Jess4879 Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 We started using BJU English for grammar and writing this year (gr.3). The writing portion seems to be going well and DD is doing well with it. The grammar, however, is another story. We do the little lesson and the practice pages and additional practice pages and it just isn't sticking. If I start bringing up adjectives, verbs, predicates, etc her eyes just gloss over. She will "get through" that days activities, but gets it all confused by the next day and will, for example, underline a full predicate instead of just the noun. We used FLL for a bit (in Gr.1), but the repetition got on both our nerves...however...the only thing she does seem to remember well is the definition of a noun (thank you FLL) So....do I jump ship on BJU and go back to FLL? and what level would I start with at this point? Bleh! Why does this always happen just when I think I've got things figured out?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Hehe, traditional grammar can have that glazing effect, eh? You may have dumped FLL 1/2 prematurely. I used it with my dd, but we basically only did the lessons where new concepts were introduced. We skipped all the review, the narrations, blah blah. The memorizing of the definitions and those intros to the concepts are what are important. Are you saying you're having a hard time fitting her on lots of things? Just asking. As far as the grammar, what you might be able to do is salvage what you've got. You only have two months left anyway. Have you ever looked at Winston Basic? They have manipulative cards. Make cards for each of the concepts. Write out your sentences onto a whiteboard and physically manipulate and label them. Use lots of color and physical and see what happens. And you only need to do 3 a day with a bright kid. As you're finding, doing so many of the same thing is just mind-numbing, and they actually turn their brains off. Do 3 and then STOP. Three where they really understand, think, and engage is better than 12 where they don't and are spitting out the same thing mindlessly. Also, trying approaching each sentence in a spiral fashion so she doesn't get confused and lose what she has done in the past. Go in a logical order (find the verb, find the subject, find the prepositional phrases, find the...). Now as I recall, BJU uses a Q&A approach. They don't highlight it to the extent Shurley does, but it's there. So back through all the parts of speech you've covered and find the Q&A flows they gave you for each thing. It might be buried or it might not even be shown as questions anymore. Look and see what you can find. Write all that out into a chart so you know what questions to ask to find each and every thing you're looking for. NOW try to parse sentences together. Many kids get muffled if you say go find a verb. But if you remind them of the questions to ask, they can get there. It's a process, and comfort with that process is more important at this stage than whether they can find something. If they understand the QUESTIONS to ask, they can get to the answer. If they forget the questions to ask, they're toast. So focus on the thought process that gets them to the answer. We used Shurley after a muffled attempt (or two, haha) with R&S. BJU is what I learned way back when I was in a CS, years and years ago. At least back then it had a really good Q&A thought process that served me well when I got into inflected languages like Russian. I can't guarantee it's still there, but it probably is. Anyways, Shurley has tons of review. It worked for us because my dd is grammar-phobic but bright. With only 3 sentences a day, it was quick and dirty, something she could tolerate. And yes we do it like I described, on a whiteboard, short, talkative, and wild. I'm not saying you have to, but you could probably make the BJU3 work for the rest of the year with some adaptation. And the lessons you learn doing that will help you chose better for next year. But by all means go back and do the memory work in FLL1/2. I definitely think it's worthwhile, and the meat is all in the 2 portion. BTW, WT2 is lovely FOR 4th grade with a bright dc. How is her writing? If WT2 is too much writing, then do WT1 first. WT integrates grammar into the writing and is just FABULOUS. She'd LOVE it for next year. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joyfulhomeschooler Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 We are using BJU english 3 this year as well. My son is retaining it well now, but I did have to make some adjustments in how we were doing it before it started sticking. I copy the "Keeping Up transparency masters" with ALL lessons not just the writing portions. He does one of those a day (we started with the first one even though we were on lesson 80 when we began doing this). So anyways, he does one of those first to warm up his brain to english. Then we go through the lesson in the TM together and read the student page and do the guided practice together, then he does the independent practice himself (sometimes with my help). I have him do the review after all the chapter is finished but have him wait to do the cumulative review until a few days later. That way I know what has stuck and what hasn't. If there is something that hasn't stuck we go back to that chapters lesson and go over it and then I have him do the test for that chapter the next day. Does that make sense? The thing I love about BJU is they definately give you enough extras to make it stick for a child who is haveing difficulty. So it looks ike this each day: "Keeping Up Transparency Master" Lesson from TM together Read through student page & do Guided practice Independent practice Then at the end of the chapter: Review lesson and on to next chapter the next day. Coming back to the cumulative review in a couple days. Then more review if cumulative review shows a non sticking concept This is how we are going to ake BJU3 work for us for this year. I haven't decided on next year yet though :) We may switch to FLL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess4879 Posted March 26, 2012 Author Share Posted March 26, 2012 Are you saying you're having a hard time fitting her on lots of things? Just asking. Thanks for the suggestions! No, I don't think we are having trouble fitting her for other subjects. We have played around with math a bit, but found something that works for us now. I am just in the process of planning for next year and thought I had all my books/subjects sorted...and now I am debating about BJU English... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess4879 Posted March 26, 2012 Author Share Posted March 26, 2012 The thing I love about BJU is they definately give you enough extras to make it stick for a child who is haveing difficulty. This is how we are going to ake BJU3 work for us for this year. I haven't decided on next year yet though :) We may switch to FLL Yes, the definitely do give a lot of review and I do like the writing. It seems to be working better for DD then Writeshop did. I am going to make some minor adjustments and see if we can make BJU work for the rest of this year for sure, it's too late to mess around with something new at this point. I am doing a lot of looking for next year though. I also found these quite some time ago, in case you're interested: http://sfreading.com/resources/ghb.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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