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1st grade LA - what all do I need?


Mommie_Jen
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DD has a phonics lesson, reads a picture book or reader, and copies a sentence. I give oral grammar lessons based on FLL1 using her copywork. Otherwise, dd narrates in our content subjects; I don't assign anything else. I'm not familiar with CLE LA, but I don't feel the need to add anything more to what she's doing.

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I'm ditching my boxed curriculum plans and working out my own for next year. We will continue ETC and handwriting and will be using CLE math. Would the CLE LA be too much to add in with the ETC and handwriting already, or is it something we need to be doing?

 

When you say CLE's 1st grade LA, are you also talking about their LTR (Learning to Read) program? If so, then I would say you don't need *that* + ETC/handwriting. Totally redundant. And I wonder how much their 1st grade Reading program is needed...

 

For my 1st grader, we are doing phonics (R&S) and reading (lots of readers, Beginning Steps To Reading by Eastern Mennonite Publications). That, plus one handwriting item/copywork each day, is the extent of our LA program this year.

 

Next year we plan to pick up R&S Spelling and possibly English (though I'm thinking this may wait until 3rd).

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If I had it to do over again with my boys at that age, I'd have put FLL on the shelf and broke out a stack of books to read aloud and work on narration skills and called it good.

 

:iagree: I wish we had done more narration at that age.

 

I also kind of wish we'd done more copywork. It took me a LONG time to get sold on it because it would not have helped me as a child at all. I recently got a chance to look through Bravewriter's The Wand and that would have been perfect for us.

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My first graders used First Language Lessons, copywork for writing, real books for literature, and Phonics Pathways.

 

I have had the chance to do it again, and I've come right back to that simple list. It's gentle, effective, barely takes any time, and my kids thrived on it. I have two more yet to make it to first grade, and I have every intention of using the same list.

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When you say CLE's 1st grade LA, are you also talking about their LTR (Learning to Read) program? If so, then I would say you don't need *that* + ETC/handwriting. Totally redundant. And I wonder how much their 1st grade Reading program is needed...

 

For my 1st grader, we are doing phonics (R&S) and reading (lots of readers, Beginning Steps To Reading by Eastern Mennonite Publications). That, plus one handwriting item/copywork each day, is the extent of our LA program this year.

 

Next year we plan to pick up R&S Spelling and possibly English (though I'm thinking this may wait until 3rd).

 

I'm not looking at their LTR program, but they have another program just called LA. Based on the general opinion here, I'll probably skip it.

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I like to focus on phonics, learning to read, and handwriting first. Then, gradually we add on more as they gain more skills. This, plus quality literature read-alouds. Here's how I plan LA. Have fun! Merry :-)

 

:iagree:

 

Phonics and lots of reading aloud (including audio books) is the entirety of LA/grammar for us until they are reading fluently (both of mine were at 6). Then it's still just lots of reading aloud and alone until third grade, when we start doing grammar in the context of Latin and writing.

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:iagree: I wish we had done more narration at that age.

 

I also kind of wish we'd done more copywork. It took me a LONG time to get sold on it because it would not have helped me as a child at all. I recently got a chance to look through Bravewriter's The Wand and that would have been perfect for us.

 

We've also done a fair amount of narration here with read alouds and such and then formally with WWE. However, we haven't done much copywork as ds just didn't have the handwriting skills. So, we just did what was in WWE1 for 1st. I can see dd1 doing much more copywork as she is much more adept in that area. We've started dictation in more depth this year with WWE2 and our spelling and I'm just absolutely loving it. I'll probably do more with dd1 in that regard for 1st to prepare her.

 

I would have to ditto read-alouds as well, I cannot believe I forgot that. Lots and lots of GOOD books!!!

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I didn't teach mine grammar in first grade, other than basic punctuation and capitalization rules. We read lot's of good books and did copy work each day. VERY glad we did it this way and I didn't try to put too much on them at such a young age. We waited until 3rd grade for a formal grammar based on lot's of great advice I received on HS boards.:)

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So nice to hear how others would have done things differently or what they loved. :) I have a first grader, and we use FLL, WWE1, lots of books (she reads & has read to her) and lots of audio. She does narration for the WWE passages, but we're going slowly with narration in other content areas. We use Spelling Workout for Spelling, but mostly because she just likes to "do school" sometimes and it's independent. I'm not sold on it. ;) I'm glad to hear what's worked for others since this is my first and I haven't seen the rewards just yet.

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