poetic license Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 I'm homeschooling my oldest only right now and he is in third grade. For first grade, he was with me and we did WWE1 plus some freewriting, written narrations for other subjects and occasional poems. Second grade he went to school. They did the typical writing program that involved prompts with not much direction as to *how* to compose sentences. He didn't make much progress in writing. This year in third grade--he can write a paragraph narration/summary of his SOTW lessons. Capitalization and punctuation is atrocious (never capitalizes beginning of sentences, for example). Ideas and vocab etc. are really good--he's advanced in what he can compose mentally, but getting it on to paper is where it is difficult for him. So far I am doing MCT Grammar Island and my own concoction for writing. We call it dictation/imitation. I dictate a passage from a book and he writes it. Then he corrects spelling, punctuation, etc. We discuss whatever grammar concepts we've learned from MCT and apply it to the passage. Then he writes an "imitation" passage in which he uses the style of the original paragraph, but on a different subject. I have held off on a formal writing program until we finish MCT's grammar. I could just stick with the MCT writing, but I want to think long-term and I don't know if that's the direction I want to stick with through elementary. Here are some of the options: MCT writing WWE CAP Writing and Rhetoric Killgallon So, for a student who is advanced in terms of what he can compose orally, but on grade level for amount of output, what trajectory should I consider? The caveat here is that he has to be able to seamlessly go back to a public/private school because my health is iffy and I'm not sure from year-to-year if I can continue to homeschool. Thanks for any input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrganicMom Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 I'm not as familiar with MCT writing, even though I have owned it in the past. I feel that WWE, W&R, and Killgallon are easily all on grade level for a high verbal producer and a low fleshing it out tolerance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrganicMom Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 About preparing him to go back... Without a LOT of thought... I would first guess that W&R and Killgallon would really prepare him the most... Although I currently have a written plan to do all three, WWE, W&R, & Killgallon... the only reason I'm keeping WWE right now is for the summarizing...but I think W&R still has some of that... but maybe not as specific... as in narrowing it down to the exact points... not sure... not as familiar... b/c i'm just starting W&R fables this week, and I am only in week 11 of WWE2. ETA: Killgallon, may really help improve the sentences he chooses. W&R may begin to stretch his own writing volume, but it seems to be on level, and not be too much from what i'm hearing, in the even he has to go back and be writing far more... my guess is that most schools have kids just writing volumes more than WWE....? :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 Sounds like you are already doing something similar to the Killgallon approach, so I'd go with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrganicMom Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 I agree. AND if you are not sure about your health what your doing or one of the above is sufficient. Go with what takes the lest energy from you. Is it far more difficult to make choices and do a full curriculum, or switch what you are doing now? or would it be easier to go with a program? questions for you to ask yourself. which you probably already have/are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrganicMom Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 Also, Grammar is covered under the Brave Writer addtions, such as Arrow, etc, no? I think I may carry on with Hake, but next year not... we will see... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetic license Posted November 11, 2014 Author Share Posted November 11, 2014 I have Killgallon's Sentence Composing for Elementary School. It doesn't seem that this alone would be sufficient writing instruction for one year of LA, am I correct? Would it be redundant to add WWE 3 to it? And am I understanding correctly that the CAP W&R requires a higher amount of output compared to WWE? I found WWE to be too low for us in the output for level 1 at least; I'm not too familiar with the levels above that. For WWE/WWS, if I wanted to go into WWS in a few years, will it really matter if we have done WWE or not? Thanks for your patience--I've been out of the WTM boards for some time so I'm rusty on all the differences between curricula ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 Also look at Treasured Conversations. It's an excellent program that teaches paragraph composition in a very step by step but at the same time delightfully creative way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetic license Posted November 13, 2014 Author Share Posted November 13, 2014 I actually purchased that one but still haven't read through it. Annnnd I have Bravewriter sitting on my computer as well. I have read a lot of that, but find it better for inspiration rather than practical day-to-day direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 If you want something that's more practical day to day from BW, there's always Partnership Writing, which gives projects - one per month. You could easily use it alongside Killgallon or something else. I feel like it balances a lot of elementary programs really well. Most homeschool programs at this age are really geared toward copying, remembering, structuring, grammar, and imitating. All of that is great, but many kids want to do the creative element in writing, getting their own ideas on the page. PW isn't "just" fiction type creative writing (there's a report type project, and a narration project and several others that aren't really traditional "creative writing"), but it is projects to get kids writing their own words and seeing the romance of writing or the joy of writing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 If you have TC, I would use that! It's excellent. It will get him writing to the level he would need to be for ps 4th grade. My second choice for your situation would be Writing & Rhetoric. Those two are the most complete on their own of what you've listed. I like Killgallon as a supplement. I also think WWE isn't enough on its own at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meadowlark Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 So...for those of you that have actually held these programs in your hands, what is the ideal combination for 3rd grade? I am so confused about mixing and matching all of these different programs. If you could just prescribe a complete writing program for an average kid, what would it be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurelia Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 If I could do third grade over: CAP Fable, then Treasured Conversations, then back to CAP's Writing and Rhetoric going forward. If I were starting over in the middle of the year, I'd use TC. Right now, we've finished 1/3 of TC and I'm having DD reread Sentence Island before moving forward with paragraph writing. We did MCT Island last year, but I'm not sure how much she remembers. WWE (she did 1-3) taught her how to verbally summarize, but it wasn't the best for teaching her how to write a well crafted sentence or paragraph on her own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 If I could do third grade over: CAP Fable, then Treasured Conversations, then back to CAP's Writing and Rhetoric going forward. If I were starting over in the middle of the year, I'd use TC. Right now, we've finished 1/3 of TC and I'm having DD reread Sentence Island before moving forward with paragraph writing. We did MCT Island last year, but I'm not sure how much she remembers. WWE (she did 1-3) taught her how to verbally summarize, but it wasn't the best for teaching her how to write a well crafted sentence or paragraph on her own. What she said! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rimk3 Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 My third grade (age 9) son is enjoying TC and Brave Writer PW for writing this year. I'm still digesting TWJ and trying to decide if I want to fully embrace the BW lifestyle yet. We own WR Fable and will try it out this year as well to see if we like it. This is only my son's second year at home, after two years in public school, so we are still finding out what we love and what we don't. So...for those of you that have actually held these programs in your hands, what is the ideal combination for 3rd grade? I am so confused about mixing and matching all of these different programs. If you could just prescribe a complete writing program for an average kid, what would it be? You do not have to mix and match. Start with TC since you have it and it's a good place to start. :) Then, if you decide you want to add a little PW or WR, go for it. Maybe you will hit a place in TC where you want a break. Do a PW project or a week of Fable. Or not, just do TC if it's working and doing more than one program is stressful. We like variety around here, but it's not for every teacher or every child. So I hesitate to prescribe anything. That being said, if my son needed to be ready to go back to ps for fourth grade, I would feel confident with our current combo of TC and PW projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Writerdaddy Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 Remember in sussing all these different concerns out that your main concern seems to be output. That is, getting a kid to like writing as a way to express themselves and/or have a curriculum that keeps them writing by the kids knowing what to write. I would advise always keeping your main concern a priority: for instance, an over emphasis on grammar can be boring for some kids and also inhibiting. Public schools can teach grammar ok, and a kid can catch up. Sure, it might be awkward for awhile, but they'll catch up. You know where the real issue is right in the moment. Thoughts about the public school etc. are just thoughts-- we don't really know if that is a real issue on the same level of certainty that we know our actual children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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