mct with GWG

[greenmamato3]

if you matched a level of GWG with Town Level MCT, which would you choose for reinforcement and just a bit of independent work scattered throughout the year for weeks that mom's attention needs to be elsewhere? GWG 5? GWG 6? i've looked through the scope and sequence .... just having a hard time figuring out what the best fit would be, since our kids are linguistically-bent kiddos, have complete comfortability with grammar, love to write, enjoy word play, etc etc etc. they are a delight to teach language arts.

 

background info:

my DD8 went through island level this year while also working through R&Sgrade3; DS10 did island plus a smattering of killgallon, dailygrams4, and WWE4. she will work through Town with us and do WWE alternating with IEW-AFF; DS10 will be simultaneously working through Town and alternating between WWS1 and IEW's Geo-based.

 

in the end, i may not add any GWG to our year. i like to have a variety of things we can do, switching up the pace and giving us a break from one thing, even if it means we either don't finish all the GWG or that we take a little longer to "finish" a grade because we're enjoying learning so much.

i think i'd have to buy a GWG level for each of them, since it would be independent-oriented work. (right?)

[serendipitous journey]

I wouldn't suggest GWG unless you know you want it. I think you'd be better off with Evan-Moor paragraph editing or a Critical Thinking Company LA workbook. Why GWG?

[EKS]

If you want to pair something else with Town, I'd look at Hake 5. I'd go through Grammar Town quickly at the beginning of the year and then do Hake for the rest of the year. Hake works well with MCT because it emphasizes everything MCT doesn't.

[nmoira]

GWG is OK for a once-go-round to fill in fiddly gaps (e.g. incidental punctuation or formatting letters), but is not IMHO a program suitable for use year after year because it's not structured in a manner that promotes retention or stretches the student to think their way through an exercise.

[greenmamato3]

If you want to pair something else with Town, I'd look at Hake 5. I'd go through Grammar Town quickly at the beginning of the year and then do Hake for the rest of the year. Hake works well with MCT because it emphasizes everything MCT doesn't.

 

can you expand on this? what does Hake include? what do you see lacking in MCT? maybe that would help me in my search for a balance in our language arts year ....

i'm unfamiliar with hake .... is it teacher intensive?

[EKS]

can you expand on this? what does Hake include? what do you see lacking in MCT? maybe that would help me in my search for a balance in our language arts year ....

i'm unfamiliar with hake .... is it teacher intensive?

 

 

MCT is great at giving students the big picture of grammar. Hake fills in the details. MCT is missing detailed instruction in mechanics (capitalization, punctuation, etc) and Hake has lots of it along with lots of practice. Hake also has diagramming--MCT's four level analysis is great, but one thing it doesn't do is focus at all on what modifies what and Hake does this with diagramming and other exercises. Hake also has more complicated sentences to deal with.

 

Hake uses the Saxon incremental development and distributed practice approach. It's not inspired, but it gets the job done.

[greenmamato3]

you guys are great. as i listen to your ideas, it makes me think more critically about what i'm really looking for.

 

so the thing is, i just want straight grammar instruction to reinforce what they already know, what they will be learning in Town, what he will need for working through IEW's Geo Based, and to generally aid his own creative writing that he does in his free time (a very extensive novel at present).

 

i spent some time looking at the hake 5. it seems to have a lot of writing assignments tied into it. the IEW and WWS will be PLENTY for us to use in alternation for a 5th grade level writing course; i already have those resources in place and see them being the right fit for him. currently, he is working on killgallon sentence composing for elementary along with DailyGrams4 (which he finds almost mindnumbingly easy but is happy to not have a difficult challenge! ;) )on M/W; on T/Th he does Practice Island and GumDrops editing practice. he enjoys all of that and without stress it keeps everything fresh in his mind. we've completed our IEW SWI A for the year ...... so he's productively marking time right now until i'm ready for us to begin our "new" things for 5th grade (MCT town, WWS, IEW geo).

 

originally, i thought that, while somewhat pedantic, the GWG 6 would be a good way to have him independently keep his already-learned grammar understanding strong while still moving a little forward without too much stress, after we complete Grammar Town and Paragraph Town, since i like the idea of him diagramming etc. we will use practice town as a review and i thought maybe something simple like Hajek's Diagramming workbook along with Editor In Chief from Critical Thinking would perhaps be sufficient enough to pair with that instead of a full-blown GWG level.

 

the hake seems to cumbersome for my purposes of just "supplementing" -- and maybe even GWG is as well. my plan is to eventually use Analytical Grammar like in maybe 7th, so i don't feel a need for a real spiral approach every single year. he is very grammar-aware, a naturally linguistic kid. i'd rather him pour any extra educational energy into other areas he also enjoys that are newer discoveries and interest areas to him (greek, french, physics, etc).

 

lol.

am i making any sense? :) i want something super-simple to just reinforced and take him a little further along. i want it to include diagramming; i want it to be mostly self-driven. i don't want it to include writing instruction or direction for journaling or creative writing. i want it to only be supplementary, so that we can use it at our discretion and it doesn't have to be plotted out into lesson plans, etc. :) (and i don't want only DailyGrams). LOL.