Help me think through language arts

[acurtis75]

I am trying to decide what to do about language arts. dd is 7 and due to various life circumstances (I.e we've traveled out of town 7 times since the end of June...I am six months pregnant and spent some time in September & October being too tired and nauseous to get much done, etc) we aren't as far along as we thought we would be at this point in FLL3 and WWE 3. Really, they are probably both too easy for her but I was trying to complete the books before we moved on to something else. Now I'm thinking it might be best to skip ahead and/or just move on.

 

I was considering just doing several lessons a day in FLL because dd likes diagramming and doesn't need all the repetition of definitions, etc. with WWE I was thinking we would do the narrations and skip the dictation. She gets the dictations right 99 percent of the time with no assistance from me for spelling or punctuation so I don't know that needs any more practice. She does well with the narrations and enjoys reading the stories. She told me the FLL is too easy but she likes the diagramming.

 

Does that sound like a reasonable plan or should we just move on to something else. If/when we move on were should we go? A little background on dd. She does Latin for Children A and has no problem with the grammar. We did mct island last summer and she found is easy also. She has been reading on an adult level for several years. We stopped spelling curriculum after trying 4 different programs because she always spelled everything right on the pre-tests every week.

 

Eta: I should have probably mentioned that I'm aware we're not really "behind" because she would only be in 2nd grade in school but I feel behind because we're not where we would be if we were more consistent lately and I know she's not challenged.

[dbmamaz]

Have you looked in to Bravewriter? its not a curriculum as much as an approach to language arts. To me, language arts should be about making progress, not about any specific curriculum. I dont think 'behind' or 'ahead' really matters - what matters is keeping her engaged and making the best use of the time you have. i would drop a curriculum if it feels mostly like busywork.

[acurtis75]

Have you looked in to Bravewriter? its not a curriculum as much as an approach to language arts. To me, language arts should be about making progress, not about any specific curriculum. I dont think 'behind' or 'ahead' really matters - what matters is keeping her engaged and making the best use of the time you have. i would drop a curriculum if it feels mostly like busywork.

 

I haven't looked at it but will check it out. My primary concern isn't where she is based on grade level or acceleration but that she is learning something and it challenges her. Everything comes so easy for her I think I'm doing her a disservice with the easy busywork.

[boscopup]

You can always skip ahead to a harder grammar program or add in diagramming to one that doesn't include it. We did half of FLL3 last year and then jumped over to KISS Grammar (grade 3 book) right around this time. We did most of level 1, and now we're dabbling in R&S English 4, mostly skimming through lessons and doing most of it orally, then diagramming a couple sentences on the board.

 

It won't hurt one bit to jump into whatever grammar program you want at an appropriate level.

 

For WWE, when we were doing WWE1 and DS was ready for dictation (he never had any trouble with copywork whatsoever and he kind of mentally checked out while doing it), we just did the narrations and skipped the copywork except for the day 4 copywork where they copy part of their own narration. In this manner, we were able to basically double time it and then start WWE2. I imagine you could do something similar with WWE3. My son liked doing the narrations. :)

 

At any rate, 2nd grade was a toughy for us in the grammar/writing arena. My son was still pencil phobic, so not ready to really *write* yet, but his ability with grammar was very high. But since he wasn't writing original sentences yet, I didn't see much point in zooming ahead in grammar, ya know? This year, we're happier with where we are. Grammar is still easy, but we're able to use it in our writing now.

 

We never did finish FLL3, and that's ok. Most elementary programs repeat everything every year.

[acurtis75]

You can always skip ahead to a harder grammar program or add in diagramming to one that doesn't include it. We did half of FLL3 last year and then jumped over to KISS Grammar (grade 3 book) right around this time. We did most of level 1, and now we're dabbling in R&S English 4, mostly skimming through lessons and doing most of it orally, then diagramming a couple sentences on the board.

 

It won't hurt one bit to jump into whatever grammar program you want at an appropriate level.

 

For WWE, when we were doing WWE1 and DS was ready for dictation (he never had any trouble with copywork whatsoever and he kind of mentally checked out while doing it), we just did the narrations and skipped the copywork except for the day 4 copywork where they copy part of their own narration. In this manner, we were able to basically double time it and then start WWE2. I imagine you could do something similar with WWE3. My son liked doing the narrations. :)

 

At any rate, 2nd grade was a toughy for us in the grammar/writing arena. My son was still pencil phobic, so not ready to really *write* yet, but his ability with grammar was very high. But since he wasn't writing original sentences yet, I didn't see much point in zooming ahead in grammar, ya know? This year, we're happier with where we are. Grammar is still easy, but we're able to use it in our writing now.

 

We never did finish FLL3, and that's ok. Most elementary programs repeat everything every year.

 

Out of curiosity, why the change from KISS to R & S? What did you like/dislike about each.

 

When you say your son wasn't writing original sentences do you mean outside of wwe or that he was still giving you the answers orally and you wrote them? I forgot that the instructions are to do it that way. I stopped writing them for her several months ago. At this point she is reading the story and writing her own sentences for the narration. She doesn't love the physical act of writing but she's capable of doing it. Sometimes I write in other subjects (I.e if we are doing a lot of Latin translations and she gets tired I write half the answers for her) but since she is capable of doing the narrations on her own I've been letting her.

