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WWE or TOG WA for 1st grade?


Tracy
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Or is there something else I should be considering?

 

I am really having a hard time deciding what to do for writing for 1st grade, and I am hoping that you can provide some insight.

 

TOG WA is appealing, as it is always nice when a program does double-duty. But it seems simultaneously too easy and too difficult. It starts out writing nouns on 3x5 cards and ends the year writing original paragraphs. DD is rather obsessed with doing things "right." I am not sure she will be ready for original writing.

 

With WWE, I like that the narrations are all spelled out. I have tried narrations with dd5, and she is rather intimidated by them. (Once again, she is afraid of getting it "wrong" and tries to recite the story word for word.) I think WWE will help us both to ease into doing narrations. But dd is writing in cursive, so I will need to make cursive copywork pages for her.

 

Any thoughts?

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Well, I will be the dissenter. LOL For my child, WWE would cause fits. I almost went with WWE, but decided to go with WA since I already got the program with my TOG purchase. WWE is too much writing for my son. WA kind of follows FLL in that it starts first with nouns and so on. I just like it better. My .02

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You don't really need to do anything in first grade, but between the two I would choose WWE. It is just easier to use and more developmentally appropriate.

 

Heather

 

 

I wonder if you could elaborate on this a little. I am dealing with a child that is gifted in a lot of areas, and so she is all over the board developmentally. In what ways is WWE easier, and in what ways do you find it more developmentally appropriate?

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I wonder if you could elaborate on this a little. I am dealing with a child that is gifted in a lot of areas, and so she is all over the board developmentally. In what ways is WWE easier, and in what ways do you find it more developmentally appropriate?

 

Hopefully Heather will answer but since I agree with her original statement I will tell you my thoughts. I think it is mostly a difference in philosophy. I am sold on the SWB method of writing. WA may ask a first grader to write a descriptive paragraph. There is nothing wrong with that except if you believe that someone that age should not be expected to come up with their own paragraph. So it is not so much better or worse but what method of writing you want to teach.

 

I just wrote a bunch and deleted. I don't feel very coherent right now (I blame it on pregnancy brain:D). In short, I like the structure and method of WWE. WA has some great ideas for display boards, books, newspapers, etc. that I may throw in "just for fun" because I have 2 kids so far that LOVE to write. But our writing program will be WWE for the time being.

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The level 1 writing assignments in TOG are very gentle. Making lots of word cards, one part of speech at a time, leads up to building sentences with the cards. My younger kids love playing with index cards. We've used a different color marker for each part of speech. Then they make up sentences with their cards. The next step is to have them take "dictation" with the cards. What a wonderful way to have them do dictation without having to focus on the physical process of handwriting! There are word game suggestions, too, to encourage playing with words. Last year my (then) 1st grade son spent the last third of the year clustering one paragraph every week. Then he dictated his sentences to me based on his cluster prewriting. I printed out his paragraphs, he illustrated them, and I comb-bound them into a "book" of colonial America for him. He loved it! I did not ask him to do any of the actual handwriting -- I wanted him to learn a very, very basic writing process. He did that with flying colors. Now had I asked him to copy his paragraphs in his own handwriting, it would have killed the joy for him and he would have had a meltdown. This way he is learning writing skills on a track separate from the development of his handwriting skills. They'll merge eventually, but for now I have a child organizing his narration into a cluster diagram, composing original sentences from the cluster, and a wonderful collection of basic, origianl paragraphs.

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I wonder if you could elaborate on this a little. I am dealing with a child that is gifted in a lot of areas, and so she is all over the board developmentally. In what ways is WWE easier, and in what ways do you find it more developmentally appropriate?

 

It has been a while since I used TOG writing, so I am going on memory.

 

TOG suggests the use of narration, and dictation, but doesn't schedule it except the first week or so. With level 1 they probably don't at all for obvious reasons. I really don't have a problem with the card work in level 1 either. Other than most of my kids have been delayed in reading and I wouldn't do the card work with a child who couldn't read what is on the cards. Course I don't do WWE either, till my kids can read on about a 3rd grade level. My youngest just started reading this year, so he probably won't start WWE till next year.

 

But by level 2 the child is forming paragraphs. This is a traditional sequence of teaching writing, building sentences, then paragraphs, then the 5 point essay. I prefer WWE because in level 1 writing is a separate skill, and the child doesn't even have to summarize. They are focused more on learning to answer the questions in full sentences as well as copywork. Level 2 moves into doing oral dictation and teaching the child to summarize and later in the level beginning dictation with their own summaries. Level 3 has the child reading and comprehending the passage themselves. Level 4 brings all the separate skills together and has the child read, summarize and write out the summary. Before that each piece is treated as a separate skill to be mastered. TOG assumes that by 2nd grade the child has mastered writing, forming correct sentences, being able to think of an answer and hold it in their mind to write it down. Some kids can, but this is why so many kids hate writing. They simply have not developed one of the skills needed to be successful at it.

 

I used TOG to teach my oldest paragraphs when she was in 5th grade. She was doing level 2 work with level 3 topics, if I remember right. TOG generally introduces new material the first half of the year, and the second half has some sort of project, which all your kids can work on together if you like. The first half of the year went well, but the big project (writing a play) fell flat. I broke it into smaller pieces than TOG did, because I knew she would be easily overwhelmed. She chose a person, chose one event in their lives, then I asked her to list the people who would be there, and where it would take place, and she shorted out. We dropped it.

 

What is funny is this is my gal who has (in 7th grade now) written several books. It just was too much for her at that time, and I think it would overwhelm a lot of 5th grade students. I probably should have jumped levels and done the Newspaper instead, but at that point I went back to CW, which is built on the same philosophy as WWE. It builds skills like changing tense, changing sentence type, using synonym substitution, moving modifiers to teach the child skills they can use for years later in their writing without requiring them to come up with original content. Instead they rewrite a model already chosen for them.

 

Heather

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