If you used R&S English to the very end, did it *really* serve your dc well?

[smilesonly]

I'm just curious if anyone has used it for all levels, and if so, do you feel it was worth it? Are your students in HS super strong in language? Do they write well? Did you supplement it with other writing?

 

Or, did you feel it was way overkill?

 

tia:)

[prairiewindmomma]

:lurk5:

[bugs]

We used ours through 8th grade. My kids take the CAT/5 and score very high on language mechanics and expression. This is the only way I have of measuring at the moment.

[mjbucks1]

My son is finishing R&S 8 (we have used it since grade 4). Last year he took the ACT (he was 12) and acored a 28 on the English section. I think R&S definately helped. I plan on using it in high school. I sometimes wonder if it will be overkill, but we do most of it orally and I think the review is good :).

[WTMindy]

DD just finished the 8th grade book and my dd does well with writing and grammar in general. It is hard to say what part is due to R & S and what part is due to the fact that she is an avid reader. But, I'll do the same with ds. We are not going to use the hs book, however.

[BlsdMama]

My DD used it through elementary (2-6) and is very strong in the language arts area. But, she too is an avid reader, so I couldn't tell you which served the greater purpose.

 

In grades 3-8 we had to take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills a couple of times and she always scored in the high 90s.

 

We took a needed break from Rod & Staff English in grades 7 & 8 and we've just picked up 8 again now in her 9th grade year. I'm loving the older levels!!!!!!

 

Rod & Staff is inexpensive, it truly teaches grammar, it also has some great writing explanation/teaching in the older levels. It's thorough and it's non-consumable. It pretty much is the perfect grammar curriculum, even if a bit overzealous in application... Just choose to do half of it orally! ;)

[Jane Elliot]

My dc who have gone through levels 3-10 of R&S are significantly stronger in language and writing than my two dc who did not use R&S. The last dc who took the SAT got a 740 on the writing section and an 11 on the essay. He credits R&S for the score on the multiple choice section and IEW for the score on the essay. What I notice about my dc who have done R&S is that grammar and mechanics are so natural to them that they are unhindered as they concentrate on content and structure. I envy them!

 

ETA: I just saw the second part of your question. We do supplement with other writing, mainly IEW.

Edited April 29, 2011 by Luann in ID

[74Heaven]

We do Abeka, gr 1-3, Shurley 4,6,7 in gr. 4-6 and R&S in gr 7-8 & Latin in grades 4-10. My kids are almost off-the-charts successful in language arts and A students in Spanish I-III in high school.

 

I attribute this mostly to Shurley & Latin and a natural "language-arts" gene. We do a lot of Shurley orally & I just think it cements the grammar concepts because Shurley has a slightly more specific grammar focus than R&S.

 

I like R&S and if I didn't *love* Shurley so much, I'd prob use it more. We stop lang arts curric in high school but our Spanish and Latin incl a good dose of advanced grammar.

 

Lisaj, mom to 5

[MomsintheGarden]

Our oldest used R&S 9 & 10 after using A Beka for 5-8th grades. The second oldest used R&S 7-10 after ABeka. We switched after the 2nd edition of the WTM came out, because in the 1st edition SWB recommended A Beka. They did not formal grammar after 10th grade. Oldest easily passed the English CLEP and second oldest scored a 5 on both English APs. They both did extremely well on the SAT writing section.

 

My oldest is indifferent about grammar, so for that reason it was good for him to pound away at it through 10th grade, although he earned B's in both of those courses - the nitpicky details got him on the tests. He found that having a good foundation in grammar helped with taking German in college. He is a good writer, not excellent, but he does well on his college papers.

 

Second oldest just loves grammar, and was happy to take R&S in 9th and 10th. She has found it to be helpful with Spanish study. She feels that R&S plus the English APs were the best help in preparing for college writing. She is a good writer as well, but she has been challenged by the technical papers she's had to write in college, mostly because of the advanced science material and not the writing itself. If I have another future biological science major, I will prepare him better for researching and writing technical papers.

 

We plan to use R&S through 10th grade with our five younger children. We think it is a very good way to overcome our poor grammar backgrounds, and develop a thorough understanding of basic concepts. We expect our dc to eventually forget most of it, but at least they will remember some. R&S has a lot of excellent nonfiction writing instruction that we use. We just have the dc read the fiction and poetry teaching without doing the exercises. We also use a variety of other writing curricula, especially IEW and the WTM plan of dictatation/narration/outlining/etc.

 

Bottom line - I really don't know what to recommend. If you tired of R&S and want to stop, you will be just fine, especially if you get through the 7th or 8th grade book. We are glad we've had the extra instruction in our household, but maybe that's because we tend to have thicker grammar "skulls" in our family.:)

 

HTH,

GardenMom

[Joan in GE]

My ds3 has used R & S through the 10th grade book (from grade 3) and he is very good at grammar and scored highly on the PSAT and the SAT. We did not do all the writing exercises as we had other writing to do.

 

I'm trying not to post too much due to overload but this is one series that is very worthwhile and mentally coherent. It's hard to put a finger on what it is about the books - maybe their "down to earth" approach? (not sure)

 

We did a lot of the exercises orally - mostly only writing the sentence diagrams, which probably contributes to the dc liking it. But the results are still quite good.

 

HTH,

Joan

[Kendall]

I've used Rod and Staff through book 8 with 2 kids so far. They both scored perfect/nearperfect on the writing multiple choice ofboth the PSAT and SAT and both had scores above 30 on the ACT English. One of the kids is a strong student in general, the other one struggles much more.

[LynnG in Arizona]

I haven't read all the other responses, but I thought I would add my 2 cents. ;)

 

We completed up through R&S Grade 8. I started Grade 9/10 and thought it was utterly ridiculous - majorly detailed and more esoteric than I ever would have thought possible. We decided to call it good with completing R&S Grade 8.

 

My eldest daughter is currently a sophomore in college and doing well. She had to take two semesters of English (standard requirement) and commented that she was way ahead whenever they discussed grammar. She remembered quite a bit from R&S, even though we completed her instruction when she was in 8th or 9th grade.

 

So thumbs up from me and from my daughter! :)

[MBM]

We used R&S to supplement my son's language arts at school. It is definitely a thorough program, much better than what our school offers. In fact, my son's teacher would ask him to explain certain concepts to her and then teach it to the class. She's in her 50s, has taught for several decades, and will not take it upon herself to learn the material she's teaching. Pathetic. Rod and Staff will do the trick.

 

For writing I am using The Lost Tools of Writing and Sentence Composing for High School by Don Killgallon, a slender book that teaches students how to reconstruct sentences. (My son's school's writing program is ridiculous.) Additionally, this summer we will throw in an online class from Northwestern U's Gifted Learning Links (GLL) called Advanced Academic Writing 1, using Michael Clay Thompson's writing text. I want someone other than me to scrutinize my son's writing. That class is available to anyone, btw, and you only need to put together a portfolio to get in. It's a little pricey, though.

 

HTH. :)

[speedmom4]

My daughter is finishing up with the last LA R&S book. We have used it since 4th grade. I do believe it has been a little overkill on grammar, BUT she also took the ACT at 12 and scored a 29 on that section. She is a natural when it comes to grammar and writing but R&S really helped her. Every year her standardized test scores for Language Arts are pretty much perfect.

 

OTOH, my other children would bang their head against the wall if they had to use R&S. They are all using CLE which is quite similar but they seem to like it.

 

God BLess,

Elise in NC

[momofkhm]

I've only had one finish the series so far. Oldest dd finished book 10 this year. She used Shirley in private school until grade 5. She was home for 6th, used Serl that year, then R&S 5-10. She's taken Writeshop 1 and 2 and an outside writing class at a local high school co-op. She also reads a lot! She's taken on the BBC list and plans to read through it all.

 

Her ACT scores in "combined English/writing was 29 (93%) as a 10th grader.

 

Was going to also add, middle child, 8th grade used Shirley in private school through grade 3, Serl first year home and then R&S 4-8. On her IOWA, she scored 88% last year (after 7th grade). But she scored low on spelling which probably brought it down. The rest of the language was really good.

Edited April 30, 2011 by momofkhm

[smilesonly]

Thanks for the replies!

 

I think we will step back into R&S with my younger. Not sure about my soon to be 9th grader!:glare:

[silliness7]

Just choose to do half of it orally! ;)

 

Is that half of the written exercises? Do you skip the oral drill then?

 

We currently do all of the oral drill orally and then I assign all of the written exercises almost 100% of the time. It is a lot. If I can cut this down and still instill solid grammar instruction, I would love it.

[LynnG in Arizona]

Is that half of the written exercises? Do you skip the oral drill then?

 

We currently do all of the oral drill orally and then I assign all of the written exercises almost 100% of the time. It is a lot. If I can cut this down and still instill solid grammar instruction, I would love it.

 

For years we did all of the oral drill orally and then I assigned the worksheet pages. They are sold separately and incredibly cheap - $3-5, maybe? It really cut down on the amount of writing.

 

We found this to be an adequate amount of work without overkill. HTH. :)

[MomsintheGarden]

My 5th grader usually does about 1/2 the written exercises, and my 7th grader only does about 1/4 of them. They do more if they have trouble understanding, and I can tell because I check their work. We also do the worksheets, substituting them for the written work in the lesson. This works for us because we do it every year, so many of the concepts become mostly maintenance with a bit more depth added each year. It really helps make grammar doable, and that's what the WTM recommends, too!

[jibaker103]

So, where would I start ds entering 10th grade? He was in ps until 8th and has completed Easy Grammar Plus and The Essential Guide to Language, Writing, & Literature by Perfection Learning. He does not care about grammar but loves to write.

[silliness7]

For years we did all of the oral drill orally and then I assigned the worksheet pages. They are sold separately and incredibly cheap - $3-5, maybe? It really cut down on the amount of writing.

 

We found this to be an adequate amount of work without overkill. HTH. :)

 

I have the worksheets and only attempted to use them for my 3rd grader. Not all of the lessons have a corresponding worksheet. In those cases would you assign the exercises in the book? I just got frustrated going back and forth between the worksheets and the text that I just went with the text exclusively. But if using the worksheets cuts down time and increases enjoyment maybe I should take another look at them.

[Brindee]

 

So, where would I start ds entering 10th grade? He was in ps until 8th and has completed Easy Grammar Plus and The Essential Guide to Language, Writing, & Literature by Perfection Learning. He does not care about grammar but loves to write.

The R & S Grammar is pretty detailed! Any way you can look through it anywhere? I think it's recommended to start in Level 5 or Level 6. It's not very expensive and seems to sell well here on this board.

[MBM]

For writing I am using The Lost Tools of Writing and Sentence Composing for High School by Don Killgallon, a slender book that teaches students how to reconstruct sentences. (My son's school's writing program is ridiculous.) Additionally, this summer we will throw in an online class from Northwestern U's Gifted Learning Links (GLL) called Advanced Academic Writing 1, using Michael Clay Thompson's writing text. I want someone other than me to scrutinize my son's writing. That class is available to anyone, btw, and you only need to put together a portfolio to get in. It's a little pricey, though.

 

Just wanted to mention that Michael Clay Thompson will be teaching and grading the writing class we signed up for at Northwestern U's GLL in case any of you might be interested. Big yay!

 

http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/gll/program/academics/courses/enrichment/courses/

 

Various syllabi for those interested:

 

http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/gll/program/academics/courses/syllabi/

[Maura in NY]

I love the early grades. But --

 

I started Grade 9/10 and thought it was utterly ridiculous - majorly detailed and more esoteric than I ever would have thought possible. :)

 

I'm a grammar geek, but I found the content of 9/10 crazy overkill. For what it's worth (although I'm not sure that's very much), my kids consistently score in the 99 NPR of the language sections of CAT5s, (and the older one on the PSAT, SAT, and ACT). Who can say how much of that is due to using R&S through 8th for ds1, and 6th for ds2, followed by EZ Grammar Plus?