Walking-Iris Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Comments from those who have successfully used WWE using only the text? I'd like to give this program a try, but would like to be frugal about it if possible and if I could use the text without the workbooks, that would be ideal. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 I just asked a similar question, with regards specifically to my 7yo son; here's the thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3625817#post3625817 I ended up ordering the instructor text to use with him plus my own copywork sheets and narrations based on our history readings, but I also ordered the full level four workbook for my 10yo daughter, because I think she needs more than I realistically have time to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloggermom Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 I tried using just the text, but it never got done. I switched to the Writing With Ease workbooks and things flow much more smoothly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted February 19, 2012 Author Share Posted February 19, 2012 I ordered the text---at least it will let me get an idea if I even like WWE before I spend more money on the workbooks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisa in the UP of MI Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 I used the level 1 workbook for my oldest. I plan to do it on my own next year for my ds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hollyhock Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 I use only the text and I find it pretty quick and easy to find my own passages from our history, science or literature. When I am desperate, I use Pathway readers because they are really easy to narrate or dictate from. That said, I don't always follow the recommendations in the text to look for sentences with certain grammatical elements. I have found that those recommendations are usually beyond what my kids have learned in grammar so far. If you tried to incorporate all of those suggestions, it would take more time to find appropriate passages. But overall it only takes me a few minutes and I do it on the fly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Well, I have the WWE workbooks (all of them) if you want to borrow them. I would recommend the workbooks for practice and the Complete Writer book for theory on how to implement it and WHY, if you KWIM. I love the book and it's wonderful, but the workbooks really simplify it. I don't use the student pages, just the teacher part and we go through it together so I can pick and choose to work on their weaknesses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 (edited) -- editing this following mommiemilkies post below; I hadn't read the entire book -- oops. I was too distracted this AM to think carefully, and oughtn't have replied to anything at all :blush:. Thank you mommiemilkies!!! I can see where you would be much more likely to implement this with the workbooks. It does seem to me that you could use them for several children without infringing copyright if you used the workbooks for the reading and question selections, and did not photocopy the student pages. For WWE1, the first lesson in the text begins with a description of the work in that week's lessons (read to the child, narration, copywork) and advice on how to gently to instruct the child & toward what end. (For instance, to correct copywork as they go and not allow errors -- this advice I personally ignore, I prefer to generally praise and to "correct" by giving advice before the next copywork rather than during the current one, but that's off-topic!). You are given the title and author of the work being studied (Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House in the Big Woods"). Following are 2 sample sentences for Day 1's work, you are to select the sentence of the length appropriate to your child's skills. Here they are: 1. There were no roads. 2. The deer and the rabbits would be shy and swift. If you had the work book, these would be printed on a page for the student to copy. These particular pages were nearly useless to me, b/c the sentences were in smallish type at the top of the page and Button needed to copy things from words written in handwriting-style script directly over the lines where he was writing. So I ended up rewriting all of them, usually on different paper so there was enough space. That's it for Day1. Day 2 includes the section of text and the same narration questions and answers you would find in the workbooks. You are instructed to elicit a narration sentence from the child and write it down, on your own paper, and if you had the workbook there would be a lined page with a little black-and-white illustration to do this on. Day 3 is another copywork day, identical to Day 1 but with 2 new sentences; and Day 4 is the same as Day 2, a reading and narration assignment with the excerpt and the narration questions/answers provided. There are five thorough examples such as this one in WWE1, for weeks 1, 4, 11, 20 and 28, each of these giving one complete week's work as the assignments become incrementally more challenging. For the rest of the weeks, the author describes the pattern desired and you have to find sample readings and derive narration prompting questions. The workbooks include for each week some guidance, all selected readings and narration questions. In WWE4 the student is reading the passages to themselves, and providing narrations, and will move toward writing the summary without assistance by the end end of the year. Week 1 begins with instructions to the parent. Day 1 has a section for the child to read themselves, in larger print than the parent-read sections. The child reads a brief description of the author and the story, which is Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes". After the child finishes there are instructions & guidance for eliciting a narration that briefly summarizes the story in 3 or 4 sentences. The workbook would provide paper for this, I imagine (I don't have the WWE4 workbook myself). Day 2 gives an excerpt for the child to write from your dictation, and guidance on dictating; the workbook would have an illustrated page for the child to write on. Days 3 and 4 follow this pattern with a new selection, in this case Hans Christian Andersen's "The Leapfrog". Complete lessons are given for weeks 1, 11, 20, and 28. The rest require extrapolation as above. Edited February 19, 2012 by serendipitous journey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 The Complete Writer doesn't include all of the passages. It gives you a starting point for certain topics, but then you are expected to find the passages in literature yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Comments from those who have successfully used WWE using only the text? I'd like to give this program a try, but would like to be frugal about it if possible and if I could use the text without the workbooks, that would be ideal. Thoughts? I used the text only for this year - level 1. Filling in the weeks was not hard, I would do 8-10 weeks at a time over the course of a week. I made it more difficult by searching out exactly what she specified for copywork, i.e. titles of respect, months of the year, etc. It gets harder toward the end - proper use of sit and set. Of course you don't HAVE to use sentences from the same source as the rest of the week, and she is clear about that. You can alternate made up sentences. I've also added complication by trying not to use books more than once, and although we've got a decent library, I feel like I'm running out of good choices (so I've been adding to the library!) No reason why you couldn't use books from an ACTUAL library, it just gets a little trickier to coordinate having the book on hand. I had planned to do this for two years and then switch to the workbooks, but I'm going to switch after level 1, I can't keep it up at the level that I want to. Also, the copywork assignments start to focus on more specific parts of grammar, and I'm working on grammar, but nervous about getting ahead of myself. PLUS, a lot of people talk about getting the books she references and reading those for pleasure. So I'm thinking that would be another advantage. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 ... I have the WWE1 workbook, minus a great deal of student pages but with all the content pages, and could send it to you this week: PM me if that would be helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 I can see where you would be much more likely to implement this with the workbooks. It does seem to me that you could use them for several children without infringing copyright if you used the workbooks for the reading and question selections, and did not photocopy the student pages. Photocopying the student pages is allowed for use within the family, but you can't photocopy the student pages and then leave the originals in the book to then sell the book "whole". Or if you want to leave the book whole, just buy the student pages or student pages PDF (I did the latter). And note that the WWE1 student pages have huge lines, and that is a problem for some kids. I ended up making my own pages anyway. :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 Well I received the WWE text in the mail today. So I'm going to be reading and trying to digest that this week. I've read the first part "The Three Stages" today. A lot to get my mind around. A quick glance through the rest of the book and I feel like I could do this without the workbooks. My ds loves composition notebooks, so I may just set one aside for WWE work. Also we may not be reading the selections in the workbooks which I feel would be somewhat confusing--I'd much rather use the text to make my own lessons using what we are reading that week. I don't like to read excerpts of literature, so I feel it would make more sense to use our current reads in the subjects. We also may not use this weekly as I also use Writing Strands. So basically I think I can tweak this to make it work for our family and do it with just the text alone. :001_smile: Still unsure about Classical Writing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunnyDays Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Can I turn this question around... can the workbooks be used alone, without the text?? It seems like there is plenty of information in them, and reviews on Amazon seem to indicate the workbooks can work by themselves. Thoughts?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Can I turn this question around... can the workbooks be used alone, without the text?? It seems like there is plenty of information in them, and reviews on Amazon seem to indicate the workbooks can work by themselves. Thoughts?? Yes, the workbooks are easily used by themselves. I would suggest also getting the lecture on teaching writing in the elementary years as well, since that gives details about the path WWE takes and why. Those details are in the instructor text also. I have the workbooks and the instructor text now, but I started out with just the workbook. I had planned to do WWE2 without the workbook, but then I came to my senses, realizing my own abilities in this area, or lack thereof. :tongue_smilie:I do like being able to look ahead in the instructor text and see where the program is going, but I don't need the instructor text. Both parts can be used entirely on their own. One just requires you to pick the passages and come up with leading questions (which some people are good at and enjoy doing - those people do well with the instructor text), and the other has it all laid out for you so you just open the book and start reading (which is good for lazy people like me :D). Being "snippets" instead of a whole story in the workbooks has been interesting... It took some getting used to, but I think it helped my son hone in on the details just in that passage instead of using knowledge of other things he'd read. The passages have also been like teasers, getting us interested in a book we haven't read yet. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 I have another question for the WWE 3rd and 4th years. When it says "allow a child to read the passage independently", do we take that to mean read aloud to the parent or read silently to themselves, or a bit of both? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 I have them read it silently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCoffeeChick Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 I have another question for the WWE 3rd and 4th years. When it says "allow a child to read the passage independently", do we take that to mean read aloud to the parent or read silently to themselves, or a bit of both? I was letting my ds read them silently, but decided that I hardly ever have him read out loud anymore and switched to him reading it to me. I think everyone can benefit from practicing reading out loud and he actually gives me better narrations since he's started doing this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redsquirrel Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 I bought the workbooks, but used my own paper for all the writing. My kids do better with HWT paper anyway, so it really was a necessity. That means that I have only had to buy each workbook once. If you want to see if you like the teacher's book, there is a generous sample on the PHP site. What is there gives an excellent introduction to the method used in WWE. If you like the method, then you only have to decide if you want to create your own assignments. Writing with WWE (and now WWS) is one of the easiest parts of our day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 As I've been reading the text this week, I've taken notes of the books she's excerpted. The first three books in the Little House series Alice in Wonderland The Trumpet of the Swan A Child's Geography of the World (I don't know this book---reviews?) A Child's Garden of Verses Wizard of Oz That's 8 books to read aloud to a child. I'm thinking it might be simple enough to pull the other weeks lessons from these same books. SOTW has built in narration activities for history as well. I'm beginning this with an older student, so I plan on giving my ds the mastery evaluations. I'm almost positive the copywork/grammar aspect will be a breeze for him. But I can see him needing more help with the narration/comprehension areas. I think I might reevaluate the purchase of the workbooks when my younger ds is ready for WWE. Although I would like to use FLL 1 with him and I'm not sure yet if that would be redundant. I can see the workbooks being a big help for the comprehension questions. I can think up questions, but I like the idea of having them in front of me. I agree with a pp that if I did use the workbooks I would use our own paper or composition notebook. Thanks so much for all the replies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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