Anyone use Home2Teach for writing?

[Karenciavo]

Could you share your experience please? I'm asking for a friend with a 12 yo.

Thanks,

Karen

[Gwen in VA]

I strongly recommend the lower-level classes. My younger two both did a year or so worth of them. They enjoyed them and the constant writing and varied exercises really helped their writing. The teachers were patient and gave helpful feedback. The writing is fairly routine, but outsourcing it helped me. And the six-week length of the classes provided variety.

 

I am not so happy with the upper-level classes. The writing assignments come with very very specific guidelines, some of which are very awkward, and the students must follow the formula exactly. All three of my younger kids found the paragraph class frustrating beyond belief. One kid made it two classes beyond paragraph, one made it one class, and one dropped out in the middle of the class. We found the teacher to be so focused on the formula that any other nuances of writing were ignored.

[Sunshine State Sue]

We used H2T for 3 beginning sessions when my ds was around 7th grade. I was not impressed. I kept wondering if it got better with the upper level classes. The assignments were short. There were short vocabulary and grammar assignments. My son never spent more than 15min a day on it. The teacher feedback was minimal, basically 'great job!' with no constructive criticism. When they wanted ds to repeat a class, I left. Those 3 sessions were a waste of time and money, imo.

 

I know some people have had good experiences with them, but ours was a bust.

 

Here is a thread I started after our first session. I thought the classes would improve, but they didn't.

May I get some feedback on writing teacher's feedback?

 

ETA: We never had Eileen for a teacher. The 3 different teachers we had were all relatively new to H2T.

Edited December 27, 2010 by Sue in St Pete

[Tammyla]

My oldest took a class this year. I wanted an introductory course that she could gain experience in participating in an on-line class, and follow through with a different criteria of editing, deadlines, and formatting requirements.

 

Imo, it was a good experience, and what was expected didn't overwhelm her schedule. She did enjoy it, loved the teacher, and learned to pay close attention to directions, deadlines, MLA formatting, editing and paper revisions.

 

I'll have my ds take at least one course with them too, because I felt it was a good experience over all. While it wasn't what I'd call a rigorous class, the accountability to another teacher with strict deadlines was worth the time and money.

Edited December 25, 2010 by Tammyla

[Stacy in NJ]

We were pretty disappointed in the quality of the feedback. He's currently enrolled in the Middle Grades Composition class at Laural Tree. The Feedback has been detailed and thorough while grading has been a bit too easy. It's a full year's class instead of just a few weeks.

 

ETA: I believe Write@Home offers semester long classes.

 

FYI

[kRenee]

I am not so happy with the upper-level classes. The writing assignments come with very very specific guidelines, some of which are very awkward, and the students must follow the formula exactly. All three of my younger kids found the paragraph class frustrating beyond belief. We found the teacher to be so focused on the formula that any other nuances of writing were ignored.

 

This was exactly our experience as well...and Eileen was teaching it! My dd dropped the Paragraph class and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

 

Karen

[Ohdanigirl]

We used H2T for 3 beginning sessions when my ds was around 7th grade. I was not impressed. I kept wondering if it got better with the upper level classes. The assignments were short. There were short vocabulary and grammar assignments. My son never spent more than 15min a day on it. The teacher feedback was minimal, basically 'great job!' with no constructive criticism. When they wanted ds to repeat a class, I left. Those 3 sessions were a waste of time and money, imo.

 

]

 

This is why I think the first 3 classes are best for younger students. My ds is 11 and just finished DW (the third class) He will not go any further with H2T. Even he was a little older than I would recommend, but he was a reluctant writer. I think starting at 9 is good. The feedback is minimal, but my experience wasn't as bad as others. Ds had teacher Jenn, and Melanie (twice). I would say Melanie was a bit tougher. It is not rigorous by any means, just a basic starting point. I kept in contact with the teachers, emailing back and forth, so that may have made a difference. They often gave me more detailed info about ds's writing.

 

HTH

 

Danielle

[Tiramisu]

I had one dd take 2 Paragraph classes when she was 13-14 yo. They were very frustrating for her because she always struggles to fit her thoughts into someone else's formula and is weak with understanding and following directions. The schedule and outside accountability were very helpful, though, and the classes improved her writing and increased her speed. I really appreciated the way Eileen responded quickly to submissions and geared her comments in a way that encouraged dd to figure out the necessary revisions on her own. My kids have the toughest time learning to revise their own work, so I appreciated this. When dd still didn't get it, she would be more and more specific. There was always something positive in the comments, even with multiple revisions.

 

Another dd took Fundamentals 1 & 2 at age 9-10. The hardest thing about the classes that time was just fitting the assignments around our coop schedule and the other commitments we had at the time. I was happy with these classes because it really gave a gentle push to this dd to do better work. I knew she could write well, she needed that outside person to encourage her to up the level of her writing. I would like her to do the descriptive writing class when we can manage it.

 

The one thing I'm not crazy about is the class set up. There's no audio so the lessons are just done in text so there's not much appeal.