Can I drop WWE and still use WWS down the road?

[abrightmom]

SWB is one of my heroes. I love her, her books, etc.

 

I feel like a traitor. Her writing lectures make such sense to me and it's time to listen again because I'm losing my grip on what the heck is going on with writing.

 

My 10 year old has NOT had the writing foundation that I envisioned. My biggest goal this year is to work hard in that arena. So, step one is plugging along with WWE3.

 

He handles narrations and dictations fine although I do not ask him to remember the entire passage. We do studied dictation with the WWE passages.

 

But, the summary work is KILLING us. Now, we are only on Week 6 or something. So, it's still early. But, my son is CLUELESS. I basically do the summary work for him and he "approves it".

 

I'm not sure what we're learning and after spending soooooo long on the WWE assignment (in which I do most of the work and then want to scream) there is no time or energy left to do any other kind of writing.

 

I intend to begin IEW with him and would like to focus on that alone for awhile. With 30 minutes a day we can work steadily through the SWI-A and get "pencil to paper" for awhile.

 

Writing with Skill is the goal, however. I don't know when we will begin although I think we'll start later (age 12, 6th grade).

 

Is the slog worth it for summary work or is there a developmental readiness for it? He's a bright kid and seems to learn/retain easily but summarizing is meaningless to him. Funny thing is he says to me, "Mom, I know why she calls it Writing With Ease. It's easy!". :glare: I don't think he's learning anything with it right now but maybe we need to keep with it?

 

I assume that strong summary skills are a pre-req for WWS. Maybe I should rework our use of WWE3 and work through the summarizations orally and typing them out for him to read through when we're done. Then, focus his writing efforts elsewhere for awhile (i.e. IEW).

 

Thoughts?

[justLisa]

I use WWE in 1st and 2nd, and then start IEW. You can absolutely veer off and then use WWS when appropriate.

[edeemarie]

If you do IEW they do have a unit on story summaries (I can't remember the specific number). I, just like you, have the ultimate goal of using WWS. This year I am trying to do both WWE and IEW but it is hard to fit them both in. I usually do IEW 4 days a week and use the last for an abbreviated version of WWE. I am still working with this schedule but once we finish WWE3 I am pretty certain we will be done with WWE and use IEW until we are ready for WWS.

[TarynB]

Can he summarize orally with no problem? Is it the actual writing that he finds meaningless? Written summaries can be quite tedious and boring, especially if the kid is smart and he finds it "beneath his level". I highly recommend IEW for actual writing, getting pencil to paper, instead of just re-telling what someone else wrote, which my DS strongly disliked. We're doing IEW this year (5th grade) and will pick up with WWS later.

[abrightmom]

Can he summarize orally with no problem? Is it the actual writing that he finds meaningless? Written summaries can be quite tedious and boring, especially if the kid is smart and he finds it "beneath his level". I highly recommend IEW for actual writing, getting pencil to paper, instead of just re-telling what someone else wrote, which my DS strongly disliked. We're doing IEW this year (5th grade) and will pick up with WWS later.

 

No, oral summaries don't happen. :001_smile: He is all over the map with this approach. It worked better last year when we were just doing oral narrations in history (with no writing output). I saw tremendous growth in him.

 

As I'm writing everything out I think WWE is not a good fit for him anymore. We need to keep working on oral narrations and do a studied dictation a couple times a week. Then, I need to launch something else for "writing class" (IEW). I am still considering using WWE3 to walk him thru oral summarizing once a week.

[boscopup]

I'll bet the keyword outlines in IEW would help him. Certainly worth a try! While IEW doesn't really do the same type of summary like WWE does, I think the method could easily be used to transition to that type of summary.

 

We did well with WWE1 and 2, but for 3rd grade, I just knew my son needed something a bit different. IEW has really helped him get words onto paper and release some of his perfectionism. The keywords being there have been a good crutch to help him transition to writing on his own. We plan to do IEW for 3rd and 4th, then WWS in 5th if I think he's ready (though if we need to wait until 6th, that'd be fine too).

 

The structure lessons in IEW are wonderful, and while the style can make you cringe, I've actually seen it force my son to put his voice back into the sentences instead of shortening them because he's writing them (he does beautiful oral narrations UNTIL he knows he will have to write part of it, and then he wants to make it as short as humanly possible :tongue_smilie:). I've told him that the requirement for them in every paragraph is just a tool, and that when he writes later on, he won't have to do that - he's just learning how to use each tool by using them all the time. It's getting easier. He wrote a unit 3 story (rewriting "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"... His was "The Droid Who Cried Canon"), and one paragraph he forgot his dressups, but once he added them in, it made it so much better! And as he learns that writing longer sentences is not going to make his hand fall off or make the world explode, the need for the dressup requirements will go away. ;)

[monalisa]

If I were you, I'd start on SWI-A. I had similar issues with dd9, and we're about 1/2 way through WWE3, which we started part way into last year. She can do narrations pretty well, but summaries not so well. The dictation is very helpful for her. I still do use WWE 3 occasionally, but she is loving IEW SWI-A and doing better with it than I expected. The WWE3 routine was getting very old for us, so SWI-A is a lot more interesting. She even asked me this week if she could come to the Midwest Homeschool Convention with me next year to meet Mr. Pudewa!

[abrightmom]

Alright, that settles it.

 

It is time to set aside the slogging with WWE3 and launch IEW. I can't run both as I'd hoped and we are losing ground with WWEinstead of moving forward in writing skills. The IEW materials are sitting here begging to be test run. :001_smile:

[Kendall]

I'm using WWS1 with a 5th and 7th grader and WWS2 with a 9th grader.

 

Neither have used WWE though we have done some of that sort of thing.

[TarynB]

I'll bet the keyword outlines in IEW would help him. Certainly worth a try! . . . IEW has really helped him get words onto paper and release some of his perfectionism. The keywords being there have been a good crutch to help him transition to writing on his own.

 

The structure lessons in IEW are wonderful, and while the style can make you cringe, I've actually seen it force my son to put his voice back into the sentences instead of shortening them because he's writing them (he does beautiful oral narrations UNTIL he knows he will have to write part of it, and then he wants to make it as short as humanly possible :tongue_smilie:). I've told him that the requirement for them in every paragraph is just a tool, and that when he writes later on, he won't have to do that - he's just learning how to use each tool by using them all the time. It's getting easier. He wrote a unit 3 story (rewriting "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"... His was "The Droid Who Cried Canon"), and one paragraph he forgot his dressups, but once he added them in, it made it so much better! And as he learns that writing longer sentences is not going to make his hand fall off or make the world explode, the need for the dressup requirements will go away. ;)

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

[abrightmom]

I opened up the IEW materials and watched a portion of the first DVD :hurray: As I listened to Mr. Pudewa I began to recall why I purchased IEW in the first place. Hopefully, we can start Monday. :001_smile: