Alyeska Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 My dd will be going into 7th grade. Grammar is not her strong suit. ;) I ordered grade 7 English from R&S and now I am second guessing...in the other R&S thread, someone said that 7th grade English is very challenging. How do I know if I placed her properly? Should I order the 6th grade text and save the 7th grade one for 8th grade? I don't want her to be overwhelmed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleBears Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 (edited) If I remember correctly from the TWTM, you can put your child in at grade level until after the 5th grade level, when the material starts to build upon the year before. You could probably just order the tests and use them as placement test. They are really cheap and it might give you a clearer picture of where she needs to start. hth!:001_smile: BTW they are having a 5% off sale until June 15th! Edited June 4, 2011 by MyLittleBears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 I started DS in Rod and Staff 6th grade this past year with no problem. He was coming from ps and did not have much grammar background. He does have high verbal ability, and I have a strong grammar background. Looking ahead at the 7th grade book, I think it would be a hard place to start unless you have a strong grammar background and will be able to fill in some of the holes and background. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atozmom Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 When I asked this question some time back, book 5 was recommended to me. Also, I have heard several people say they don't even go beyond the 8th book. By the time your dc finishes with that, they have had plenty of grammar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankcassiesmom Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 I would start with 5 as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 WTM suggests starting with level 5 if no former background. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in CA Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 I just finished R&S 7. If you feel your dd might be overwhelmed, I highly recommend starting at level 5 or doing a combo 5 & 6. Not only does the material get much more challenging, the font size is smaller starting in book 6, and the length of each lesson increases. Book 5 chapters contain roughly 1 to 1.5 pages of instruction plus exercises; Book 6 1.5-2 pages of instruction (smaller font) and Book 7 averages about 3 pages (small font) of instruction per lesson followed by a lot more exercises and review. It also assume the students already have a foundation in diagramming and introduces noun clauses, and verbals in English 7. If your dd is not familiar with diagramming, starting at level 5 of 6 will be a gentler transition. It would not be hard to try to do book 5 and 6 side by side. For instance when you move on to a new chapter, say verbs, you can scan the table of contents in both books and see if you need to do a few basic lessons in 5, before starting in book 6. What's nice about R&S is each year's books progress in roughly the same order... a couple chapters on how to work with sentences, then nouns, verbs, prounouns, adjectives/adverbs, then a couple chapters on prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, ending with capitalization and punctuation. Here are bit from the table of contents for each book on verbs: Book 5: the verb be, helping verbs, subject verb agreement, forms of be and do, verb tense, principal parts of verbs, sentences with direct objects, sentences with compound direct objects,...linking verbs, linking verbs with predicate nouns, linking verbs with predicaste adjectives, more troublesome verbs Book 6: principal parts of regular verbs, principle parts of irregular verbs, simple verb tenses, present perfect tense, past perfect tense, future perfect tense, transitive verbs adn direct objects, actions verbs that are not transitive, transitive verbs and indirect objects, the linking verb be adn predicate nominatives, linking verbs and predicate adjectives, linking verbs or actions verbs?...agreement of subjects of verbs, active and passive voice, more about active and passive voice Book 7: identifying verbs, principal parts of verbs, simple verb tenses, perfect tenses of verbs, using perfect verb tenses, progressive and emphatic verb forms, transitive verbs, intransitive complete verbs, intrasitive linking verbs, reviewing basic sentence patterns, subject-verb agreement...active and passive voice, using active and passive voice You can see that Book 7 is not a good starting point, as the material gets in depth very fast. It also combines topics that took 2-3 sections in the previous levels (5 and 6), reviews them quickly and introduces new material. Without the foundation from previous levels, you will be faced with a lot of new material every chapter, while half of it might be review for a student who has used R&S since 3rd grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alyeska Posted June 4, 2011 Author Share Posted June 4, 2011 Thank you everyone! I appreciate the kind words...I feel guilty knowing that there is no way she can start at grade level. Thanks Jean for listing all of those things for me. That was INCREDIBLY useful! My name is Jean too. :D Wowser just looking at this list...she most certainly would need to start with level 5! She knows 'some' level five stuff, but I don't know how confident she would be. So maybe I could test her out of chapters and pick up where we need to? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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