Explode the Code - How often, how much?

[Lady Lulu]

Hello!

 

For those of you who use ETC, I have two questions:

 

- How many pages does your student(s) complete in one sitting/lesson?

- How many times a week do you have a ETC lesson a week?

 

We are officially in our 3rd week of homeschooling Kindergarten. We've done 2-3 pages each day, but I'm wondering if this is something I don't necessarily need to do every day. My son gets bored easily doing workbook/worksheet activities. We also have a 100EZ reading lesson and a handwriting lesson/activity every day. And, we read lots.

 

Thanks so much for your help!

[curlygirlzx2]

My dd does 3 pages four days a week.

[hollyhock]

My son is also doing this for K. I have him doing at least two pages at a time, 3x a week but I was only planning on getting through two books this year. When my older boys were using ETC in Gr. 1 or 2, then I had them do 4 pages at once, 2x a week. That got them through one lesson per week and about three books per year. It depends on how much your son can handle at once, and how far you want to get in the series, but you definitely don't need to do it every day.

[lorisuewho]

With my 5 year old I'm aiming for 2 pages, 4 x a week, but we'll have to see how it goes.

[BigMamaBird]

We do two lessons a day on a four day week. We did levels 1, 2 and 3 in Kindy and were planning on using 4, 5 and 6 in First. That didn't work out. Part way through 4 dd really hit the wall and it was just too hard for her. We purchased the 2.5 and 3.5 books and backed off to those. It seems to be a very good fit right now. We'll probably get back to 4 in the spring.

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[mombygrace]

DS5 did an average of 2 pages a day starting with book A and ended with book 7.

[ladydusk]

I assign 1 "lesson" a week. We have three days in a school week for them to complete it, my Ker and 1st have it to do during their "independent work" time.

[Coffeemama]

My DD6 does 3 pages per school day (4 days). She started Book 2 in the summer and will be finished with it in a few weeks. I will change to 2 pages per day when she hits Book 4.

[Jay3fer]

We are in Book 3; I started Book 1 perhaps 1.5 years ago, so we're ticking along at a good pace.

I cut 2 pages at a time out of the book, but will do less if it's the end of a lesson. I try to arrange the final "spelling test" so the words are still fresh in her memory, ie not first thing on a Monday. :-)

 

We generally cover 2 pages, 2 or 3 times a week. During the summer, it was only once a week... sometimes not even that. I love the way the books are flying past, though I'm sure it will slow down in the higher levels!

 

By the way, for Grade One I initially dropped ETC; I thought I needed to switch to a "serious" spelling curriculum, and picked Spelling Workout based on recommendations here and in tWTM. Well, we were both SO "homesick" for ETC! So I switched back, and now we're happy again... and you know what? At this level, phonics IS spelling, and she's learning rules of reading and spelling, and that's all that matters. :-)))

Enough of a rant. We love ETC, so if you do - stick with it!

[jewel7123]

We do 6 pages per week on average. We don't do ETC everyday but alternate with the other Language Arts we are doing (AAS, WWE, ARFH, FLL).

[momma aimee]

i need to read this later -- after school :)

[Wheres Toto]

My son does 6 pages (3 sheets front and back) each day for four days a week. We are in book 3 now but went much slower in books 1 and 2. These are among his "independent" work that he can do while I work with little dd. I'm still sitting right there but he doesn't usually need much help with them. He enjoys the silly sentences and pictures but I don't usually have him do the pages that are nothing but writing since writing is hard for him still and we're doing HWT to work on letter formation and AAS to work on spelling.

 

I do plan to skip Book 4 and come back to it after Book 5. I've seen this recommendation many times since Book 4 has harder concepts.

[3peasinapod]

We are doing 1 page and 2 pages, alternating, and just keep going 5 days a week.

[BlsdMama]

Hello!

 

For those of you who use ETC, I have two questions:

 

- How many pages does your student(s) complete in one sitting/lesson?

- How many times a week do you have a ETC lesson a week?

 

We are officially in our 3rd week of homeschooling Kindergarten. We've done 2-3 pages each day, but I'm wondering if this is something I don't necessarily need to do every day. My son gets bored easily doing workbook/worksheet activities. We also have a 100EZ reading lesson and a handwriting lesson/activity every day. And, we read lots.

 

Thanks so much for your help!

 

We use ETC as reinforcement with my 5yod and 6yo son. They do 1-2 pages per day on most days. Why? Because if I'm using them as reinforcement then more often is better. I do fewer pages to keep their enthusiasm going. They're also allowed to color any drawings on completed pages. I have NO idea why this is a motivator but it is. Perhaps it is because we don't regularly buy coloring books? We've done it in this manner since the oldest was little. ;)

[jplain]

My 5yo is a fluent reader (self-taught sight reader :glare:), so I'm using ETC for phonics instruction rather than for teaching her to read. She's also got a lot of stamina when it comes to writing, though it's as messy as you'd expect for a K'er. By choice she does at least 4 pages per day. Around Lesson 9 or 10, she gets excited and makes wild pronouncements about how she's going to finish the whole book today! LOL. That doesn't happen. On those days she usually poops out after completing 1.5 lessons.

 

My older daughter, on the other hand, plugged away v e r y slowly but steadily, usually doing 1-2 pages a day. She was learning to read at the same time, and she was a reluctant writer, so the slower pace was better for her. For the writing in the first couple of books, she would spell the words out loud for me, I would write them in with a highlighter, and then she would copy over my highlighting. She was very pleased with how neat her writing looked when she copied over highlighter. :)

[ChandlerMom]

I think if ETC was your only phonics/reading, I'd do it every day.

 

Since you are doing 100EL and handwriting every day and ETC as a supplement, I would do it 1-3 times a week, just 1-2 pages. I didn't start ETC until dc was almost done with 100EL (around lesson 75-80 where things get suddenly tough) and I did Funnix and ETC as "breaks" to lighten things up. So, as long as you are doing 100EL, I would just view ETC as "spice" and "for fun" and do it as often as the variety is interesting to dc. You can pick up again with ETC after 100EL.

[ksoika]

I have avid writers and we do one lesson per week. Sometimes it's the whole lesson in one day, sometimes a few pages. We're also working through Getty Dubay, so it depends on how much of that they choose to do.

[sewingmama]

Geez - I think I am not pushing my K'r enough :confused:

 

We do one page every day - she won't do more then that -she hates writing - it takes aaaaages to do one page I can only dream of doing two pages at once - maybe when she starts to read better :001_huh:

[jplain]

Geez - I think I am not pushing my K'r enough :confused:

 

We do one page every day - she won't do more then that -she hates writing - it takes aaaaages to do one page I can only dream of doing two pages at once - maybe when she starts to read better :001_huh:

Nah, don't feel that way. IMO it isn't worth pushing anything in K.

 

My older daughter would only do 1 or 2 pages at most each day, and there were days when she balked at doing any. So we'd just skip it that day. It took her (what seemed like) forever to learn to read. She hated writing more than 1 or 2 words. But now I can't keep up with her insatiable desire for new books to read, and she doesn't complain about writing several sentences a day.

 

If the writing is frustrating your daughter, do it orally instead, or have her spell for you while you write, either with a pencil or with highlighter. If you use highlighter, she can trace it after you write it.

[Melis]

Hello there :)

 

- How many pages does your student(s) complete in one sitting/lesson

 

We use ETC as a workbook to compliment other programs we are using (or have used and finished) and to review/reinforce concepts that have we've previously covered. (it ends up being a review/reinforcment when I can't make everything flow! LOL) So depending on how much the topic flows with what we are doing and how much the kids have scheduled for that day, ETC work ranges from no pages to about 2 pages per day.

 

 

- How many times a week do you have a ETC lesson a week?

I do not do the lessons from the Teacher's Guides. When I first began homeschooling, I purchased 100EZ Lessons to teach phonics/reading and the ETC books to compliment that program. I went ahead and bought a separate vocabulary (Wordly Wise) and handwriting (Handwriting Without Tears) program not realizing that ETC could serve ALL of those subjects. 100EZ Lessons wasn't the right fit for us and I really wanted to have readers to follow-up each new skill and lesson so I switched to Reading A-Z. If the readers hadn't been so important to me, I would have used ETC exclusively. It's been difficult trying to match up ETC to what we're doing in other subjects, but the kids and I really like the workbooks so we've stuck with them ;)

 

I think you'll find that many people use ETC differently, based on what they are using for curriculum and the child's learning style and ability. I hope this made a bit of sense and helped a little! :)

[Guest Ann Foster]

:auto:Hello Lady Lulu,

What is the program that you are using?

Ann Foster

[JessieC]

I think one page a day sounds right for your ds, so as not to burn him out on seatwork and because he has the handwriting and other phonics.