -- without ANY prompting from me! He used sentences like these, and he ENJOYED it, and he would NEVER have done this before MCT :)

 

 

• During the day if I'm feeling vexed I can simply go into my room, lay on my bed, look around, hear the nothingness, and feel quite serene.

 

 

 

• ...I feel like I’m sinking into an abyss of feathers.

 

Edited January 30, 2010 by Julie in MN
clarification

[AngelBee]

:lurk5: