Do you do R&S English orally? If so...

[wehave8]

How much of the lesson do you do orally?

 

When do you start to do more (or all) written?

 

Or do you require all written from the beginning?

 

Do you feel your child would have retained more if the lessons would have been written out?

[kwickimom]

I have used R&S 3 for 3rd grade and 4 for 4th grade. I do most of it orally, but if I feel my dd needs more practice I assign some of the written practice. Next year we will use R&S 5 for 5th and I am gearing for her to be a little more independent so I also got the worksheets. We will do whatever it says to orally and the rest will be assigned as written (not all of it, there are usually too many questions IMO, I pick and choose what we do)

 

We rarely ever do ALL of the questions, either orally or written. If the oral part has 10 sentences to read we maybe do 5 unless she doesnt get it.

 

My dd retains it very well with doing it orally. I think written would just have been busy work.

[choirfarm]

I do the exercises in the book orally. Then I have her do the worksheets that came with it in the packet.

[edeemarie]

I made the mistake of trying to do too much orally and ds ended up not retaining as much as I would hope. So I try to do about 1/4 or 1/3 written, the rest oral, and I use the extra worksheets too. This is working out much better! I also now make sure to do the review at the beginning of the lesson in the teachers manual -thisis makes a big difference!

[Paintedlady]

We used R&S for 2nd grade orally without any writing, used Easy Grammar for 3rd and FLL for 4th, which are both workbooks with limited writing. For 5th we're back to R&S and while we do a lot orally, at this age I make them write out assignments. I present the lesson, do the review and oral section and then make them do a written assignment or corresponding worksheet.

[Daisy]

How much of the lesson do you do orally? I'd say we do about 75% orally. We do all the worksheets written, take the tests, and do all the diagramming. Problems that are also partially spelling (irregular verb tenses, contractions) are written. My children have good oral speech patterns so I see doing much of R&S English orally as just common sense. If our children speak correctly they tend to write correctly. There are exceptions to that but generally speaking it is true.

When do you start to do more (or all) written? My daughter is in 7th grade. I'd say things are flipped now. She tends to do the majority of it written, but with easy lessons or on days when we are short of time, we'll still do it orally.

 

Or do you require all written from the beginning? Nope.

 

Do you feel your child would have retained more if the lessons would have been written out? My children average A's on their tests in English. I love grammar and am a bit of obnoxious when it comes to proper usage and correct speech, so that may play a large part is why English is easy for us.

 

Hope that helps.

[Ellie]

When I used R&S, I required dc to do the written work. I think the writing is an important part of the learning; it also gives dc practice in the physical act of writing, and in learning how to put words on actual paper, a skill which will always be useful, even in today's computer world. :-)

[kbpaulie]

Finishing our first R&S year w/ R&S 4 and will continue w/ 5 next year. We do almost none of it orally. My son likes to do things independantly and I don't have much time to do it w/ him. We use the worksheets and tests (these aren't graded as tests but are more considered a chapter/ unit review.) He would be falling on the floor if I req'd him to do all of the writing in R&S and the program would never work for us.

 

Instead, I took a chunk of my time and for the lessons that don't have worksheets - pretty much created a worksheet using some of the questions from the student text. This is working great for us!!!

 

He retains grammar and doesn't complain about it. The amount of req'd writing or oral work would have done us in.

 

Remember that the prgm was written for a classroom setting w/ a lot of different options for teaching and presenting. However you choose to do the prgm, make it work for you.

[mytwomonkeys]

my son uses R&S 2 english and we do it all orally. i specifically use R&S though in grade 2 because it's quite gentle & can be completed orally (that's what i love about it!). i know he's retaining it, because in our book you couldn't answer the questions successfully otherwise. for example, he is working on adjectives right now. in yesterday's lesson, it would give him a noun and he had to make up adjectives to describe the noun. plus, R&S stays on a topic for quite sometime in grade 2, so the review is very thorough and built in constantly throughout.

 

next year, he will not do english orally, but we also will not use R&S. i switch after 2nd. hth.

[TexasRachel]

We've done R&S 5, 6, 7, and are now finishing 8. 5 & 6 DD did the work written, but then someone commented that they did it orally and there was an ah-ha! moment for me. Doing it orally gives me immediate feedback on how DD is doing. For the few times she really has problems, we will move on to the written practice and have her do that. Diagramming is on a white board and I'll have her do the chapter review as a test. I didn't buy it this year for the first time.

 

Book, TM, and test are necessary. Worksheets are handy. I used them when DD needed more work.

 

Honestly, at this point, after four years of R&S grammar, DD has most of it down. We're not doing grammar in high school. At least that's the current plan because R&S does such a thorough job of it.

[Mommy22alyns]

Rebecca does some writing every day, but I also don't make her write out the whole assignment every day. I just look at the lesson and tell her to do ABC out loud and DEF on her paper. We also always use the worksheets. I feel grammar is important enough that it warrants the repetition.

[MamaHappy]

I only do the stuff that seems like "busywork" orally. Like if the directions say to write the verb for each sentence, that can be done orally. But if it says to write five complete sentences with a very and adjective, then I would have my ds write that.

[sharon&4boys]

How much of the lesson do you do orally? I have used Rod & Staff 3, 4, and 5 with my boys, and they have done very well with almost completely oral work. Very rarely I would have them write out an exercise. My oldest son is very resistant to writing anything that he perceives as "busy work," so this fits our family well.

 

When do you start to do more (or all) written? I should be using R&S 7 this year with the oldest son. He has gotten off easy so far, though - we have had a couple of other very challenging subjects and have neglected grammar. I think some of it would have to be written at this level, but I am sure we would not be using all the exercises.

 

Or do you require all written from the beginning? No.

 

Do you feel your child would have retained more if the lessons would have been written out? I'm not sure. Possibly, but our kids have fairly good grammar when speaking and they seem to have learned quite a bit by just doing it orally. I try to stay away from fights over "busywork" whenever possible. Of course, you must write out diagrams or it defeats the purpose of picturing the sentence in order to clarify its structure.

 

That is how we have used Rod & Staff. I go back and forth to FLL 3 & 4 because they are so simply structured (the workbook, that is) and don't require as much writing. I wish FLL went up to higher levels, too; then I might use it exclusively.

[birchbark]

We do about 75% orally. However we do have a lot of other writing across the curriculum.

[Love2teach0307]

We've done R&S 2 and 3 orally and as we're over half-way through R&S 3 I'm finding out that she doesn't remember as well the lessons we only do orally. Now, I'm implementing a bit more writing. I think it depends on how your child learns. Very simple lessons we still do orally, but more and more exercises we are writing out. We also use a dry erase board for a lot of exercises. Since I haven't used the workbooks, I retype the review lessons (every 5th lesson) and give that as a quiz so she has more immediate feedback on what concepts she's not getting. That has helped her see what she's missing since the oral reviews she's doesn't take as seriously.

[yvonne]

We've completed R&S 3-6. We do the oral review, read the chapter together, & do most of the textbook exercises orally. If it is a writing lesson or if the exercises involve diagramming or something else that we could only do in writing, the children write those in their notebook. If there is a worksheet, the children complete that in writing. They also complete the test at the end of each unit.

 

All three of my children have retained the information very well and can apply any of the concepts to other work. For example, in our literature reading, I can ask my 6th graders to parse a sentence for parts of speech, parts of the sentence (subj, action/linking verb, do, ind. obj., pred. nom/pred adj.), type of sentence (simple/compound/complex/ccx), phrases, clauses & types of clauses. It sticks.

 

 

R&S was written for a classroom situation where the teacher can't interact individually with each child. If you do the lesson orally with one or two children, you're going to know if they've got it or not. I save the writing for something where writing really matters... WWS, note taking, narrations.

[gevs4him]

I do the exercises in the book orally. Then I have her do the worksheets that came with it in the packet.

:iagree: We have done it like this for the past 2 years. Using this method ds has retained the information and aced the tests. At times we do use the white board.

[HeidiKC]

My dd retains it very well with doing it orally. I think written would just have been busy work.

 

:iagree:

 

My ds enjoys having me do it with him orally. We even do some of the simpler diagramming orally! He does hand motions to show me the line separating DO, lines down for adjectives, etc. It's rather amusing. But diagramming is definitely one thing I like for him to write down. He has a little lap-sized white board and he does most of them there and I check them one after the other. I also have him do most of the workbook exercises - written.

 

And honestly...part of doing this orally is to keep me on my toes! I think grammar is a bit hard and much of this I don't remember. So doing it with him orally is teaching me as well. It isn't the same as just reading the TM ahead of time. I plan to continue doing much of it orally with him through 8th grade. Another thing that I like about doing it orally is that I can see right away if he is not getting something. It's no fun for either of us for me to correct an entire sheet of errors, only to have to re-learn and re-do the problems.