Need to rethink curricula for ds (rather long cross post)

[Storm Bay]

Ds is definitely a much different learner than my dd's. While he definitely has gestalt traits, particularly when he is under stress (then he fits an entirely different dominance profile) when it comes to school, he needs to learn the auditory/sequential way. If you've read The Dominance Factor he leans mostly to type GG, although, as Dr Hannaford said, that shouldn't be used to limit anyone and in my family brain dominance gets very, very fuzzy for some of us. I should add, for those of you who haven't read this book, that the book says this type of listener learns better if they can fidget or manipulate something, which I've known about ds for years, so hands on things may be helpful if they work with this type of learning.

 

Some of what we use can be use but he's fed up with it.

 

What we have been using:

SM, but he's nearly finished that

 

LOF Decimals and Percents

 

R&S English, but he hates it because it's old school (aka old fashioned) He abhors diagramming, and I don't think it's helping him nearly as much as it helped my dd's

 

Rosetta Stone German (he likes it and we own it, but it's not the best for him, so I'd love to augment it)

 

RS4K 1 He likes it, but will need something else next year, anyway. I don't know if I'll start the Chem 2 or not next year.

 

Spelling Power, but since nothing works well with him, I plan to stick with that.

 

a Pathways Reader since he reads little fiction on his own (doesn't like much fiction, but is reading Behemoth at the moment) I need to work on getting him reading more fiction

 

We're all set with art becuse he likes what we have. Latin has failed miserably around here this past year. We have Latin Primer, but he hates it a LOT.

 

SOTW this worked well for my dd's, but not much is sinking in for him, in part because we've been in a slump this year and I have neglected ordering all the extra reading, but in part because it doesn't seem to stick for him. We already own All American History, and so I'm wondering if I can make that work for him next year and how. Again, my dd's were able to read the text and do extra reading for much of it so I didn't have to do the teaching part of it. Ds needs that and he needs to discuss things more than they do.

 

He far prefers math and science to language arts and history.

 

Is MCT good for this type of learner? He does like depth once he gets into things. We have been doing paragraph Town, but so far haven't made it to any of the written assignments as we have been neglecting this much of the time even though I like it.

 

What we already have in the house for post SM is Russian math from Perpendicular Press which is harder than SM 6 and can be used for preAlgebra. This worked well for my middle dd who self taught herself from it, and I'm wondering if anyone here used it for this type of a learner. He does often make huge cognitive jumps in math, but I'd like to use something that fits with the profile I found for teaching it. I should add that I have taught Saxon and would prefer not to have to teach it again even though I realize that it has worked well for others. I also would prefer not to buy TT, but since I have the Alg 1 for it would consider using it as a supplement at the right time.

 

Now that my eldest is in ps and if my middle one continues to stay at home we're all set with curricula, I can finally focus on getting ds more things better suited to him.

[Brindee]

Thoughts/ideas:

 

For German: http://www.learnalanguage.com/

My dd is doing Visual Link Spanish. She's a hands-on/Visual person and has excelled using VL! She loves it! Might be worth a look to see if he likes it. You can try it for free and see if he likes it.

 

For math, if he likes hands-on, have you tried Math-U-See? I've never used it, but a friend of mine used it for her oldest--a boy that sounds much like your ds, and it worked very well for him!

 

My dd got a bit bored with All American History. It was okay, and we made sure to do a timeline and cooking, and other hands-on things so it went better.

[siloam]

Karin,

 

How old is he and your dd?

 

It sounds like you are set with math.

 

With spelling, I have been told that Spelling Power works best with natural spellers. AAS would be my number 1 recommendation, but does he struggle to hear the different sounds (spellings don't always make sense), or does he seem to lack visual memory (phonetically correct but not the right letters used)? Can he see words in his mind, or does he just see pictures?

 

With LA I love Junior Analytical Grammar and Analytical grammar because of the sequence. I short circuited with traditional methods because I am so sequential, and they told me to find the subject and predicate first. I honestly couldn't figure out which noun was the subject and which verb was the predicate so I would guess. The sequence in AG has you find nouns, articles, adverbs, pronouns (note this order make sure you find pronouns functioning as adverbs first), prepositional phrases, then you find the predicate and subject, once much of the sentence has already been eliminated. The AG noun section though is pretty tough, so I would start a frustrated student back in JAG.

 

For writing I would recommend IEW. I use CW but that requires the parent to wrap their mind around it. IEW I hear is also good and easier to use.

 

For science I have been focusing on WTM recomendations, which is a lot of hands on before High School. This fits my kids learning style much better than texts. All my kids have to have something in their hands while schooling.

 

Personally I find grammar approaches to foreign languages much easier to understand. I can do the immersion/reading approach after grammar, but I don't initially learn well from the other. With Latin I have used Lively Latin with great success, and will be using First Form Latin. I bought Cambridge because my oldest is a reader and not sequential like I am...well there is no way I can teach from it....I will be using it after we have cover all the topics in a grammar based program (because they are sequential). :D All this to say, try a grammar based German program. As much as he doesn't care for grammar I bet it will make more sense to him. Honestly I think one language is enough. Do German or Latin, but not both. Time to pick your battles.

 

My only concern with All American History is that you dd might be on the young side. Most of the time people with older kids enjoy it (middle to high school) and people with elementary aged kids find it boring and tedious. Have you looked at The Mystery of History? That is if you are OK with the young earth, Biblical point of view. If not then I would suggest Guerber texts. Nice easy reading portions they could read on their own. You could use the new historical mapping sets from Knowledge Quest for mapping to go with, and have them do timeline figures as they come up. You wouldn't have any tests or such, but I think that would be fine. It is just history, KWIM? This is the last one I would worry about nailing.

 

I haven't seen or used MCT, so I can't help you there. I also haven't read the book you mentioned. It just reminded me of my kiddos and myself. We are all right-brained learners who tend to need to see the big picture then fit things in piece by piece. My oldest is the only one who isn't extremely concrete as well, but she still learns best sequentially. She just makes logical leaps with the information after she learns it that the rest of us don't.

 

Heather

[Storm Bay]

Thoughts/ideas:

 

For German: http://www.learnalanguage.com/

My dd is doing Visual Link Spanish. She's a hands-on/Visual person and has excelled using VL! She loves it!

For math, if he likes hands-on, have you tried Math-U-See?

My dd got a bit bored with All American History. It was okay, and we made sure to do a timeline and cooking, and other hands-on things so it went better.

Thanks. I'll try the Visual Link, even if it's a supplement. We have MUS and he has done over 2 levels of it, but it wasn't the best fit for him. I found that it worked best for my middle one who is more visual/spatial/kinesthetic, and she did quite a number of them along with SM:001_smile:

My dd's didn't love All American History, but it did the job. We didn't do te hands on things, though, so we'll add those.

 

Karin,

 

How old is he and your dd? He's 10 and will be 11 next year, so gr 6 age.

 

With spelling, I have been told that Spelling Power works best with natural spellers. I've tried 4 or 5 different spelling programs with him. Part of his problem is that he didn't like reading until recently and part of it is that he doesn't care enough about it. I recently went back to Spelling Power (which really is for natural spellers such as my eldest) because he cooperated better with it given that he only has to study the words he misses. How does AAS work??? I can't remember what that stands for--is it All About spelling? So far I havent found anything that works for him. My middle one used to be like this until she discovered her own mnenomics, but she is a very different learner than him overall.

With LA I love Junior Analytical Grammar and Analytical grammar because of the sequence. I've looked at AG for my eldest to supplement her high school English, but I didn't know if that would be enough grammar for middle school. He doesn't have trouble finding the subject and simple predicate because he used to do Easy Grammar which taught him to find those first, as does R&S with the diagramming, but he hates that. I'm going to put this on my list of ideas to check out for him for next year.

For writing I would recommend IEW. I use CW but that requires the parent to wrap their mind around it. IEW I hear is also good and easier to use.

This has always been out of my budget, but perhaps not now. Is this one where I have to watch the videos and it shows me how to teach ds to write? It's been a few years since I looked at it.

 

For science I have been focusing on WTM recomendations, which is a lot of hands on before High School. This fits my kids learning style much better than texts. All my kids have to have something in their hands while schooling.

:iagree: We've done a lot of this, and this is the first year he's really doing a formal science program. We did the labs hands on in a group lab. My eldest did all trade books until about gr 7 or 8, but ds wants to do a curricula.

Personally I find grammar approaches to foreign languages much easier to understand. I can do the immersion/reading approach after grammar, but I don't initially learn well from the other. :D All this to say, try a grammar based German program. As much as he doesn't care for grammar I bet it will make more sense to him. Honestly I think one language is enough. Do German or Latin, but not both. Time to pick your battles.

Good points. I have let the Latin go and know where to get a German grammar for him that we could do with RS. You're right, he won't like it, but I think it will help him.

 

My only concern with All American History is that you dd might be on the young side. Most of the time people with older kids enjoy it (middle to high school) and people with elementary aged kids find it boring and tedious. Have you looked at The Mystery of History? That is if you are OK with the young earth, Biblical point of view. If not then I would suggest Guerber texts. Nice easy reading portions they could read on their own. You could use the new historical mapping sets from Knowledge Quest for mapping to go with, and have them do timeline figures as they come up. You wouldn't have any tests or such, but I think that would be fine. It is just history, KWIM? This is the last one I would worry about nailing.

He is in middle school, and will be gr 6 next year, which is when my 12 yo did it (she'll be 13 this spring.) I have a History Channel US history miniseries he can watch as we go through it (though not one segment per chapter). I was hoping to make it work for him by doing something different with him (as Brindee suggested.) HOWEVER, I will check Mystery of History out in case we switch or for a different year.

 

I haven't seen or used MCT, so I can't help you there. I also haven't read the book you mentioned. It just reminded me of my kiddos and myself. DS is more left brained with academics, whereas my dd's are more right brained. He does have some areas where he is more right brained, but not with learning math, English, etc. I tend to be a mix and can never answer brain dominance tests totally accurately as there are a significant number of questions where both answers are correct. However, overall I lean to the right brain somewhat more.

 

Interstingly, there are a small number of people where the brain hemisphere functions are reversed (gestalt on left, logic on right).

Heather

[siloam]

How does AAS work??? I can't remember what that stands for--is it All About spelling? So far I havent found anything that works for him. My middle one used to be like this until she discovered her own mnenomics, but she is a very different learner than him overall.

 

Yes All About Spelling. It is based on Orton/Gillingham methods, which are geared to work with dyslexic students, but often are more effective for any student because they use multisensory methods. We store each sense in a different part of the brain, so the more senses we use the better chance of recalling it when we need it. It is an incremental, mastery based program based on the rules. I have found it works well with all but students who can intuit patters, and they do better with Sequential Spelling.

 

The student works on mastering the phonograms both by recalling the sounds when seeing the letters and recalling the letters when being given the sounds.

 

The child also works to master the spelling rules (called key cards).

 

The lessons schedule review work, then introduce new material, then have a spelling list based on that new material. In the upper levels it will also have homophone lists, a silent e book, a plural book and the writing station. While you cover words based on rules (so they are all similar) you shuffle the cards when you review, so the child also practices them outside of their nice neat context.

 

The homophone lists does just that lists common homophones. The meaning is generally discussed at the time you write them down, and can be reinforced with the Homophone workbook (a separate product).

 

The silent e book has a page for each of the silent e rules. You are given several different words for the child to add and they have to analyze each word to figure out what page it belongs on.

 

The plural book is the same as the silent e book but for plurals.

 

The writing station takes 5 words they have covered in their spelling lists, adds suffixes and has the child make up a sentence with them (they also like to sneak in homophones here).

 

I also like the word banks they have the child read to build visual memory of words.

 

Last they do work with sounds that could be spelled more than one way. For example A. You have columns headed a, a-e (a silent e), ay, etc.. then you give the child words and they have to tell you which column it belongs in. I believe they include the words on cardboard so it can be done as in independent exercise but we have always done it together.

 

BTW I use the tiles for explaining things because they help me "see" it but my ds is the only one who uses them for spelling.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

 

With LA I love Junior Analytical Grammar and Analytical grammar because of the sequence. I've looked at AG for my eldest to supplement her high school English, but I didn't know if that would be enough grammar for middle school. He doesn't have trouble finding the subject and simple predicate because he used to do Easy Grammar which taught him to find those first, as does R&S with the diagramming, but he hates that. I'm going to put this on my list of ideas to check out for him for next year.

 

Then I would look at MTC. I believe MTC only uses parsing and not diagramming. Either way it was one of the stronger programs recently discussed. If he needs hands on you could also consider borrowing from the Winston Grammar people and make cards of the different parts of speech and allow him to use those to parse with. You could also add a color coding like Winston uses, which I know I love it when things have visual distinction.

 

 

 

For writing I would recommend IEW. I use CW but that requires the parent to wrap their mind around it. IEW I hear is also good and easier to use.

This has always been out of my budget, but perhaps not now. Is this one where I have to watch the videos and it shows me how to teach ds to write? It's been a few years since I looked at it.

 

I would post and ask. I know they have a lot of different parts and components and I don't think you need them all. I think some are even written to the student. If you find out exactly what you need then you could figure out if you can make it work or not.

 

We've done a lot of this, and this is the first year he's really doing a formal science program. We did the labs hands on in a group lab. My eldest did all trade books until about gr 7 or 8, but ds wants to do a curricula.

 

Bob Jones has a good reputation for being good for science. Apologia was too detailed for us, we are big picture thinkers, so my dd couldn't pass the tests because it focused on the details. Science Explorer series is another I have looked into, but it can be visually distracting. The other nice thing about this series is they update it often for public schools, so you can go back a couple of editions and buy it really cheap used. I also have used the God's Design books and they aren't that exciting but they do get the job done and have a decent amount of stuff to do. My dd found passing these tests were easier, but she still struggled with details.

 

 

Interstingly, there are a small number of people where the brain hemisphere functions are reversed (gestalt on left, logic on right).

 

I wouldn't be surprised to find out I was wired backwards, LOL! Actually I score on both sides as well. I am not artistic in the traditional sense I sew and do counted cross stitch, very controlled, mathematical approaches to art. It is just hard to quantify a person. :D

[Storm Bay]

Yes All About Spelling.. :D

 

 

Thanks for all of your answers:D. I am definitely going to look into this. Ds wants to take a creative writing class with the teacher who is currently teaching dd, so I may end up doing that rather than learning how to teach this myself. I tend to be too hard on my dc with reading writing work and he wants to social aspect of it. She is certified and well liked. However, I need something for nonfiction writing. I will keep IEW on the back burner.

 

Ds loves details in things he's intested in, but I'll relook at BJU (my eldest hated it and I sold what I had because my midle one would have hated it, too and it was long--it was for gr 7). That's something I'll watch out for at a used curricula sale.