MCT end of the year follow-up

[swimmermom3]

There were several of us at the beginning of the school year that took the plunge together and ordered MCT or had already been using it. I would love to hear how everyone's year turned out. Will you be using it next year? What level did you use? What level will you use? Did you use all of the components or some of them? If you supplemented, with what and why? Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course? Were you happy with test results? It would be great if you could weigh in if you have been using the materials 6 months or longer, in order to keep the reviews as helpful as possible.

 

My 6th grader is finishing up his first year with MCT at the Voyage level. This was a good fit; however, we did back up writing for a couple of months to Paragraph Town. Of all the MCT components that we used, writing is the only one I struggled with. I think this was less due to quirks of the program than to quirks of the teacher. I used IEW Ancient History Theme-Based writing in the earlier portion of the year, Essay Voyage on its own for a couple of months, and K12 Composition supported by EV here at the end of the year. Grammar Voyage, Practice, and Caesar's English II were well worth the money and time we spent on them. Oddly enough, MCT' poetics are what drew me to the program and we ended up doing less poetry this year than we normally do. This was because ds had one ugly spot on his state test last year and that had to do with literary interpretation, so we spent more time on that and less on poetry. That said, I still enjoy the poetry and will continue with it.

 

This fall for 7th grade, we are going to use The Magic Lens, Level 1 and the corresponding components. We will finish The World of Poetry but delay Humanity and Poetry until 8th grade as we have a full schedule for lit analysis and primary resource interpretation.

 

Writing? I don't know. I will admit to being lured by the siren song of Lost Tools of Writing. From what I have read, it looks like a good companion to MCT. For all my vacillating, Swimmerdude's writing improved in quality and sophistication. What to do!

 

And oh yes, I am still a MCT groupie. We had fun with language arts this year. Imagine that.

Edited May 29, 2010 by swimmermom3
Poor grammar and spelling. How embarassing.

[Shawna in Texas]

We will be starting Voyage Grammar in a few weeks. We did less poetry also, but I'm planning a fabulous :D poetry study with the elementary series and various other books for sometime this year. We pretty much used it as intended except for the poetry and dragging out PT as long as possible.

 

I am also intrigued by LToW (have been before even our CW experiment), but I want to do a rhetorics course in high school, so I will be saving that for then probably. I'll wait for you to buy it and see what you have to say. :D

 

eta: Voyage Grammar lol

 

I've been suspecting that I'm suffering from mild aphasia (which dd takes advantage of), but I'm not sure what to call that.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Shawna in Texas

[Matryoshka]

My older dds have been through most of the Town level - we're just getting to the Poetry now.

 

Loved CEI, Paragraph Town also went well. Love Practice Town.

 

This spring we've been doing the Jamestown Short Story collection, which introduces literary analysis with short stories and has a lot of writing included, so that's what we've been doing for writing. I'm trying to fit in the Poetry, but it may end up going through the summer. I'm hoping to mix in some lessons from Keepers of the Flame.

 

Next year, Voyage level. The only thing I may add to the mix is LToW - I've been intrigued by this since before I even got MCT, and recent threads about others using (or planning to use) them together, have renewed my interest.

 

For Lit next year, looks like I'll be mixing and matching units from LL8 and LLfLOTR (just came in the mail!!), and I'm hoping that I can use the "how to write" lessons from Essay Voyage and perhaps LToW on the "what to write" assignments from these curriculua.

 

And then there's younger dd (9). We've been doing bits and pieces of Island since last summer, mixed in with other stuff. Music of the Hemispheres we did first last summer. Fell in love with that, and dd learned a ton (even though we skipped actually writing poems). She's also liked Grammar Island, loves Practice Island, and we're now cruising through Sentence Island after some initial hesitation on her part. For assignments, she's actually asking to do the odd ones like making a dialog between characters that can only speak in action or linking verbs.

 

Since the end of my mother's writing class in March, we've been mixing that with other writing stuff like Writing Magic, an Outlining book, WWE3, and she's also enjoying Story Grammar for Elementary, which is a bit of both sentence writing and grammar.

 

We'll probably continue with that whole mess with her next year (moving up to WWE4 when we get there). I'm unclear when we'll move into Town with her, whether it'll be next fall, mid-year next year, or the year after. I'm not in a big rush - she's 2 1/2 years younger than the older two, who just did Town last year.

[Capt_Uhura]

I started Island level in January 2010 with a 4th grader and a 1st grader.

 

Will you be using it next year? Most definitely.

 

What level did you use? Island level.

 

What level will you use? Town level. My then 2nd grade will tag along for Grammar Town and Practice Town which he'll enjoy.... I won't do Grammar Voyage with him...he can tag along but I won't require any of the writing. We'll go back and do/redo exercises from Sentence Island and continue w/ WWE2/3.

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them? All.

 

If you supplemented, with what and why? Yes and no. My 4th grader had almost completed GWG grade4 and since I"m a finisher lol I had him finish it. It went well with MCT b/c the last 2 chapters involved prepositional phrases and adverb phrases and involved some letter writing. Also, both boys do WWE. My 4th grader is mid-way through WWE3. My 1st grader is mid-way through WWE2. My 4th grader also took two Bravewriter courses this year (KWB, Just So Stories - that one really awakened a love of writing process - and Hand-Holders. I forgot to mention DS does a Daily Edit book. It's a paragraph each day which focuses on a concept for ex: prepositions, action verbs, tense, nouns of direct address, dependent clauses, etc. only b/c we were already doing it before starting MCT.

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course? Stayed the course. We did Grammar Island first in 3 weeks and then did the other components.

 

Were you happy with test results? Extremely happy. My sons took the NWEA MAP test. On language arts (MAP 6+ survey with goals), my 4th grader score, based on 2008 norms, was >99th% for 4th graders, 98th% for 5th graders, up to 75th% for 11th graders. The poetics he got correct was solely due to Music of the Hemispheres. Another contributor to that score was doing Teaching the Classics w/ a couple of picture books "A Bargain for Francis, Two Eggs, Please" etc. Now I'm not saying doing MCT Island/TtC will get any kid these scores...my DS is very language intuitive and it's an area of strength for him but MCT/TtC certainly gave him the vocabulary and MCT really makes him think about language. OH we had some done an outlining workbook which had some exercises for topic sentences, main ideas.

 

 

Ideas for my son's 5th grade year. I picked up LL7 used for a great price. My friend has loaned me her LLfLOTR 1st edition. I want to read through the epic portions to see if I want to incorporate that when we do ancients after reading Swimmermom's schedule. My friend also just received LTOW yesterday and loaned it to me for the weekend to look at for the future.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Capt_Uhura

[EKS]

I used MCT Island for my 8yo and Voyage for my 13yo.

 

The Island materials were fabulous for giving my son a really solid big picture understanding of grammar. The practice book was a wonderful way to have a low key conversation about language every day. The vocabulary and poetics books were fun and I think he learned some things there. The program gave him excellent tools to talk about language and writing, but IMO it was weak on the actual execution aspect. I didn't particularly like the writing assignment suggestions so I didn't use them. For this child, this is fine because he is a natural writer, and, frankly, I think this type of kid is the target audience for the program.

 

The Voyage materials gave my older son a solid big picture understanding of grammar as well. He has dyslexia and grammar has been a problem for him for several years, but MCT was able to overcome that. He is now at the end of the practice book and is able to crank through those sentences with confidence. We also used CE II and that was challenging for him. He is only just realizing that he actually has to continually review the previous words/stems. This has been a good lesson for him and I was impressed with the word selections in the book. Unfortunately, I don't think that WWW is going to be a good fit for him, so we are going to move to Wordly Wise next year. As for Essay Voyage, I was *really* impressed with the way MCT described the process of writing an essay and what is important in essay writing. However, my son needs more guidance than just descriptions and examples; he needs someone to hold his hand in a structured way (and his mother needs someone to tell her how to do this). EV does not do this and we are going to have to add something with more structure for next year. Or I'm going to have to figure out how to superimpose structure. Or something. We weren't able to get to the poetics book but we might do that over the summer.

 

One problem we had with the Voyage materials was that my son didn't like the voyage theme. I think he perceived it as being for younger kids. It would be wonderful to have version of the Island/Town/Voyage materials that was written for an older audience.

 

As for test results, my 8yo took the 4th grade ITBS and my 13yo took the 10th grade ITED. I have not gotten the results back, but I was able to go through their answers. I am anticipating that the 8yo will score somewhere between 80-90th percentile for all of the language subtests except capitalization where he will score below average. We will be adding Daily Grams to deal with this problem. I'm anticipating that my 13yo will be somewhere between the 70th and 80th percentiles for language. He had no obvious deficits, though it is much harder to tell on the ITED. Since these percentiles are as compared to 10th graders and he is only in 8th grade, I'm pretty happy with his performance.

 

In all it was an extremely successful year. I am truly impressed with the MCT materials. They have enriched our study of language immensely and are absolutely the best materials we have ever used in our homeschool.

Edited May 29, 2010 by EKS

[radiobrain]

Lisa... why do you have to do this to me, on a night when my husband is out playing a gig until after midnight?! You know I cannot resist an MCT thread! ;)

 

There were several of us at the beginning of the school year that took the plunge together and ordered MCT or had already been using it. I would love to hear how everyone's year turned out.

 

I had taken the plunge a year before that... but I will still play your silly game. :D

 

Will you be using it next year?

 

Yes

 

What level did you use? Town

 

What level will you use? Voyage

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them? Yes, but once again, poetry became a separate unit.

 

 

If you supplemented, with what and why? Yes, but that is due to my oddball style. I think I inherently rebel against doing anything exactly as written. I added in some random writing exercises and contemplated WWE, but nothing very specific or complete. I bought a lot of things used, that I looked at and said... ugh.. re-sell pile! I attempted to do some bravewriter stuff.

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course? Were you happy with test results? I don't know what test you are referring to, we didn't do any this year (other than ones in CEI) but if you are talking standardized tests, after we did Island last year my kids aced the IOWA LA section (well, all but spelling, punctuation and capitalization~ my kids haven't been writing much, so this was not any surprise or concern).

 

It would be great if you could weigh in if you have been using the materials 6 months or longer, in order to keep the reviews as helpful as possible.

 

 

We will definitely be continuing next year, and I look forward to using MCT throughout the rest of my children's education. I am taking my Voyage books on my vacation to my mom's next week. That is super geeky.

 

I need to ramp up the writing output and spelling... but I am starting that boys' writing club, so with that AND voyage level, I hope all goes well.

 

I am also utilizing Classics in the Classroom, have Suppose the Wolf 6 & 7 and my friend is loaning me LL7.... so I think I am well situated for the coming year. Oh, my boys will be 5th/6th/7th. I need a word for that....fixeventh, maybe? Hmm, I'll have to work on that.

 

 

 

I am sorry for giving a bit of a cursory response here. I find it hard to quantify our results and successes, and do not wax eloquently this late on a keyboard. I see how well my boys use and enjoy language, how they notice things I doubt they would w/o MCT. I have finally learned why my grandfather would yell at me when I misused my subject/object pronouns. I am very pleased. Retention is excellent. Interest level is excellent. Ease for me is off the charts.

 

I have to go to bed!!!

Edited May 29, 2010 by radiobrain
I am a rambling idiot.

[rafiki]

.

[radiobrain]

Did you notice that all of us, with the exception of Matroyshka, edited our posts?

 

I find that amusing. ;)

Edited May 29, 2010 by radiobrain
ARG!!!!

[Jen in PA]

I started Island level with DD in February. We have a couple of vocabulary and poetics lessons left, and are about halfway through Practice Island and Sentence Island. We will finish those up when we start back in July, and then move up to Town level. MCT has been a great fit for us. She has been doing so well with the four level analysis, and I am amazed at how well she has applied what she has learned. To be honest, Building Language was a bit easier than I had hoped for, but I have a feeling that the Town level vocabulary will be what I am looking for.

[SFKC]

Will you be using it next year?

Yes, Town is already on the shelf.

 

What level did you use?

Island, we started homeschooling for third grade and it felt appropriate to start at the beginning.

 

What level will you use?

Town next year

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them?

All, though we're still completing both Practice Island and Music of the Hemispheres. MotH will be done by mid June, and we'll continue PI lightly throughout the summer to keep it fresh.

If you supplemented, with what and why?

We instituted a "poem of the day" since starting MotH -- I thought it would be nice to tie lessons into what was sort of languishing on our bookshelves.

 

I am also thinking hard, after visiting a culmination program of an Oakland CA-based co-op this week, about more formal phonics. The kids presented their work with Spell to Write and Read and their grasp of the 28 rules was impressive. I am certain my daughter will balk, but some sort of chart or incorporation of phonics to complement our LA program would be nice to have on hand. She reads (like you read about) and spells well for her age -- I know phonics is not MCT's focus -- but supplementing grammar with some phonics work (along with our regular Spelling Power program) sounds like the perfect LA mix. The writing is not an issue around here -- she is involved in a Lucy Calkins' Units of Study class offsite.

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course?

No changes, I just wish I had started earlier in the year -- I clued into MCT after a few months of FLL3, in January.

 

Were you happy with test results?

I have not yet tested, so I can't answer. I can say, though, that my kid GETS it. She understands what Island teaches at a deeper level than I thought possible. And, I know now, it's because MCT is story-based; engaging. LA is something she looks forward to.

 

Edited May 29, 2010 by SFKC

[happygrrl]

I only have a second, and I will (should) be off line for a few days so I'll respond quickly...

 

We were using R & S for everything LA. The kids were actually doing great with it, I wanted to change because their writing was so.... Rod and Staff-y. I didn't feel they had a big picture of just how beautiful language is. I would read them a passage from one of my well-loved books and they would just stare at me. There was no way they were going to write something beautiful with this background.

 

So. I kept using R&S to fool them into thinking that MCT wasn't LA. We started with Island so that we could get in on the ground floor. I was concerned about the simplicity, since they are really great with grammar. THEY LOVED IT! We did all parts, and THEY LOVED IT! I can already feel this inclination, this sparkle in the eye to use beautiful words, to think about the sounds the words make, to speak clearly. Obviously we really didn't learn any thing new, just got a new perspective about the purpose of it all. I dropped the writing portion of R&S so that we can shake it off, so really we have only done cursory writing the past few months.

 

We'll be going into Town level this summer (again, not as LA, but as fun time). I do have LToW (I can't believe i finally beat some of you to the purchase!) and I intend to start that when appropriate. I just don't know when that is though; I haven't really delved into it yet as I am and will be short on free time for a bit.

 

I am not even re-reading this, or I would be hitting the edit button! Please forgive the errors. It is our movie night, and Errol Flynn and the Sea Hawks are being pursued by the Spanish. I gotta go!

 

Edited to add: I edited any way! What a nerd.

Edited May 29, 2010 by happygrrl

[cschnee]

Hello there,

 

I haven't been in on any previous MCT posts but will give my 2 cents here.

 

We, dd grade 5 and I, have been using the Town level books. We finished Grammar Town and Building Poetry and are still working on CEI and Grammar Practice. Dd loved all of the books and enjoyed the story in Paragraph Town but I think she felt the writing was too difficult. So we are planning to do WWE 4 this summer (excerpts to be used will be from the many books mentioned in CE1.) I would love to finish Parargraph Town (we got to lesson 10), so maybe we will continue with it next year before moving on to Voyage. We definately will use the grammar, vocab and poetry portions.....just not sure about the writing portion.

[ElizabethB]

I've only had it for a month or two, Island level. My daughter loved Grammar Island! We worked through about half of the book, it's now loaned out for a couple of weeks to a friend to try out, she's planning on buying herself a copy for next year, her 2nd and 4th grader are enjoying it.

 

We're doing poetry now, just reading through.

 

We did it gently and lightly this year, just reading through those 2 books snuggled on the couch. Next year I plan to do all 4 books and do the written work. (From the white board, of course!)

[Irishmommy]

We just started the Island level for my 3rd grader a couple of months ago. My son LOVED GI and we have already finished it. I plan on continuing through the summer with it and will start Town when we finish all four of the books. We are only doing the writing that he feels compelled to do. Today he even came up with his own writing assignment. He WAS a VERY reluctant writer, so I am THRILLED at his progress. I did give him a TAKS test, but for third grade it only has reading comp., no writing. He only missed 2 out of 40, he's strong in reading though, so I expected him to do well. I plan on adding the Kilgallon book next year and maybe add some other type of creative assignements (I asked for suggestions in another thread, hint hint;)).

 

Overall impression is VERY positive. I have not heard ONE complaint about LA since beginning MCT. :D

[Snickerdoodle]

Will you be using it next year? yes

 

What level did you use? Island

 

What level will you use? Town

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them? All

 

If you supplemented, with what and why? We used CW Aesop since we had already started and this was the first year I required any writing for my pencil phobe. I like the combination so far.

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course? No changes.

 

Were you happy with test results? Yes.

[Crimson Wife]

Will you be using it next year? Definitely CE2. The others I'm undecided but leaning towards yes. If I do them, it will be when my DD is older.

 

What level did you use? Town

 

What level will you use? Voyage

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them? All

 

If you supplemented, with what and why? Red Hot Root Words from Prufrock Press to provide written exercises above & beyond CE1. We actually started that workbook prior to CE so it was more CE supplementing RHRW than the other way around.

 

I also had my DD do certain chapters from Thinking Through Grammar: 5th and 6th Grade by Dr. Whimbey when I thought it would benefit her. MCT's approach to grammar is still something I have a hard time wrapping my head around even 6 months into using it.

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course? We've slowed way down in PT. It's definitely the most challenging portion of the "town" level and my DD probably would've gotten more out of it had I waited until she was older. What I may do is repeat portions of it prior to Essay Voyage if I decide to use that one in a few years.

 

Were you happy with test results? Yes, but the verbal portion has always been her strong suit. I think her test results were more of a validation that she was indeed ready to start the "town" level at a young age (the writing notwithstanding).

 

I am glad that I decided to give MCT a try after all. I'm definitely not a groupie, though, except for the vocabulary.

[rafiki]

.

[mbeaser]

here were several of us at the beginning of the school year that took the plunge together and ordered MCT or had already been using it. I would love to hear how everyone's year turned out.

 

We didn't really start Grammar Island until March and took things slowly, so I'm not sure we'll be *really* helpful, but I'll play too :)

 

Will you be using it next year? Yes

 

What level did you use? Island

 

What level will you use? Town

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them? All. We did grammar first, then started the other units at the same time a couple of weeks ago. We will work on it over the summer, because the kids won't let me stop :D

 

 

If you supplemented, with what and why? No, we didn't, but we're probably going to add in some WWE stuff in the fall.

 

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course? Were you happy with test results? We've stayed the course thus far, but we don't do our testing until June 8/9. I'll post back about the results when I get them.

 

One of the absolute best things about the program is that the kids love it so much that it gets done every single time, and usually extra above what I scheduled. We took a day off school last week for my Mom's birthday and the kids were truly upset that they only got to do sentence island once that week :001_huh: We program hopped for a while, but nothing else we ever tried got done because it was such a struggle to get them into it.

[melmichigan]

My DD did a quick read through of Town and was placed into Voyage for this last semester in an online class. She did great with the CE2 but is struggling with phrases and clauses. We are not sure if it has anything to do with her AS, or just the fact that she just came out of PS LA and just doesn't have the background.

 

Right now the plan is to stay where we are, working with phrases and clauses for a while. I am looking for additional materials. I have Practice Town and might go back and use that over the summer as well as revisiting Practice Voyage (which was used in her class). I think we will break before moving to ML/WWW unless something just clicks. I think she definately needs more than a semester to digest and apply Voyage. We are not planning any online classes for this coming fall as my DD will be traveling for five weeks without schoolwork. ;)

 

We are mixing up the writing, IEW and Paragraph Town for now.

[catz]

Will you be using it next year?

Definitely!

 

What level did you use?

Island with a HG-PG 3rd grader and a kindergartner enjoying it too (she'll come back to it later - doing FLL 1/2 with her)

 

What level will you use?

Town

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them?

All, although we have poetry left!? I think we'll do that casually over the summer and start it much earlier next year. Perhaps when we start Practice Town.

 

If you supplemented, with what and why?

We did a lot more writing than suggested, and tried to apply our new grammar knowledge.

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course?

Stay the course!

 

Were you happy with test results?

DS in 3rd tested above 99% overall yesterday on achievement testing! Woo hoo. Guess we're doing ok. :001_smile: He's just a kid who probably would have tested well had we twiddled our thumbs all year too.

[radiobrain]

I didn't edit.

 

You posted as I was typing.

 

:tongue_smilie:

[freerange]

We loved the basic Island package & are planning to order Town & Voyage. Are the basic packages sufficient again, or are there some books where a student book as well as the teacher book would be a big plus. International postage means I'd like to get the order right first time! lol

 

DD1 insists on doing Practice Island daily, even when it's not on her list.:D

[Crimson Wife]

Right now the plan is to stay where we are, working with phrases and clauses for a while. I am looking for additional materials.

 

I highly recommend the materials by Don Killgallon for this. I'm alternating this series with MCT. Probably the most appropriate one for your student would be Grammar for Middle School Students. You can see the TOC here.

[Kuovonne]

I started MCT back in December, so it's been 5 months for us. I used Island level with an accelerted first grader, so we went very slowly. Even though we had to go slowly, I still think that it was a perfect fit for us.

 

We started with Grammar Island and mixed in bits of Music of the Hemisphere. We did a little bit each day, from whichever book I felt like. Then halfway through Grammar Island, we started Practice Island. We started Practice Island doing only the first line of analysis, then as we finished each section in Grammar Island added a new level of analysis. We have Sentence Island and Building Language, but have not started either yet. We just finished Grammar Island.

 

I have seen some improvement in DD's writing but I don't know how much of that is due to MCT. The main benefit is that MCT has given her the vocabulary that I need her to have so that I can discuss her writing with her. I think that the main reason I haven't seen more improvement is because most of her grammar / writing problems are Town level problems.

 

We didn't do any testing.

 

Next year we will continue with Island level. Whenever we finish Island level, we will start Town level. In anticipate of that event, I plan on building up DD's writing by doing lots of quickwrites / freewrites. If she isn't quite ready for the writing in Town level, I might have her think through the writing process by doing sentencing combining exercises based on one of my old college textbooks, but adapted for her age.

 

I find it amusing that everyone who replied to this thread has been satisfied with MCT, and most have been very satisfied. Although I suppose that if someone didn't like it, she wouldn't have kept at it for six months, and thus wouldn't reply.

[nd293]

We started with Grammar Island in January. We have just started the poetry component, and have yet to start the writing component. We are already using one of the IEW Theme-based books, and will continue to do so for the rest of this year.

 

Next year we will move on to Town level. I'm not sure if we'll get the vocabulary book - dd is not enjoying the repetitiveness of the exercises this year. I look forward to the grammar - we loved grammar this year. At Island level the writing was not sufficient for our purposes, but I'll go into Town level with an open mind and take it from there.

 

All in all, coupled with Mosdos and IEW, MCT has provided a really impressive language arts programme for dd9. The whole lot is both time-consuming and costly though...

[melmichigan]

I highly recommend the materials by Don Killgallon for this. I'm alternating this series with MCT. Probably the most appropriate one for your student would be Grammar for Middle School Students. You can see the TOC here.

 

Is there a seperate teacher's edition?

[Crimson Wife]

Is there a seperate teacher's edition?

 

The elementary level of Story Grammar has a free downloadable TM at the Heineman website, not sure about the others. I only needed it occasionally, however. Most of the exercises the answers were pretty self-evident.

 

ETA the TM for the middle school grammar book can be found here.

[lisabees]

Is there a seperate teacher's edition?

 

Answers are in the back for Sentence Composing. This made a huge difference in ds's writing.

 

As far as MCT...

 

We used MCT Island and Town series with a struggling 7th grader. We did not use all of the writing assignments. We are still working through the last of vocab and poetry.

 

I did supplement, as Island and Town were fairly simple for him. I used WWE3 (ds struggles with narrating), Write Shop and Sentence Composing for Elementary School. Now, we have moved on to LTOW.

 

Ds and I really loved the entire MCT program. He is a big picture thinker and, for the first time, understands grammar and how it fits into the writing process. It was the first time ds actually had fun reading, discussing, and interacting with the beauty of language. His vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds.

 

We are currently using LTOW and will continue with that.

Edited May 31, 2010 by lisabees

[Irishmommy]

What is LTOW?:confused:

[lisabees]

What is LTOW?:confused:

 

Oh Irishmommy, you had to ask! Whatever you do, don't blame me...

 

Lost Tools of Writing

http://circeinstitute.org/demo_ltw.shtml

[Matryoshka]

Next year we will move on to Town level. I'm not sure if we'll get the vocabulary book - dd is not enjoying the repetitiveness of the exercises this year. I look forward to the grammar - we loved grammar this year. At Island level the writing was not sufficient for our purposes, but I'll go into Town level with an open mind and take it from there.

 

Oh, no, don't skip the vocab! I think it's almost a universal opinion that the weakest book in the whole MCT program is the Island level vocab (Building Language). I have it sitting on the shelf, but if we don't get to it, I'm not going to sweat it all that much.

 

However, Town/Voyage level vocab (Caesar's English I and II) are entirely different in content and form from the Island level Building Language. I wouldn't miss them - my kids not only learned a lot, but retained a lot.

 

The writing also ramps up very quickly.

[happygrrl]

Answers are in the back for Sentence Composing. This made a huge difference in ds's writing.

 

As far as MCT...

 

We used MCT Island and Town series with a struggling 7th grader. We did not use all of the writing assignments. We are still working through the last of vocab and poetry.

 

I did supplement, as Island and Town were fairly simple for him. I used WWE3 (ds struggles with narrating), Write Shop and Sentence Composing for Elementary School. Now, we have moved on to LTOW.

 

Ds and I really loved the entire MCT program. He is a big picture thinker and, for the first time, understands grammar and how it fits into the writing process. It was the first time ds actually had fun reading, discussing, and interacting with the beauty of language. His vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds.

 

We are currently using LTOW and will continue with that.

 

I am planning of doing LToW with a struggling 7th grader also. I have been unsure if it would be do-able with him- the fact that you did it is so encouraging!

[radiobrain]

 

Next year we will move on to Town level. I'm not sure if we'll get the vocabulary book - dd is not enjoying the repetitiveness of the exercises this year. I look forward to the grammar - we loved grammar this year. At Island level the writing was not sufficient for our purposes, but I'll go into Town level with an open mind and take it from there.

 

 

 

NO!!!! I agree with Matroyshka, Caesar's English is excellent and should not be missed just based on Building Language. BL has been my least favorite book, actually the ONLY book, that I wasn't particularly impressed with. It is not a bad book, it is just the weakest book.

 

Please don't skip CE because of BL, you would not even know they were related to each other if you saw them both in person.

 

It deals with Latin roots AND serious heavy duty vocabulary words. It uses passages from real literature to show the different ways the words have been used in great lit. It gives little author bios and odd games and, well, I just love it. ;)

 

Off my soap box!

 

Don't worry about the writing component in Town, it is far more doable and intense in that level.

[Capt_Uhura]

I highly recommend the materials by Don Killgallon for this. I'm alternating this series with MCT. Probably the most appropriate one for your student would be Grammar for Middle School Students. You can see the TOC here.

 

I have Killgallon's Sentence Composing for Elementary School. I might have DS work through it this summer and then pick up either Sentence Composing for MIddle School or Grammar for Middle School - I'm not sure what the difference is between those two.

[Jennay]

NO!!!! I agree with Matroyshka, Caesar's English is excellent and should not be missed just based on Building Language. BL has been my least favorite book, actually the ONLY book, that I wasn't particularly impressed with. It is not a bad book, it is just the weakest book.

 

Please don't skip CE because of BL, you would not even know they were related to each other if you saw them both in person.

 

It deals with Latin roots AND serious heavy duty vocabulary words. It uses passages from real literature to show the different ways the words have been used in great lit. It gives little author bios and odd games and, well, I just love it. ;)

 

 

 

Oh, I am glad to read this. I haven't loved BL and was wondering how CE is different.

[Crimson Wife]

I have Killgallon's Sentence Composing for Elementary School. I might have DS work through it this summer and then pick up either Sentence Composing for MIddle School or Grammar for Middle School - I'm not sure what the difference is between those two.

 

I couldn't get that good a sense of what Sentence Composing for Middle School is like based on the Amazon preview. It did seem like it might be focused a bit more on getting kids to write sentences & paragraphs and a bit less on teaching grammar than Grammar for Middle School. But it's hard to tell based on just the TOC and a few sample pages.

 

I'm personally leaning towards using the middle school grammar book next because it looks like an expansion of Story Grammar for Elementary School, which I thought was excellent.

[swimmermom3]

NO!!!! I agree with Matroyshka, Caesar's English is excellent and should not be missed just based on Building Language. BL has been my least favorite book, actually the ONLY book, that I wasn't particularly impressed with. It is not a bad book, it is just the weakest book.

 

Please don't skip CE because of BL, you would not even know they were related to each other if you saw them both in person.

 

It deals with Latin roots AND serious heavy duty vocabulary words. It uses passages from real literature to show the different ways the words have been used in great lit. It gives little author bios and odd games and, well, I just love it. ;)

 

Off my soap box!

 

Don't worry about the writing component in Town, it is far more doable and intense in that level.

 

Love CE II and wish we had done CE I as well. I am spoiled and a little concerned that Word Within a Word won't live up to CE.

[Matryoshka]

I'm personally leaning towards using the middle school grammar book next because it looks like an expansion of Story Grammar for Elementary School, which I thought was excellent.

 

:iagree: I'm not exactly sure of the difference either, but we're really liking Story Grammar for Elementary, so I'm leaning toward getting the next level of that book for my older two (that would be Grammar for Middle School). This series is cheaper and a bit thinner than the Sentence Composing books, and since I'm using it as a supplement, not our main LA or grammar, that seems just about right.

[HSing...AndLovin'It]

Love CE II and wish we had done CE I as well. I am spoiled and a little concerned that Word Within a Word won't live up to CE.

 

I am planning on doing Voyage level grammar, essay, and possibly poetry this year for 6th gr ds. (We did Town level grammar and writing in 4th gr.)

 

What do those of you who have done CE2 think? Would it be better to go back and do CE1 first before doing CE2? How long would it take to do CE1 on a 3-4 day/week schedule?

[swimmermom3]

Love CE II and wish we had done CE I as well. I am spoiled and a little concerned that Word Within a Word won't live up to CE.

 

I am planning on doing Voyage level grammar' date=' essay, and possibly poetry this year for 6th gr ds. (We did Town level grammar and writing in 4th gr.)

 

What do those of you who have done CE2 think? Would it be better to go back and do CE1 first before doing CE2? How long would it take to do CE1 on a 3-4 day/week schedule?[/quote']

 

If I were to do it again, I would do CE I over the summer and then pick up all of the Voyage level together in the fall. The vocabulary words from a specific level show up in the grammar and writing books so it's helpful if they are all on the same level. I was lamenting the fact that we didn't start MCT until this year and that I was sorry we hadn't done CE I. CE II reviews all of the CE I words, so my son has had exposure to them.

[coffeefreak]

We loved the basic Island package & are planning to order Town & Voyage. Are the basic packages sufficient again, or are there some books where a student book as well as the teacher book would be a big plus. International postage means I'd like to get the order right first time! lol

 

DD1 insists on doing Practice Island daily, even when it's not on her list.:D

 

:bigear:

I'm wondering too! :)

Dorinda

[Capt_Uhura]

I"m pretty sure for Town level all you need is the Basic package ie no student books for Grammar Town and Paragraph Town or the poety book or CE1 but parent and student book for Practice Town. I'm not as certain w/ Voyage level but I'm thinking it's the same. I know for Magic Lens level, you need both parent and student books b/c the parent book for one of them is just quizzes....the text is in the student book.

[swimmermom3]

I"m pretty sure for Town level all you need is the Basic package ie no student books for Grammar Town and Paragraph Town or the poety book or CE1 but parent and student book for Practice Town. I'm not as certain w/ Voyage level but I'm thinking it's the same. I know for Magic Lens level, you need both parent and student books b/c the parent book for one of them is just quizzes....the text is in the student book.

 

Basic package is all you need for Voyage level as well.

[yslek]

T (4th grade) started the Island level either at the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010. He has finished all of the components, except for Practice Island. I think he has 16 sentences left

 

Will you be using it next year? Yes. I was going to enroll T in K12 (WAVA) along with B and D, but hated the thought of not doing MCT with him. When I asked him what he'd rather do, he voted for MCT. I'm glad, because I've learned more grammar with MCT Island than I'd known before. :001_huh: I love, too, that T does the 4-level analysis with ease now (most of the time) and that I have a vocabulary discussing problems in his writing in other areas. Before, I could only say, "this is wrong...it should go like this..." without being able to explain why. It wasn't terribly effective, and I was frustrated by my inability to communicate about writing with my dc. MCT has changed that. :D

 

What level did you use? Island level.

 

What level will you use? Town level. I've already ordered it. :D

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them? All.

 

If you supplemented, with what and why? I started off supplementing with Daly's complete book of diagrams, but dropped it after a couple of weeks, mostly out of laziness. :tongue_smilie: We're also doing selected lessons from WWE 3 and will be starting WWE 4 soon.

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course? Stayed the course, for the most part. T didn't want to do poems for stems in Building Language, so I always gave him the option of writing a poem or coming up with a simile. He always chose the simile. :) He also drew a picture of "Spec" when he finished Building Language (his idea). For the writing assignments in Sentence Island, we didn't do every single one. Some of the assignments were designed for classroom situations, so we skipped those. Sometimes there were several options very similar to each other, and for those I'd let T choose which one he wanted to do. Even though he didn't like the idea of writing poems for the stems in BL, he did write a waterfall poem at the completion of Sentence Island. I thought it was pretty good for a first poem. Certainly better than anything I ever wrote when I was 9. :001_smile:

[Granny_Weatherwax]

WWW1 - wished we had started with CE2. WWW1 is a lot of work. We will be using WWW2 next year and it looks easier than WWW1. We'll find out once we begin in August.

 

We loved Poetry and Humanity and will continue with the next level.

We enjoyed 4practice and Magic Lens although we got bogged down and didn't finish as quickly as we should have (mostly due to my work schedule). I will rework the schedule next year when we begin the next level.

 

We will be using Essay Voyage next year. Maybe using some of AAW1 toward the end of the year.

[buddhabelly]

We did Town level and lived it. My son had absolutely no interest in poetry before, and now he writes them for fun. We laughed and laughed over Paragraph Town, and we learned so much. I really, honestly, had no idea that two independent clauses should be separated by a comma. And the program also solidifies understanding of subordinate clauses and how to punctuate

them (answer: it depends on where it comes in the sentence).

 

I do think having student books is essential for the books that have the answers written in. That includes the "extra" material in the back of

Paragraph Town, and Practice Town. In either case, you could rewrite

the exercise on a white board if you knew in advance which pages you were going to look at that day.

 

Julie

[JadeOrchidSong]

This thread is very good. I am still thinking of using MCT one day. I see some of you use it for both kids, like 2nd and 4th graders together. That might be something for me to consider when my younger is 2nd grader. Now we are still using R&S along with newly added WWE 1 for older ds 7.5.

J

[AuntPol]

Will you be using it next year? Yes

 

What level did you use? Island Level w/4th and 5th grader. We started it in Mid-March and finished everything but Practice Island last week.

 

What level will you use? Town level. Thinking of compacting it into one sememster and doing Voyage too

 

Did you use all of the components or some of them? All

 

If you supplemented, with what and why? Did SWR for spelling and IEW for writing this year. I did not like the writing assignments in Island. THey are great for creativity but we could only use a few of them.

 

Next year, I am thinking of using IEW for writing too because I'm not sure what direction Paragraph Town will take as far as actual assignments. I may not use IEW because we have a lot of assignments for Prairie Primer, LL7, and Scouts that can fill in the gaps (But I hate to give up IEW because my kids love Andrew so much). I plan to use Fix-It for editing purposes as it goes with LL7 (Tom Sawyer). We will finish up SWR for spelling next year.

 

Did you make changes along the way or did you stay the course? Stayed the course

 

Were you happy with test results? We tested about the same time that we started so can't tell how testing will be affected. They aced language arts anyway so not much to improve on. My kids had a good grasp on grammar already (FFL1 and 2, copywork, and Grammar-land, plus what is in SWR and Latin and IEW). However, it is more ingrained with MCT and they enjoy it so much and they did learn.

[Aubrey]

Question: I know MCT is intended to last the first few mos of the school yr, to be followed by practice & review, BUT we started at the end of the yr & will probably be finished by the end of the summer. I'd like to go ahead & start Town in the fall, but then wait until the next yr to do level 3. So there'd be no gap between 1 & 2, but the expected gap between 2 & 3. What do you think? Would that be terrible?

[radiobrain]

Question: I know MCT is intended to last the first few mos of the school yr, to be followed by practice & review, BUT we started at the end of the yr & will probably be finished by the end of the summer. I'd like to go ahead & start Town in the fall, but then wait until the next yr to do level 3. So there'd be no gap between 1 & 2, but the expected gap between 2 & 3. What do you think? Would that be terrible?

 

MCTLA is a complete year program, but can last longer or shorter depending how you schedule it.

 

I think you mean the grammar book. THAT is intended to be used first and only for a short time, then it is reinforced through the year. Are you only using the grammar book & practice?

 

If that is the case, it sounds fine, as you will do the grammar book over the course of a month or two, then you can do the practice sentences over the rest of the whole year. IF you are doing the whole program, you should not have a gap.

 

Does that help? Either way you're good. :D