Do you use a writing program or other LA along with R&S English?

[JadeOrchidSong]

We have been using R&S English for three years now. I also added WWE last year. I plan to use IEW writing but wonder if it is necessary. I wonder if you use R&S English for both grammar and writing with nothing added or use another writing program with it.

 

Thanks!

[Clear Creek]

We have been using R&S English for three years now. I also added WWE last year. I plan to use IEW writing but wonder if it is necessary. I wonder if you use R&S English for both grammar and writing with nothing added or use another writing program with it.

 

Thanks!

 

My oldest will be in 4th grade this year and I plan on adding WWE3 to R&S English 4 as well as Killgallon Sentence Composing (when she is ready). I looked at Winning With Writing, but it seemed to be a duplicate of the writing lessons in R&S...which means to me that the writing lessons in R&S are good! I probably should have used WWE this past year, but I tried another curriculum (CW Aesop) which was a failure and I didn't move on to another writing curriculum after that, I just stuck with the writing lessons in R&S.

[Ellie]

It would not have ocurred to me to add anything for writing. R&S's English series is pretty comprehensive in both grammar and writing.

[LindaWood]

I have used the Writesource books (both the older handbooks and the newer grade by grade ones) to spice things up a little, because sometimes the writing is a little dry in Rod and Staff.

[Mrs Twain]

I am also using Rod and Staff English and WWE, and this year I bought IEW to add to it. I have heard that a lot of people do R&S and IEW together, though they often only do the grammar and not to writing part of the R&S. My plan is to do IEW three days per week and WWE 2 days per week (one or two lessons per day), and only the grammar of R&S. Obviously I haven't done it yet so I can't share results, but it seems that it is consistent with what others have done from reading reviews.

[coffeegal]

Yes and no. We don't do a writing program in addition to R&S such as IEW or WWE, instead I design our history to include writing so the children write most of their papers for history. R&S does an excellent job teaching a child how to write, I just don't believe there is enough writing included for that to be all the writing we do. My third grader will be writing narrations and various paragraphs for history, while the older children will be doing essays, reports, biographies, etc.

[Clear Creek]

It would not have ocurred to me to add anything for writing. R&S's English series is pretty comprehensive in both grammar and writing.

 

I am adding WWE for the dictation/narration, not for specific writing instruction. I agree that R&S English has excellent writing instruction. My plan for this year includes more dictation than the weekly sentences in Spelling, and WWE provides that for me. My 4th grader also needs to work on summarizing better, and WWE is supposed to help with that, as well. And the Killgallon book is more playing around with sentences than writing instruction...and playing is good. :001_smile:

[Mommy22alyns]

I'll be using WWE along with R&S for Rebecca.

[JadeOrchidSong]

Yes and no. We don't do a writing program in addition to R&S such as IEW or WWE, instead I design our history to include writing so the children write most of their papers for history. R&S does an excellent job teaching a child how to write, I just don't believe there is enough writing included for that to be all the writing we do. My third grader will be writing narrations and various paragraphs for history, while the older children will be doing essays, reports, biographies, etc.

I know that some people do this just like you. I wonder how you do it, though. Can you give me specific examples?

My ds8.8 is doing R&S 4. We will start SOTW 3 next week. For SOTW I asked him to write his narration down in his history notebook. Does that count for writing?

I now have both WWE and IEW SCI A. I would like to use both, but I know it will not work because it is simply too much. I want to simply. You can PM me if you like. Thanks!

[JadeOrchidSong]

I am also using Rod and Staff English and WWE, and this year I bought IEW to add to it. I have heard that a lot of people do R&S and IEW together, though they often only do the grammar and not to writing part of the R&S. My plan is to do IEW three days per week and WWE 2 days per week (one or two lessons per day), and only the grammar of R&S. Obviously I haven't done it yet so I can't share results, but it seems that it is consistent with what others have done from reading reviews.

Yes, please let us know how it goes after you try it for a while. I have both WWE and IEW. But I don't feel I can do both unless I am asking for early burnout. I already feel burned out while planning now.

[JadeOrchidSong]

My oldest will be in 4th grade this year and I plan on adding WWE3 to R&S English 4 as well as Killgallon Sentence Composing (when she is ready). I looked at Winning With Writing, but it seemed to be a duplicate of the writing lessons in R&S...which means to me that the writing lessons in R&S are good! I probably should have used WWE this past year, but I tried another curriculum (CW Aesop) which was a failure and I didn't move on to another writing curriculum after that, I just stuck with the writing lessons in R&S.

I also looked at CW's website as well as Winning with Writing. I am glad to hear what you say about WWW. We will stick to R&S. Why didn't CW Aesop work for you?

I do like WWE a lot because my kids ask to do it every time we have school. They love the stories and we often have to get the books from the library for them. Because of WWE, they and I read Farmer Boy, Pollyanna, and other great books. I don't think we will drop WWE any time soon. Ds8 tried Killgalon for a few weeks. I put it aside because he gets frustrated trying to imitate the complicated long sentences.

[ChrissySC]

Yes, Write Source and Writing Strands with a little Write With The Best Volume 1.

[coffeegal]

I know that some people do this just like you. I wonder how you do it, though. Can you give me specific examples?

