Rod and Staff Gr 4 English, enough writing?

[Guest]

I am on the fence. I have R+S Gr 4 English. I have looked at the writing assignments. What scares me, is that it does not seem to have a lot of "hand holding" when it comes to their writing assignments. Or am I missing something?

 

Do you use R+S writing assignments, and feel it is sufficient enough, or do you skip it and use something else?

 

If you use something else, what do you use and like? I want something simple and affordable, but will do the job nicely.

 

 

 

Again, thank you:001_smile:

[StephanieZ]

We've used R&S, pretty much as written but we do many things orally, mainly doing the more significant composition stuff in writing. I really like R&S for a lot of reasons but. . .

 

I have felt the lack of specifics in writing and felt like my kids could do more and better if more directed. I felt that the Sonlight LA was also lacking in writing direction (cool assignments but little guidance).

 

I've recently added IEW and am really excited to see the difference in their writing after just a few weeks.

 

Next year, I am dropping SL's LA and using R&S plus IEW.

[sabrina]

I use R&S English 3 and 6 but I skip the writing and use IEW. I don't know that I would say that it is affordable but I have lucked out and found it used. It does a lot of "hand holding" and does not make the child come up with the ideas for writing on their own. I started at level A b/c I wanted to do writing together and could not push my dd to start at level B. My dc love the curriculum and their writing is flourishing. Best of all for me (the math & sci teacher) they have a teacher on DVD that teaches them how to write. He also teaches a significant amount of grammar along the way. Hope this is helpful!

[Beth in Central TX]

At a minimum I have my sons read the writing lessons in R&S; sometimes they write out the assignment, and sometimes they do the assignment orally with notecards. I use Classical Writing as our main writing program and R&S as our main grammar program.

[Ellie]

and you should remember that if you continue with it, the writing *really* picks up in 7th.

 

I wouldn't add a thing.

[lvbeingmom]

We did R&S 4 last year and it did not have a lot of writing. We would read the writing lessons and maybe do it depending on weather we had time or not. We started IEW last year too and I feel my dd is learning from it. We only did two sections and she learned a lot. I have heard that R&S adds more writing as it pick ups but at this time we are doing both. Dd does not write well and I need to change that.

[Magic Wand]

Personally, I felt the instruction was adequate, but the assignments and practice too sparse. I "remedied" this little hurdle by putting a sticky note on the most recent writing lesson. I did this so that we could continue progressing with the grammar lessons, and I could easily refer back to the last writing lesson and incorporate the comp. teaching across curriculum for the extra practice we needed. When we came to a new writing lesson I'd move my sticky forward and practice that lesson across curriculum until the next, and so on. This really seemed to solidify the lessons, and I felt we made good progress.

 

Next year, I'm planning to add IEW to the mix, but with my "new R&S plans", thanks to some wonderful mom here (the blog, Core Foundations) the composition lessons are spread out over two days which I think is brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? LOL

 

So, to answer your question from my perspective, the comp lessons are good, but you might want to practice them with other subjects or simply stretch out the writing lessons. With some of the writing lessons it's really too much to try and create a rough draft and revise it all in the same lesson. Otherwise, add a writing program and don't sweat it. It will work great either way.

 

W

[Rhondabee]

I think it is more than adequate .... *if* you use it to the max. (I like SL's metaphor of "sucking all the marrow" out of the curriculum!)

 

First, there is quite a bit of writing instruction & reinforcement within the grammar lessons. (I find that this is more true of the textbook assignments than the worksheets.)

 

Second, as MagicWand pointed out, each writing assignment has too much in it for just one day of class time. Especially if you take advantage of *all* of the assignment. When we first started with R&S too frequently I would skip either A or B of the assignment, but you really need to do it all.

 

Sometimes that means that I'll keep a writing project going on the side while we forge ahead with the grammar lessons. (Which is exactly what would happen if you had a separate writing and grammar program.) Once the rough draft is done, then the editing and polishing and final copy can be worked on a little each day until we reach the next writing assignment.

 

Also, if there are two different writing assignments (say, Part A is a descriptive paragraph and Part B is a narrative paragraph), you need to do them both. They are two different skills, and neither should be skipped.

 

Also, I assign the same type of writing in history and science, and I remind my kids of what they've learned in R&S, and how I'll be expecting to see those things in their assignment. And, then the next day, we'll proof that before we begin our work in that subject. (We don't make final copies of history/science writings.)

 

We really like having grammar and writing in *one* subject. It does take some extra work to be sure that the concepts are being applied, and there's not a "checklist" or rubric to help with grading. But, we *love* R&S for its effectiveness - my older ds starting hs'ing mid-way thru 5th grade, and didn't know what a noun was, much less how to write a sentence. R&S is the only program we have done (for more than two weeks, anyway!), and he can now write a two-page essay with relative ease *and* he really does apply what he's learned from R&S.

 

YMMV~

Rhonda

[SheilaZ]

My oldest has used R&S from 4th to 6th grade. I think the writing instruction is beyond sufficient.

 

Last year he did IEW as part of a co-op and it was in no way a challenge for him. He found his R&S writing assignments more challenging.

 

This year, we'll just stick with what's in the level 7 book.

[Melanie]

I feel the writing component is perfectly adequate, especially when combined with writing projects in other subject areas. R&S English has served us very well. :)

[Ellie]

There's more to "writing" than creative writing and whatnot.

 

R&S spends gr. 1-6 teaching children to write grammatically correct, cohesive sentences, with practice in basic kinds of *useful* writing such as friendly letters, setting the stage for the more comprehensive writing, and more varieties, in gr. 7-10. It makes perfect sense to me to do it that way; I wouldn't add anything.

[sweetbaby]

There's more to "writing" than creative writing and whatnot.

 

R&S spends gr. 1-6 teaching children to write grammatically correct, cohesive sentences, with practice in basic kinds of *useful* writing such as friendly letters, setting the stage for the more comprehensive writing, and more varieties, in gr. 7-10. It makes perfect sense to me to do it that way; I wouldn't add anything.

 

:iagree:

[Guest]

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!:lol: