betsykimes Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 My twins have not mastered English this year. We are using R&S English 6. So far their test scores have averaged 70 and 76%. Would you repeat English 6 or go on to English 7, as was my original plan for next year as they will be in 7th? Thank you for your opinions! Betsy :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redsquirrel Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I would do 6th grade again. However, I would use a different program. If the scores were consistently that low, I wouldn't want to continue with the same program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbridgeacademy Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 :iagree: I would repeat with a new program this summer. I would also try to move quickly, hitting on all the high points, then pick a spiral program for 7th, or add in lots of review. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renee in NC Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I would repeat, but not change programs. I would make sure that they were memorizing everything they were supposed to, that I was teaching all the parts of the lessons, and I would have them do all the exercises if they aren't getting it. Do you understand and know the material well enough to get 90% on the tests? If not, I would work through it myself until I could. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I would repeat, but not change programs. I would make sure that they were memorizing everything they were supposed to, that I was teaching all the parts of the lessons, and I would have them do all the exercises if they aren't getting it. Do you understand and know the material well enough to get 90% on the tests? If not, I would work through it myself until I could. :iagree: I'd also add the oral quiz built into the TE before every lesson. After they've read the lesson start out with the oral exercises and make sure they have the concept down before having them do the written exercises on their own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athomemom Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 My twins have not mastered English this year. We are using R&S English 6. So far their test scores have averaged 70 and 76%. Would you repeat English 6 or go on to English 7, as was my original plan for next year as they will be in 7th?Thank you for your opinions! Betsy :bigear: I agree with others, I would not use R&S again. We have used BJU for a while now and I can't say enough good about it. I suggest that you look at the 6th grade book. You could even go down a level and still glean so much. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dani3boys Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I have twin boys who are sixth graders this year. We have used A Beka all along, but they have never done real well with it. I decided to us Analytical Grammar starting in January. We just finished unit 5 which is adverbs, and they both got an A on their tests yesterday! I am so impressed with AG. I never thought they would improve this quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNC Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 duplicate post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNC Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I would try CLE LA bc it is spiral. My daughter went from R&S English 3 to CLE 4 and did very, very well. She is now in level 6. My son always used CLE and has done well. CLE LA covers the same grammar as R&S but in a spiral method. And it is just as rigorous imo. R&S English offers continuous review but it took a lot of my time to make that happen, and I wasn't faithful enough. We all thrive with the spiral method for Lang. Arts and Math instead of mastery method. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betsykimes Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 I really appreciate your replies. I'm going to finish out this current book by being more involved even if that means doing the lessons myself and using the TE more. I will then look hard at AG at convention in May. I've been curious about it anyway. Thanks again! Betsy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 I wanted to add mine do excellent with CLE Math but we had to give up on CLE LA because it skipped around too much from one subject tot the next. It was difficult for mine to keep the flow. I sometimes wonder if it would be better for CLE to keep all the grammar lessons together but print the spelling and penmanship sections separately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanvan Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 My twins have not mastered English this year. We are using R&S English 6. So far their test scores have averaged 70 and 76%. Would you repeat English 6 or go on to English 7, as was my original plan for next year as they will be in 7th?Thank you for your opinions! Betsy :bigear: R&S 7 becomes drastically more difficult than 6th, so I agree with others who say don't move on. We began to have this problem with R&S English in 7th. No amount of reteaching even using all available R&S oral reviews, etc. made it work. Previously my DS was doing A work with R&S, and I had wanted to stick with it all the way through. For that reason I think I tried to make it work too long. We finally switched to Shurley, which he is doing extremely well using. After Shurley we will either move onto Warriner's, AG, or my old college grammar textbook which has tons of diagramming! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcconnellboys Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 We dropped R&S 7 this year and moved to another program because it just was not working for my son. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dina in Oklahoma Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 :iagree: I'd also add the oral quiz built into the TE before every lesson. After they've read the lesson start out with the oral exercises and make sure they have the concept down. QUOTE] :iagree::iagree::iagree:Also, if you are not currently, I would do their lessons with them orally and have them do at least some of the written exercises on a whiteboard with you in order to see where the problem is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 I really appreciate your replies. I'm going to finish out this current book by being more involved even if that means doing the lessons myself and using the TE more. I will then look hard at AG at convention in May. I've been curious about it anyway.Thanks again! Betsy I've found that in order for my boys to get the most our of R&S English (we're using 3, 5, & 6 this year), I need to at least do the oral review that is in the TM and hit the high points of the lesson in the teaching notes. This takes me less than 10 minutes for each boy. When I tried having them do it completely independently, my two who are weaker in grammar flopped and my one who is strong in grammar didn't do as well as I thought he should. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aelgraham Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 We're doing R&S 6 right now, and I find that if I just give him the book, or simply READ the lessons to him, his retention and understanding decline. If I prepare a bit, do the review, and really engage with him, he does much better. Also, I've started helping him outline (I do the dreaded writing while we work together to define the major points and subpoints) each chapter so he has all the main points organized and connected in front of him on one sheet. I think this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dulcimeramy Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 I really appreciate your replies. I'm going to finish out this current book by being more involved even if that means doing the lessons myself and using the TE more. I will then look hard at AG at convention in May. I've been curious about it anyway.Thanks again! Betsy For my sons, success with Rod and Staff is brought about by my involvement. Every afternoon, I glance at the notes for today's lesson and then teach the lesson. This is how I do it: 1. Ask all the review Q's in the TE 2. Teach today's lesson, using the helps in the TE and the whiteboard 3. Have the boys read the lesson in the book out loud 4. Observe them during Oral Drill (oral and whiteboard) 5. Assign the Written Practice and Review and Practice I don't skip any days and I grade papers every single day. The boys correct their mistakes before we go on to the next lesson. If you have time to teach English lessons to your children, I recommend that you try teaching R&S before switching to something else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnandtinagilbert Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Hi, neighbor :) I'll second the post above mine. We found RS only stuck when I went through the Oral Review and walked through all of Oral Practice with them. I would not move forward and would probably try to repeat level 6 next year with daily involvement. Level 7 really steps it up. If you'd like a peek at Daily Grams, which may be a nice tool to single out errors and places you need to work on specifically, let me know. I can bring it to BSA or you can come by and take a peek. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedgehog Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 I really appreciate your replies. I'm going to finish out this current book by being more involved even if that means doing the lessons myself and using the TE more.... I think you need to be quite involved with R&S English. My DDs - even DD11, who is very English oriented - need me to go through each lesson with them so that they understand it properly. I am not sure how you are doing R&S, but because my DDs are somewhat behind in some areas (we used to be unschoolers) it was recommended to me to go through the lessons orally, using a whiteboard or paper to demonstrate, and then have the kids do the worksheets. If you assume to do one worksheet per session, you will almost always do more than one lesson at a time - I was just thinking this might work well for you if you choose to repeat R&S 6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Testimony Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 It is hard for me to give advise on this one. I'll tell you why. My older son does so well on his tests with this program. He seems to grasp the grammar very well. I put him in Rod & Staff 6. He is in 7th grade, but because I heard that it is so hard, I thought that it was best to do 6. I want to tell you that maybe also having done Classical Writing: Homer helped. I did no "grammar" program last year. I put that word in quotes because I only used Homer and I believe it is a grammar book. I felt that it taught so much grammar. I did not understand why I would need a grammar book to go with it. I sincerely believe now that because Classical Writing was so incredibly hard that Rod & Staff has been so incredibly easy. He is currently in chapter 9 in this book and it still like a review for him. So, my thought to you is this, Rod and Staff seems to repeat itself every year. I would say move on to Rod & Staff 7, but take it extremely slowly. I think that after the first test, you will know whether you should go back to 6 or not. I guess in order to make such a daring move, I should have ask how well are they grasping grammar? 70%- 76%, in my school, that is a C. I would not call that failing. If it was 40%, then I would go over the book again. I was thinking maybe you want to try Winston Grammar for a while to help them grasp it better and then go back to it. Just a thought. Sincerely, Karen http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/testimony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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