Help me figure out LA for my rising 8th grader

[mothergooseof4]

Ds has studied grammar thoroughly, yet doesn't apply mechanics to his writing. His writing assignments are always full of punctuation and capitalization failures. When going over a grammar lesson with him the other day, he had mislabeled most of the parts of speech in a sentence except for basic nouns and verbs. He has studied this in the past and, during the studies, would label them correctly. Our best success with grammar was with Phonics Road 2 a few years ago, but we both despised the process and it took way too much of my day with mulitple kids to teach. He also has terrible writing skills in general. He has great creativity, but organization is terrible. We have tried IEW with the SWI, but it was way to much talk for my straight-forward, to the point kid. Writing Strands was not structured enough. And, this year's work through Essentials in Writing just doesn't seem to be producing results, but I can't pinpoint why. His output is just poor.

 

He is an awesome reader and retains content excellently. However, he cannot weed through a math, writing, or grammar lesson and comprehend a thing. Skill subjects I typically have to teach. We have never done a formal literature study, though we have done tons of reading and discussion type things. We just haven't covered literary terms and such.

 

I really want his grammar and writing skills beefed up before high school, and would like a formal study of literature. I do not want to be doing LA all day though.

 

So far, I am thinking of these things for 8th:

 

*Math- Algebra 1, curriculum has not been decided

*History-Second half of Notgrass ATB with mom added literature for reading, then Texas history to finish out the year

*Bible/Personal Devotions-daily Bible reading, family devotion time, mixture of books I select for independent reading

*Science-Apologia Physical Science

*considering Latin, which we have never studied

 

For LA, I am considering WWS 1, but wonder if he is going to struggle. I have also considered just working through one of the IEW workbooks instead of using the dvds.

 

Grammar? I have no idea what I can use to help him actually retain this and carry it over to his writing.

 

And a literature study? Should I just stick with reading good books like we have been and put off formal literature studies until high school? Or, is it time for something more formal? I like the looks of something like BJU, but then it kind of goes against my whole homeschooling career of using real books. I have looked at Progeny Press guides, but they seem boring.

 

What combo could I do with to make sure all LA areas are covered?

[KellyMama]

What about IEW Fix It? I've heard good things about it. Or maybe another "editing style" program so he can see the grammar and punctuation in context?

 

We do well here with basic structure and repetition. A combination of Easy Grammar and Daily Grams last year (6th) and this year Growing with Grammar 7 and Daily Grams have really cemented the concepts for our rising 8th grader. I'm looking at using GWG 8 along with one of the Killgallon books (Sentence composing?) because what we need to focus on in 8th is sentence structure.

 

We'll also be using IEW SWI-B for writing. For literature, I'm considering Lightning Lit 8. You could also try Figuratively Speaking if you want to introduce the terms for literary criticism without actually doing a "program".

[mothergooseof4]

Thanks for the recommendations. So far, I am REALLY considering WWS, Fix-it, and Killgallon. For literature, I am still researching. I like just picking books I want him to read, but still want him to learn some lit. analysis. I have Teaching the Classics, so I am considering just doing a few books with that method and adding in some Figuratively Speaking as I see fit.