[The Governess]

I was in the same spot last year. Dd8 is a 3rd grader this year by age and we are about halfway through FLL4 and WWE 4. We did level 3 of the programs last year when she was a 2nd grader.

 

Are you planning on sticking with WWE/WWS for the long run? If so, I would base your decision on how fast to move ahead on when you think your dd will be ready to start WWS. My dd is at the point now where she is writing pretty decent narrations independently, but there are a few issues I still want to iron out with her this year - remembering to introduce the characters/topics by name rather than starting out with pronouns, organizing information logically, using sequencing words when appropriate, etc. WWE4 is very repetitive but is giving us a lot of time to practice these concepts and really get her ready for what is coming next. She also writes independent narrations for her bible and history reading, and I have seen a huge improvement in these narrations in the last year based on the work we are doing in WWE. That said, we are skipping weeks of WWE4 here and there and working on other writing projects (literature-based, poetry, letters, etc) to mix things up a bit. So, if you wanted to get back on track, you could easily finish WWE3 partways into third grade and then just cut out some of WWE4 so you finish when you had originally hoped to. IMO it's easier to cut out weeks from WWE4 than WWE3.

 

As for the grammar, I do think you could easily double up on lessons, cutting out some of the repetitive chanting and instructional dialog to make things go faster.... or skip over the review portions if she doesn't need them. I am planning on finishing up level four and switching to either Exercises in English or R&S 5 for next year (probably R&S).

[acurtis75]

I considered switching to wws when it first came out but decided to finish wwe3 before making a decision between wwe4 and wws. I really liked the samples of the grammar program which was shelved and planning to do that after fll3 but now don't really have a plan.

 

I am really struggling and torn between the idea that we don't really need to rush (I saw SWB speak at the Houston conference in August and the talk seemed to validate this position) and the idea that I need to challenge and encourage her to progress to the best of her abilities.

 

I am all over the place right now in my thinking on this and readily admit that pregnancy brain might be a contributing factor.

[anabelneri]

I'm in the same pregnancy-brain boat, and I've had similar questions in the past. My current solution (especially with baby brain) is to pick something and just go with it until I have more brainspace to really sort through options, which might be a while. So right now we're halfway through FLL4, we've done some MCT, and we just started WWS this week. WWS might be a challenge, but dd asked for it and I think it might suit her pretty well once she gets used to the differences between it and WWE. FLL4 is pretty easy for her, but she likes it pretty well overall, and if we get through a lesson quickly it means she has more free time later in the day. After stressing about grammar in 1st & 2nd grade, I've realized that there really is no rush; she already knows more grammar than I did in school even though we took about 1-1/2 years off from the subject. We'll probably skip a grade level when we switch to Voyages in English after FLL4, but then I figure we'll putter along, telescoping the program as necessary. Oh, and we keep MCT around too, though not so much the grammar book; the writing book also contains grammar in addition to the writing instruction.

 

I've tended to emphasize challenging dd in language arts through literature & foreign language. She's at her happiest ever this year, and it's hard to tell if it's because she's 9 or if it's because her brain is finally content now that she's added a second foreign language to her studies.

 

:)

[boscopup]

Out of curiosity, why the change from KISS to R & S? What did you like/dislike about each.

 

 

Sorry I took a while to come back to this question. I didn't want to type it out on my phone. :D

 

KISS: I love that it's real sentences, so my son couldn't just learn a pattern. He actually learned how to pick out the parts of speech, no matter the word order. I love that it doesn't repeat everything year to year, but instead it adds new things each time while you continue to practice old things. So when we start level 2, we won't be back to, "This is a noun." We know what a noun is by now. What made me temporarily set it aside was that we were getting to the end of level 1, and most of the topics had already been covered by other grammar programs (we've done FLL1, half of FLL2, half of FLL3, and bits and pieces of R&S 2 and 3). We also do Latin, which includes... grammar! When I do go back to KISS, I will not do all the exercises though. I think that was one mistake I made that kind of burned us out on the process. I was sick of finding subject, verb, complements.

 

R&S4: Note that earlier levels of R&S are incredibly easy, and this one is pretty easy too, but it's more interesting than the other levels. I skipped much of the first unit, which talks about sentence vs. fragment, subject/predicate, etc. He knows that stuff. What drew me to the program was some of the in depth lessons that we weren't necessarily getting elsewhere. Usage lessons especailly - raise vs. rise, that sort of thing. Honestly, I didn't know when to use lay vs. lie. Now I can remember that "lay" takes a direct object and "lie" does not. Same for "raise" and "rise", respectively. These were good exercises for DS to go through. I also like that R&S teaches diagramming. I have DS do two sentences on the white board - I write the sentence, and he draws and fills in the diagram. In addition, I like some of the little writing exercises - simple things like, "Write two sentences from the pictures below using a direct object in each sentence." For a writing phobic child, these are good exercises. :)

 

I like using multiple grammar programs and just switching when I get bored. :lol:

 

When you say your son wasn't writing original sentences do you mean outside of wwe or that he was still giving you the answers orally and you wrote them? I forgot that the instructions are to do it that way. I stopped writing them for her several months ago. At this point she is reading the story and writing her own sentences for the narration. She doesn't love the physical act of writing but she's capable of doing it. Sometimes I write in other subjects (I.e if we are doing a lot of Latin translations and she gets tired I write half the answers for her) but since she is capable of doing the narrations on her own I've been letting her.

 

 

In WWE, you aren't supposed to write the answers to the questions at all. You're supposed to write the child's narration. The questions/answers are meant to be done orally. My son would freak if I had him writing those answers! :willy_nilly:

 

He was not writing original sentences, as in - If I told him to write a sentence about his dog, he would freeze up. In fact, in a R&S exercise last year, he was supposed to finish some sentences. The first one was, "Jesus said _____" and he did that one ok... "I am He." Note that those are all very small words that he could spell easily. ;) The next sentence was, "The teacher said _____" That completely freaked him out. I even gave him some examples, and he still freaked out. :blink: His problem was perfectionism - He didn't want to write the words if he couldn't spell them.

 

This year, he is doing IEW, and he can now write a paragraph from keywords without freaking out. Phew! He has also done some very short written narrations (though the first time I tried having him write one to two sentences about his science reading, he did copywork from the book instead :rolleyes: ). On the spelling front, two things have happened: 1) Spelling is clicking now that he's 8 and has had some practice studying spelling words via R&S Spelling, which I love, btw, and 2) In IEW, they encourage the child to use a PEN for the rough draft and not worry about spelling while writing. He can ask me, the human dictionary, how to spell a word, and I'll happily tell him. But if he doesn't ask and he spells something wrong, that's ok. When he was writing a story about "The Droid Who Cried Canon", he misspelled "enemies" as "enumies". That's expected. He's never had to write the word before. It hasn't exactly come up in our spelling program yet. So during the editing process, I just correct those things, and then when he writes the final copy (in pencil!), he can use the correct spelling.

 

So yeah, your DD and my DS are waaaaaaaaay different in the writing department. :D

[acurtis75]

 

 

In WWE, you aren't supposed to write the answers to the questions at all. You're supposed to write the child's narration. The questions/answers are meant to be done orally. My son would freak if I had him writing those answers! :willy_nilly:

 

When I saw this response and re-read my question I laughed at the thought if dd answering those questions. I meant are you writing the narrations for him but wasn't very clear.

 

We took a break this week and did our state's reading, math & writing tests to gauge her level so I'm still thinking over where to go from here. We did the 8th grade reading test and as per my other thread scored high enough to be in the top 2 percent of 8th graders. I knew her writing wouldn't be as far along so we did the 4th grade exam and she did well (despite completing most if it in a store while dh and I were furniture shopping).

 

I'm going to research some of the programs you and others have mentioned and maybe we'll just add or supplement.

[boscopup]

Ha! Ok, no, he wasn't writing his own narrations. He did exactly what it said to do - me taking his dictation, then I dictated one or two sentences back to him.

[acurtis75]

Ha! Ok, no, he wasn't writing his own narrations. He did exactly what it said to do - me taking his dictation, then I dictated one or two sentences back to him.

 

That's what I figured based on your more detailed response. Until you mentioned it I forgot that we were not following the instructions exactly. Dd doesn't have a problem formulating her own sentences and putting them on paper. She rarely makes spelling or punctuation errors. She occasionally struggles with her effort/desire level (I.e. let me see how short we can make these sentences so I don't have to write much) but not with the ability to do it.

 

I'm thinking we'll finish up wwe3 with her doing the narrations only and double up on FLL to get through that book faster. Since loves reading the stories in WWE so since she seems to be on pace and possibly even ahead with her ability to narrate I'm going to let her finish and enjoy it. Now I'm off to research some of these other writing programs to see if we want to add some supplementation.

[boscopup]

She occasionally struggles with her effort/desire level (I.e. let me see how short we can make these sentences so I don't have to write much) but not with the ability to do it.

 

This is what my son mostly struggles with at this point. It's not that he can't do it. He has no problem holding a thought in his head and writing it down. His problem completely revolves around freaking out over whether he knows how to spell the words. He has also done the counting words thing, trying to make his narration as short as possible when he knew he'd have to write it. I'm actually going to try WWE again for a bit and see how he does now that he's gotten over some of the spelling fear (because his spelling is improved and because he knows that misspelling a word isn't the end of the world).

 

He does need to do narrations more. We kind of slacked off on them, and recently he mentioned that one of his hockey team members broke his leg during a game. I asked him how it happened, and he stammered a bit and finally said, "I just can't summarize it!" I was proud of him for using the word "summarize". :lol: But yeah, we gotta get back to doing narrations. In first grade, I had him doing 2-3 oral narrations per day, and he was REALLY good at them. Now... not so much. My fault. I've slacked off on requiring them.