WWE and visual learners

[morosophe]

...again. But not exactly the same question from this post.

 

My son is in first grade and seems to be a very visual learner. We did Week 36 of Writing with Ease, Year One this week. The first narration he completely flunked--he didn't seem to remember anything.

 

The second narration I allowed him to look over my shoulder while I was reading, covering up the questions and answers after the passage. Then I made him move away from me and asked the questions. He got all but one correct, which is a passing grade, according to Ms. Bauer.

 

So, should my son be moving on or not? I think I'm actually just leveling the playing field so he's even with the auditory learners by allowing him to look over my shoulder while I'm reading the text. It's not like he's getting any more time with the text than they are--his reading skill is approximately equal with my reading-out-loud skill, at the moment. I know, I know, being able to learn by hearing is an important life skill--but that's not the one these lessons claim to be teaching. They claim to be teaching composition. What do you think?

 

(I must admit, the replies in that earlier thread I linked really, really irked me. Keeping a thought in your head is a very different skill than being able to follow a long sentence someone else is saying. I never did dictation growing up in my life, and I managed to maintain a high enough GPA in a writing-intensive major--English--to graduate cum laude. As for dictation, why not have the student read the sentence to you the first time? That would help put it in the head of the visual learner. Then he can work on keeping it there, just like the auditory learners have to. What to do for those poor kinesthetics, I have no idea.)

Edited June 3, 2011 by morosophe

[Love_to_Read]

good question

[Mommy22alyns]

Hmm. I ran into the same issue with Rebecca. I chose to continue reading the passage to her to work on her listening skills. Trust me, they need the work. She'd have an easier time answering the questions if I just let her read the passage herself, but she has learned from doing WWE as written. It took time, patience, and work. But we've been successful.

[morosophe]

Hmm. I ran into the same issue with Rebecca. I chose to continue reading the passage to her to work on her listening skills. Trust me, they need the work. She'd have an easier time answering the questions if I just let her read the passage herself, but she has learned from doing WWE as written. It took time, patience, and work. But we've been successful.

 

Yeah, but I think my son gets plenty of practice at listening. I read all of his devotions and history to him. My husband or I read his read-alouds to him. (We have been letting him read these over our shoulders, too, though.) He hears sermons every week at church, although we're actually still working on the "paying attention in the first place instead of daydreaming" part of church. (Of course, sometimes I'm working on the "paying attention instead of making lists in my head/daydreaming/falling asleep" part of worship myself.)

 

I will admit that I am myself a fairly auditory learner. I think. Actually, I have no idea. Growing up, the way I really cemented something into my head for tests was to retype the notes I'd taken during class, which may be either visual or kinesthetic but doesn't sound much like auditory. I did repeat French words to myself for my French class, instead of just reading them, though. And to truly appreciate a poem (remember, English major), I think it usually demands to be read aloud, especially to an appreciative audience.

 

My husband, sadly, is not an appreciative audience. He has trouble following a poem well enough when I say one to appreciate it. (Poor, poor man, he's having to listen to Gerard Manley Hopkins here, not Ogden Nash. Okay, so Ogden Nash, too, but he doesn't have much trouble following that.) He usually reads Shakespeare plays before we watch them, so that he can follow what's happening in a play and appreciate that. Clearly, a visual learner.

 

And since when should that be a weakness in writing? There's been a lot going on lately about literate culture versus oral culture. Ms. Bauer even posted a fascinating article on her blog about it, the main points of which I agree with wholeheartedly. And yet, my husband holds a job in a traditionally highly "literate" culture field, where he has to be able to follow very long and complex arguments as a work trait, and he does very well at it. (He's a system administrator, so maybe "arguments" should be replaced with "variables" or something. Potayto, potahto.) How different is this from being able to hold a long thought in your head as you put it down? Or the important details in a passage?

 

If I sound like I have a particular axe to grind here, I don't, really. I just realized this week that my son is a pretty visual learner, when he was quoting large sections of the book he'd only read once. I think I'm still reeling from that realization. No wonder! No wonder: he likes workbooks, he enjoys reading over my shoulder (more than as just new reader greed), he did better with memory verses once I started putting them up on the wall. And it's a good thing I got Rod & Staff grammar, since First Language Lessons would be a total washout for him!

[taffnus]

Not that this is much help but...we made it to Week 16 in WWE 2 and then had to put it up. My dd absolutely would not do it. She has an amazing memory but, for those stories, it was like I was reading Greek. I've slowed down and am having her retell a brief Bible story that I read each day. I read two stories and I have her retell one and my 5 yo retell the other. Honestly, my 5yo does better than my almost 8-yo.

 

I tried having her make a movie of it in her head while I read and that doesn't seem to work. I have tried having her draw a picture as I read. That was much better. I'm still trying to figure it out because, like you, I never did this myself growing up and am still trying to get my head around the "hows" and "whys" of narration. What I do know is that the book just didn't work for her. Just the mention of "Now, let's try to summarize..." makes her groan. I'm going to be looking into IEW at our conference next weekend. I'm wondering if that wouldn't be a more hands-on approach to writing while I continue to work on narration skills slowly.

[Mommy22alyns]

Yeah, but I think my son gets plenty of practice at listening. I read all of his devotions and history to him. My husband or I read his read-alouds to him. (We have been letting him read these over our shoulders, too, though.) He hears sermons every week at church, although we're actually still working on the "paying attention in the first place instead of daydreaming" part of church. (Of course, sometimes I'm working on the "paying attention instead of making lists in my head/daydreaming/falling asleep" part of worship myself.)

 

 

Does he narrate anything back to you from what is read aloud? Could he answer questions about the sermon at church? Yes, he gets plenty of practice at listening; do you know how well he's listening?

[boscopup]

As far as whether you can pass him from WWE1, I would say yes, because he can do the narrations if he reads them himself. In WWE3 and 4, I believe, the child starts reading the passages themselves. I think WWE1 and 2 are probably oral because not all first and second graders can read at the level of the passages, though I could be wrong. :tongue_smilie:

 

My son is like yours - better if he reads it himself (though surprisingly, FLL worked fine for him... we are switching to R&S for next year though). I did try letting him read the WWE passages himself, but then I thought about it some more... If getting details from listening is a weakness, I'd like to strengthen that aspect of him as well as I can. He may learn best by reading, but if we can strenghten those listening skills, that will be helpful when he gets to college and has to listen to a lecture (though of course he can take notes during college, which does bring in the visual aspect again). So we've been doing WWE1 as written now, and we also do narrations (with leading questions) in other subjects as well. We use Egermeier's Bible Story Book for our Bible reading every morning, and it has questions in the back - woohoo! Then we write a narration. He's getting a lot better about picking up the details when listening because we have practiced this skill. Is visual still going to be the better way for him to learn? Sure. But now he won't be limited to that method.

 

We're a little ways off from WWE2, so I don't know how well the dictations will go. We do dictation in AAS, and I've been surprised that he can remember those sentences with me saying them only once, so maybe the WWE skills have helped already, or maybe his listening skills are good enough to handle one sentence. I'm not too frightened by WWE2 in the early weeks. I'm terrified of 3 and 4. :lol:

 

Btw, I've been thinking recently that *I* need to do WWE dictation. When writing down my son's narrations, I have a really hard time keeping up. Even though it's only 2-3 sentences, it takes me a while to write. I may have to switch to typing his narrations. If I can't keep up with a first grader's 2-3 sentence narration, how am I going to handle it in another year when he's able to think up more elaborate sentences? :confused:

[morosophe]

As far as whether you can pass him from WWE1, I would say yes, because he can do the narrations if he reads them himself. In WWE3 and 4, I believe, the child starts reading the passages themselves. I think WWE1 and 2 are probably oral because not all first and second graders can read at the level of the passages, though I could be wrong. :tongue_smilie:

 

My son is like yours - better if he reads it himself (though surprisingly, FLL worked fine for him... we are switching to R&S for next year though). I did try letting him read the WWE passages himself, but then I thought about it some more... If getting details from listening is a weakness, I'd like to strengthen that aspect of him as well as I can. He may learn best by reading, but if we can strenghten those listening skills, that will be helpful when he gets to college and has to listen to a lecture (though of course he can take notes during college, which does bring in the visual aspect again). So we've been doing WWE1 as written now, and we also do narrations (with leading questions) in other subjects as well. We use Egermeier's Bible Story Book for our Bible reading every morning, and it has questions in the back - woohoo! Then we write a narration. He's getting a lot better about picking up the details when listening because we have practiced this skill. Is visual still going to be the better way for him to learn? Sure. But now he won't be limited to that method.

 

We're a little ways off from WWE2, so I don't know how well the dictations will go. We do dictation in AAS, and I've been surprised that he can remember those sentences with me saying them only once, so maybe the WWE skills have helped already, or maybe his listening skills are good enough to handle one sentence. I'm not too frightened by WWE2 in the early weeks. I'm terrified of 3 and 4. :lol:

 

Btw, I've been thinking recently that *I* need to do WWE dictation. When writing down my son's narrations, I have a really hard time keeping up. Even though it's only 2-3 sentences, it takes me a while to write. I may have to switch to typing his narrations. If I can't keep up with a first grader's 2-3 sentence narration, how am I going to handle it in another year when he's able to think up more elaborate sentences? :confused:

 

Thank you, this was a very helpful response.

 

I admit that I am anxious to press on to WWE2 because I want to start him working on getting the "main point" of a passage. That is a very useful skill that will help him a lot in his other classes, too, just like learning from listening. May I point out that it is usually considered perfectly reasonable to take notes at lectures, sermons, etc., much earlier (and later) than college? In fact, it is somewhat respectful to the speaker, since it means that you think what he said was so worthy of remembering that you're writing it down! (I just kept myself from going off on a long digression about cultural experiences being different when I realized I'm wandering far afield here. See, my son isn't the only one who still needs to learn about the main point of a piece of writing!)

 

Honestly, from what people are saying, I'm thinking that I may continue with the narration/outlining part of WWE but drop--or at least decrease in frequency--the long dictations in third and fourth grade. Or I could switch to IEW, I guess.

 

To remove a random rant, like my little "oral versus written culture" one of last night, and in fact very related, on the subject of IEW. While I may have had fun writing it, it really doesn't belong on the thread. If you still want to read it, I posted it on my blog.

Edited June 3, 2011 by morosophe

[boscopup]

I admit that I am anxious to press on to WWE2 because I want to start him working on getting the "main point" of a passage.

 

 

I'm sooooo right there with you! My son is ready to find the main point of the passage. We're still in week 23ish of WWE1, since we started in January. I've started having my son do copywork from literature he's reading, and we're doing WWE narrations everyday (Mon-Thurs) so we can finish WWE1 a little quicker. I gave him the WWE1 evaluation #1 (the day 2 eval) last week and he was able to answer most of the questions, though he had some trouble with words... Like he couldn't remember "Aunt Em". He said "Aunt Ed?" :lol: I can understand that though. "Em" would be a little harder to remember, as it's not a name he has heard probably ever. He had no trouble remembering Uncle Henry. Also, when asked where Uncle Henry went, he answered "the shelter". Now it was supposed to be "the shed", but here's where he was probably confused... We have a small farm and raise goats. Our "shed" is a storage shed that isn't used for any farm stuff (except holding horse feed and tack). You certainly wouldn't put animals in it. It's a storage shed. If we were to put animals in something, it'd be "the barn". We also have "goat shelters" which the goats go into when it rains. We recently had storms and there was an incident with one of the goat shelters, so this was on his mind. So when I asked where Uncle Henry went, he was picturing the right things, but using terms based on OUR farm, not what he'd heard me read.

 

May I point out that it is usually considered perfectly reasonable to take notes at lectures, sermons, etc., much earlier (and later) than college? In fact, it is somewhat respectful to the speaker, since it means that you think what he said was so worthy of remembering that you're writing it down!

Yes, I actually plan to have my son start taking sermon notes soon. I have a page that I saw at my DH's grandparents' church and I asked one of the ladies there (a homeschooling mom :D) for an electronic copy. It starts out pretty easy - marking certain words that you hear during the sermon (like putting a tick for each time you hear the word "God"), and then later in the page there is a spot for writing a short summary (narration) on what the sermon was about. It had various things on it, so it was fairly flexible for the age of the kid. I haven't used it yet, as DS has been writing phobic, but that is starting to change recently.

 

 

Honestly, from what people are saying, I'm thinking that I may continue with the narration/outlining part of WWE but drop--or at least decrease in frequency--the long dictations in third and fourth grade. Or I could switch to IEW, I guess.

 

And you may find that he can do those long dictations when you get there. Who knows! Remember that WWE is designed to challenge a large array of students, so sometimes the passages are more difficult than SWB expects a child to be able to do at that point. It's a process. They aren't expected to be able to do it correctly the first time. They're just expected to be able to do it by the end. ;)

 

Have you seen the "Dictation with Dan" video on YouTube? It might be helpful so you can see how SWB herself implemented the dictation in her household (with a child beyond the age WWE is typically used for).

[morosophe]

Yes, I actually plan to have my son start taking sermon notes soon. I have a page that I saw at my DH's grandparents' church and I asked one of the ladies there (a homeschooling mom :D) for an electronic copy. It starts out pretty easy - marking certain words that you hear during the sermon (like putting a tick for each time you hear the word "God"), and then later in the page there is a spot for writing a short summary (narration) on what the sermon was about. It had various things on it, so it was fairly flexible for the age of the kid. I haven't used it yet, as DS has been writing phobic, but that is starting to change recently.

 

Oooh, wow! That sounds really neat!

 

Our church provides coloring sheets (drawn by the pastor's daughter) with a verse from or related to the sermon passage most weeks for the younger children, which is really nice. For kids who are reading and writing, there is a little booklet (much like a bulletin) each week, with the passage being preached about, T/F questions from the sermon, and a blank page for outlining. That isn't quite as helpful for keeping them paying attention as what you just described sounds like, though. I'll have to see if I can figure out words that will be used a lot in a particular sermon and write them at the top of his outline page. Then he can have fun listening for them!

 

I also found this online, which could be a good thing to bring along when he's a little further along on his writing.