My ds8.8 is doing R&S 4. We will start SOTW 3 next week. For SOTW I asked him to write his narration down in his history notebook. Does that count for writing?

I now have both WWE and IEW SCI A. I would like to use both, but I know it will not work because it is simply too much. I want to simply. You can PM me if you like. Thanks!

 

Yes, narrations count for writing. My 8yo ds will be using R&S 3 and doing narrations for history. In addition, I want to focus on writing paragraphs this year. We'll either write 1 paragraph a week or 1 paragraph every other week. My general outline is to plan the paragraph on Wednesdays, write the rough draft on Thursday, do a self-check and I'll edit it Thursday afternoon, before he writes the final draft on Friday. If it's too fast a pace for him, we'll slow down to every other week. I want him comfortable writing various types of paragraphs by the end of the year. :001_smile:

 

My older children have been using HO level 2. In the lesson plans it schedules writing biographies, essays, reports, and lots of summary paragraphs, but it doesn't teach HOW to write. That's what R&S does. This year we're switching over to TOG. We'll use the suggested assignment for their grade as their history writing assignment. Basically, I expect the writing for history to give the children the practice they need to write, but R&S to teach how to write. :001_smile:

 

This was probably clear as mud. ;)

[Clear Creek]

I know that some people do this just like you. I wonder how you do it, though. Can you give me specific examples?

My ds8.8 is doing R&S 4. We will start SOTW 3 next week. For SOTW I asked him to write his narration down in his history notebook. Does that count for writing?

I now have both WWE and IEW SCI A. I would like to use both, but I know it will not work because it is simply too much. I want to simply. You can PM me if you like. Thanks!

 

I'm not Coffeegal, but I can tell you how we have done it. For example, my daughter's science lesson included reading the reasons why Pluto is or isn't a planet, choosing a side and writing it in the center of her paper, and writing the reasons that support her side around it. After she had completed it, I told her to put it in paragraph form with complete sentences...and there you have it, a persuasive paragraph! For history, I would tell her to pick the most interesting thing out of the SOTW reading and write everything she remembered about it in paragraph form (which she knows means a minimum of 3 sentences).

 

That is not all we have done, those are just examples of how we use the lessons in R&S to write across the curriculum.

[Clear Creek]

I also looked at CW's website as well as Winning with Writing. I am glad to hear what you say about WWW. We will stick to R&S. Why didn't CW Aesop work for you?

I do like WWE a lot because my kids ask to do it every time we have school. They love the stories and we often have to get the books from the library for them. Because of WWE, they and I read Farmer Boy, Pollyanna, and other great books. I don't think we will drop WWE any time soon. Ds8 tried Killgalon for a few weeks. I put it aside because he gets frustrated trying to imitate the complicated long sentences.

 

I wrote about my experience with CW Aesop in this thread.

 

I am sure I am not going to start my 4th grader on the Killgallon book right away (she won't be 9 for a couple more months, she is a young 4th grader), and if she gets frustrated I will hold off longer...it won't bother me if we have to wait a year to do it.

[kathkath]

write source

[Clear Creek]

Yes, narrations count for writing. My 8yo ds will be using R&S 3 and doing narrations for history. In addition, I want to focus on writing paragraphs this year. We'll either write 1 paragraph a week or 1 paragraph every other week. My general outline is to plan the paragraph on Wednesdays, write the rough draft on Thursday, do a self-check and I'll edit it Thursday afternoon, before he writes the final draft on Friday. If it's too fast a pace for him, we'll slow down to every other week. I want him comfortable writing various types of paragraphs by the end of the year. :001_smile:

 

 

 

Just an FYI, the majority of the writing assignments are in Unit 5 of R&S 3. There are a few at the end of units 3 & 4, but most of them are near the end of the book. I didn't want to wait until the spring to really cover writing so when I reached Unit 4 I started doing one lesson from Unit 4 and one lesson from Unit 5 each day. You don't have to double them up like I did, you can alternate days, too, but the lessons were short enough that I just doubled them up.

 

You probably already knew this, and I am the only idiot that started wondering where the writing lessons were halfway through the year before looking ahead in the book and realizing they were all packed at the end. :lol:

[Guest Joyfulmom6]

Hi there! We have been using Rod and Staff for 3 years and I don't add writing to it. I assign writing assignments from our history or science read-alouds. My older children are 13 and 10 years old so I don't know if that helps or not.

[SilverMoon]

Yes. We prefer writing instruction that more closely follows the progymnasmata, so we add that in with Classical Writing.

[Guest]

It would not have ocurred to me to add anything for writing. R&S's English series is pretty comprehensive in both grammar and writing.

 

:iagree: completely.

 

If you want to add anything, maybe have the kids read novels and write book reports. R&S does assign this, but you could always do more, I suppose.

[Guest]

Hi there! We have been using Rod and Staff for 3 years and I don't add writing to it. I assign writing assignments from our history or science read-alouds. My older children are 13 and 10 years old so I don't know if that helps or not.

 

This is how I feel. I don't feel R&S needs more writing, especially with the writing from other subjects.

[SnMomof7]

Well, we do R&S but we are still in the early years :). We do it mostly orally because DD is young, but then I just add in some WTM things like narration, copywork, and dictation through our AAS and call it good.