WWS if we didn't love WWE (and only did less than one year of it)?

[tammyw]

I just had my daughter do the sample that I downloaded from WWS (Week one, day one), on creating a summary of what she read. I don't think it was a great summary, but I'm not going to judge her on that really. It did make me realize this is an area we should probably work on (she is decent at dictation, but we haven't done a lot of narration either, something I've been planning on adding in this year).

 

Can anyone tell me if this would be a good resource for me, to get summarizing and narration down in an easy and painless way? Are there other options? These two items aren't really built into The Arrow lessons we've been using, so I'm curious if anyone has advice to offer.

 

Thank you very much in advance. I realize I have a lot of questions lately. This happens to me about this time every year :)

[countrygal]

I am not an expert in WWE as I have only done 1 year, but I have heard that it is important to start from the beginning as each level builds on the other. If you used levels higher than WWE 1 to start, she may not have the right foundation to continue into WWS. I think an older student can go faster through the beginning levels to catch up. Maybe someone else can chime in who has more experience.

[tammyw]

Oh wow, I didn't realize that. I guess it's not a suitable option for us at all then.

 

[prairiegirl]

I never used WWE with my kids but we did do narrations and summaries on our own. I used WWS when dd was in Gr.7 and it worked out just fine. DD really enjoyed it. I am intending on doing the same with ds this year as he will be in Gr.7 as well. From your sig line, I see that your dd is only 9. WWS might be a bit of a stretch for her. Couldn't you do narrations from the books that you are reading from The Arrow? If you did this for a year then she would probably be ready to do WWS.

[truebluexf]

Hmmmm, I don't think you have to do WWE to do WWS, though it may have been helpful.

[countrygal]

It still may be, but I don't know how to fast-track through WWE. Hopefully someone out there does! Do you have a copy of the WWE book? (No just one of the workbooks.) It outlines what should be done each year for how many weeks and gives you samples. Years 1 and 2 are on narration, copywork and dictation. She wants the student to be able to put ideas into words and put the words on paper. Then years 3-4 begin putting those two skills together. I'm not familiar with WWS. Maybe someone can chime in if they have been in this situation.

[TarynB]

Don't give up on WWS yet. Agreeing with previous poster, 9 is young for WWS, especially if she's not done much narrating before. And WWE is not a required prerequisite for WWS at all. However, narration/summarizing skills will be needed, and paragraph-writing skills and perhaps an *introduction* to formal outlining will be helpful before starting WWS.

 

Also, you don't need to start WWE at the beginning to be successful with the WWE series. You're fine to jump into WWE at WWE3 or the optional WWE4 (perhaps with modified requirements for the dictations, because many agree they are too hard). But neither WWE3 nor WWE4 is required to do WWS - you can get the skills needed to start WWS elsewhere, as others have described.

[TarynB]

It still may be, but I don't know how to fast-track through WWE. Hopefully someone out there does! Do you have a copy of the WWE book? (No just one of the workbooks.) It outlines what should be done each year for how many weeks and gives you samples. Years 1 and 2 are on narration, copywork and dictation. She wants the student to be able to put ideas into words and put the words on paper. Then years 3-4 begin putting those two skills together. I'm not familiar with WWS. Maybe someone can chime in if they have been in this situation.

 

You're right, by WWE4, the work is still focused on narration and dictation (no copywork though), just harder and more complex, and doing it on paper instead of verbally. An older student can easily start out doing WWE3 (for instance) verbally and then shift quickly to writing it down. No need to run through all 4 levels, unless you just want to.

 

The first few weeks of WWS is a review of the written narration skills, then moves on to new skills.

[tammyw]

Oh sorry everyone - I haven't updated my signature. She is 10 and starting grade 5 work already. She is a prolific writer (she wrote a story on her own that was 60 pages handwritten, she has taken several writing classes - she writes a lot). We just haven't done narrations or summaries, so that's our stumbling block and and area it seems we should be working on.

[tammyw]

It still may be, but I don't know how to fast-track through WWE. Hopefully someone out there does! Do you have a copy of the WWE book? (No just one of the workbooks.) It outlines what should be done each year for how many weeks and gives you samples. Years 1 and 2 are on narration, copywork and dictation. She wants the student to be able to put ideas into words and put the words on paper. Then years 3-4 begin putting those two skills together. I'm not familiar with WWS. Maybe someone can chime in if they have been in this situation.

 

I don't have a copy of the book, no.

[Dahliarw]

You might want to just read the instructors text for WWE and read about how to do summaries/narrations. Then practice them with her using content from another area (history or science or literature readings). You also probably could find some online resources that will give you an idea of what to look for in narrations/summaries too if you don't want to buy the instructor text. At her age you can do a few narrations to help teach her how to summarize, but then she should be able to start writing her own summaries based on readings.

[Another Lynn]

I have used WWE and DS is now using WWS. I think WWS can be done without ever having done WWE and it is different than WWE. So if you didn't like WWE, you still might like WWS. That said, I'm not sure I'd call it painless exactly. Some of the reading selections are quite challenging. My son is 11 and a very strong reader. He still sometimes needs help with the reading selections. And it is not just narrations and summaries. There are other things like outlining, thesaurus use, etc.

 

I agree with Dahliarw about perhaps just using the methods with your own reading selections. If she especially hates narrations/summaries she might like them better if she can choose some of the reading selections.

 

That said, I like WWS. I think it is very good. I just wanted to warn you that it might not be exactly "painless".

 

 

:iagree: It's a great progression in building skills. But ds found it tedious. We ultimately dropped it. I agree that it is not "painless."

[tammyw]

 

:iagree: It's a great progression in building skills. But ds found it tedious. We ultimately dropped it. I agree that it is not "painless."

 

I don't think we are going to use it. It doesn't sound like the right fit for us (much like WWE wasn't).

 

Lynn - are you using other products you like?

[Another Lynn]

 

I don't think we are going to use it. It doesn't sound like the right fit for us (much like WWE wasn't).

 

Lynn - are you using other products you like?

 

No, I'm sorry. My middle kids are thriving with IEW, but I think that's primarily because they've done it in the context of Classical Conversation's Essential's class - the accountability and positive peer pressure has been fantastic for us. When I tried IEW on my own with my oldest, we were less than successful. I don't think the step-by-step was what he needed, yet I wasn't very good at closing the gap from where he was to where we needed to go. He never wrote 60 page stories when he was 10yo, but he is inclined to do it now as a 14yo, and he wrote great narrations in 5th/6th/7th grade. So, it's not pencil-phobia that is the problem per se, but rather learning the structure of the essay. We worked on that this last year by doing some 5 paragraph "report" style papers (Unit 8 ? from IEW). With a 5th grader, I would work on writing a solid paragraph. Summarizing and outlining (single level) can be practiced in small doses, imho. We never used The Paragraph Book (?) but I think that's one that's mentioned here a lot. EPS has a series called Writing Skills (Book 1 would probably be a good level) - It is very much a work-book and you don't have to be legalistic about filling out every page (or any of them), but it explains different kinds of paragraphs and gives topic suggestions for paragraphs, which I found helpful. When I was at a total loss one year, I simply started requiring him to write a page every day about any topic of his choice. I had a list of topics for him to choose from if he drew a blank, but he never used my list. I think that was as helpful for him at the time as anything else we tried. So, I'm sorry to say we are still muddling through because though I, as teacher, would like the hand-holding of IEW or WWS, he as student is frustrated by it. I will probably find the path clearer for my middle children and see easily what I should have done for my oldest long after he figures it out for himself, lol. And if you find something you like, please come back and share!