Giving up MCT

[Mom2pandc]

My kids really, really loved this when we started.  DD7 used the entire Island Level, and DS10 was working through the town level.  He loves the story of Paragraph Town and we will finish reading the last chapter, but CE is just not doing it for any of us.  An entire chapter dedicated to 5 words, the part of speech they play, and multiple examples of where they have been used in literature is just a bit dry for our opinion.  We've made flash cards and he's done great at remembering what the stems and words mean, but that's about the extent.  I read "at" him the rest of the chapter.  I like to think I'm quite intelligent, but some of the poetry and story segments are just plain over my head.  And I don't like how the story of Julius Caesar is broken up and we might hit a section a week.  I forget what happens from week to week and so does DS. 

So I'm moving on and shelving it for now (probably selling Island since both kids are completely done with it). 

 

I'm kind of sad because it started off so well. but I guess that's the homeschool life...some things work and others don't.  I think we are going to give KISS Grammar a try for now until I can get to the Cincy Homeschool Conference to get my hands on other grammar options.  Or if we like KISS, we will stick with it. 

 

I will say the grammar portions were phenomenal and both kids can tear apart and analyze sentences better than anyone I know!

 

 

[timetoteach]

I share your thoughts! I don't want to drop it b/c it was so expensive and well-reviewed. DD has learned and doesn't complain about the assignments, but I find it very dry and complicated. We frequently make use of the dictionary app to learn definitions and pronunciations! I think the difficulty of the words can be disheartening for DD. Building language was much more fun for her. The only real fun part is the crossword puzzles (and she likes doing research for the writing assignments). I plan on looking into Wordly Wise and revisit FLL4 possibly. Glad I'm not the only one!

[nansk]

I would interpret that as a sign that my student was not ready for those words. If (say) the student has not encountered those types of words regularly in their daily reading, they may not be eager or willing to study the etymology and nuances of those words.

 

I would put CE aside for a later year. There are other, more fun root word study resources which I would consider in the meantime:

1. English From The Roots Up

2. Red Hot Root Words

3. Words On The Vine

4. Greek And Latin Roots

[BatmansWife]

I've already given up on Grammar Island (I posted about that recently).  I'm glad to hear your experience because I can now see that sticking with it is only going to cause problems even further down the road (maybe mostly for me....if some of GI is over my head and I'm confused....I'm sure the higher levels are just going to be worse).  We are going to finish out this year with some various things that I have here...and then next year I think I'm going to go with Easy Grammar.

[kbutton]

We are using grammar (and some writing), but we dropped CE. I think my son will enjoy the Roman information and pics separately, but it was a lot of information for a few words. He loved Building Language. We're doing a word roots book from Critical Thinking Company, and he loves it. He's keeping a card file of the stuff he learns.

[dbmamaz]

fwiw, I used paragraph town only with my 8th grader (first year we homeschooled) and it was great for him.  We used the entire journey set the next year, and we loved it for a while, but got totally burnt out on it.  It took over a year to finish, and by the end of it, I never wanted to read anything about a journey on a ship EVER AGAIN!  We have 2 of the level 4 books but I doubt we'll get to them.  I'm pretty sure I wont use MCT with  my younger, much less verbally gifted son.

[Mom2pandc]

My kids learned a LOT from the grammar portions. I just can't wrap my head around the CE. My kids love learning new vocabulary and they like looking for the word stems, but so much of CE was repetitive. I'd rather have had more like building language where it showed where the word came from (word roots, latin version, Spanish version, etc) than just endless examples of where the words have been used in literature.

I'm not getting rid of it just yet, but we are definately shelving it.

[TKDmom]

I tried (several times) to like CE. And I just couldn't do it. I know others LOVE those books, but I finally sold all of mine. Reading through all of the examples of literature that use the words made me want to pull my eyelashes out. Peter Pan says this...Robinson Crusoe says this... blah, blah, blah. It was too disjointed for me.

 

If my dd had enjoyed the book, I would have had her read it independently. Maybe if she wasn't studying Latin, we would have persevered. But I decided to just drop CE and continue with Latin. I'm now using Island Level with my 2nd child (who is not nearly as verbal as my eldest), and I'll probably have him continue with the grammar and writing books for Town level, but I can't bring myself to use more of the MCT materials past that.  :sad: