WWS 5th or 6th grade??? Thinking out loud

[Stuart]

We will finish up WWE this year. I would like to do WWS but after looking at the post from users I have some thoughts. It seems when people start with a 10 year old (5th grade) they go slow, half speed. Is this related to maturity? Would it be more beneficial to wait a year and let him mature? Academically he is well above "grade level" but he is a little BOY. It looks like a great program. I feel like waiting would let him get the most out of it and avoid unnecessary frustrations. Would the year we use a filler program be worth it? Why rush its not a race.

I'm just thinking "out loud" here. Rationalizing my ideas. Opinions are welcome.

[Perogi]

I'm with you - we're finishing up WWE 3 right now, in 4th grade, then I will stretch WWE 4 into 5th grade and do some Writing Strands. We'll start WWS in 6th grade.

[Chrysalis Academy]

We will finish up WWE this year. I would like to do WWS but after looking at the post from users I have some thoughts. It seems when people start with a 10 year old (5th grade) they go slow, half speed. Is this related to maturity? Would it be more beneficial to wait a year and let him mature? Academically he is well above "grade level" but he is a little BOY. It looks like a great program. I feel like waiting would let him get the most out of it and avoid unnecessary frustrations. Would the year we use a filler program be worth it? Why rush its not a race.

I'm just thinking "out loud" here. Rationalizing my ideas. Opinions are welcome.

 

Well, exactly. So what's wrong with doing it at a slower pace, with a 5th grader, if they are ready for it? I can't imagine doing something I considered "filler" (as in time-filler, without moving us toward our writing goals) just so that I could do the curriculum I really want faster later, KWIM?

 

In our case, Miss P was totally solid on narration & dictation skills, so we dove into WWS. To me that is a more important determinant of whether they are ready to start than age. It's true that for a younger kid, this might be their first time using a curriculum that is directed at the student, but they have to have a first time sometime, right?

 

FWIW, we go nothing like half-speed. Some of the longer essay assignments that are written as one day lessons, we may take two or even three days to complete. But most lessons are completed in one day.

 

Some days she works entirely independently, and some days she needs me to go through the lesson with her. It has a lot to do with the complexity of the passage she is working with, and you are right, greater age/maturity would make her able to handle more of these passages independently. But this isn't a big enough stumbling block to delay the whole program. For us.

 

Anyway, just some thinking out loud, in the spirit of the OP. WWS can work well with kids at a range of ages. This is why it is working for my student who is at the younger end of the range.

[lewelma]

I think you could easily spread WWS1 over 5th and 6th grade. We did it only in 6th and we were definitely pushed to finish some of the assignments in 1 week. Also, we had no time to do some extra practice and apply these new ideas to the material he was studying in his own science and history lessons. It would have been great to have more time. I would start it in 5th and move slowly. You could even do 1/3 of it in 5th and 2/3 of it in 6th.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Penelope]

My fifth grader is using it. We did start out a little more slowly. We took an extra day to revise and rewrite the topoi assignments. But the narrations and outlines were done in one day each.

 

Now at more than halfway through, ds is much better at following directions and understanding what is being asked of him. He's usually not having a problem doing a week's worth over four, or sometimes five, days. That said, I haven't yet added in my plans of having him do additional writing (narrations or outlines from other books) on the WWS outline and copia days. WWS is the only writing he is doing on those four days, then the fifth day we do something else. Mostly he really enjoys WWS.

[PeterPan]

Just to add another twist to this, I would suggest that older, more mature students are, in general, probably going to get more out of WWS or produce better writing. Maybe that's controversial, but it's my suspicion. We're doing WWS1 right now, and dd is FLYING through it. She's 8th grade. I had the beta last year and didn't do it because I thought the format would overwhelm her. This year she's fine, doing great writing, and able to work through it largely independently. She can often double up the lessons.

 

So yes, I think it's perfectly reasonable to plan a later start date. I do not see the need to rush into it or have it be a 5th grade standard that people are failing to attain. Someone said in another thread that there might end up being 3 levels instead of 4, don't know. If that's the case, 7th/8th/9th might make a lot of sense as far as a general plan. (plus or minus a year depending on your student) We'll just have to see how it ends up. In between WWE and WWS, I would make sure you're doing plenty of outlining and other forms of writing. We worked on outlining quite a bit last year, and that seems to be part of why my dd is going through WWS so easily, because she can see the structure. That takes time to develop in a student and isn't going to happen simply by virtue of having another birthday. It's one of those things where the more you do it the better they get.

[TheApprentice]

I'm using it this year with my ds in 7th grade. Writing is not his favorite topic and he needed a bit of maturity. We are in week 8 and it looks likes waiting was a good idea. He feels more confident in his writing. He had an assignment in History Odyssey to write a biography of 1 - 3 pages. He stated that WWS helped him in being able to take notes from his sources, organize his paper and write 1 - 3 pages without having a fit.:001_smile: And he can truly do this course independently. I'm glad we waited 'til 7th grade.