Language Arts resources/books rec's for tutoring 2x week

[Isabella]

Hi,

 

So, just for some background...  I homeschooled my 3 girls for 9 years, with a couple of public school years at different times for each kid mixed in amongst it all.  I haven't homeschooled now for nearly 5 years, as my dd's are all grown, and I sold all my materials when I finished.

Nowadays I do some remedial spelling tutoring, which started off with a lady, who knew I homeschooled my dyslexic kid successfully, asking if I would do some spelling tutoring for her 8yo son.  I use Apples and Pears, as I'd used that program for my daughter and was very happy with it.  Then a friend of theirs asked me to tutor her son, then another, and another after that.  Up to now, it's been remedial spelling only and I use A&P for all of them.

 

Now a lady has asked me to help her 7th grader (12yo) with language arts in general.  He got a bad grade in his last school report, and she'd like to lift that grade.  He's (I suppose) typical of a vast number of boys who resonate more with maths and science and don't love language arts.  His mother brought me some of his school work (he's in ps, if that makes a difference), and his work is very messy in general.  It basically looks like he doesn't want to be doing it, and is putting in as little effort as he can get away with.  I did an assessment with him the other day.  His mother had given me the impression that he was around the same level as his younger brother that is doing spelling with me.  He is not, but he's certainly not at grade level.  His reading age (Schonell test) is 9yrs 11mo.  His comprehension is probably at a 4th grade level.  Reading fluency and spelling were not too bad, but again, not at grade level really.  I would probably say his current level would be around 4th grade. And, as I said - handwriting was pretty messy, so it'd probably be good to work on that, I guess.  He doesn't use cursive, as it's not really used here in general in school.

 

At first I was not really confident about the idea, as LA quite a broad area, and it would be so different to the sessions I do now. Also, I would have him only 2x week for an hour each time which hardly seems enough to cover all that needs covering.  But I think I'm getting more used to the idea, as I loved teaching language arts to my own dd's, and if I can get the right resources I'm sure it'll work out fine.  So I really, really need some ideas of what to use.  Here in Australia, we don't have a great focus on grammar, so I'm not sure that we'll do much more than the basics...it'd be wasted, I think.  When one of my dd's went to school in 9th grade, the teacher was shocked that she knew what a pronoun was, and could name them all, and couldn't believe her ears when she also said something about prepositions.  I think the teacher barely knew what a preposition was herself.

 

I guess what I need is something that would teach (either separate programs or something comprehensive):

 

Writing

Punctuation

Basic grammar

Reading fluency (or maybe this will come about naturally as we do some reading aloud?)

 

I will use one of the levels of Apples and Pears for spelling, I think.

And I think if I insist on neatness, he'll probably improve in that (hopefully, anyway)

 

Suggestions, advice, or whatever greatly appreciated.

 

And if you think I've missed anything, please let me know! :)

 

Thank you, thank you!!

 

ETA: Material from the US is fine, it's usually available here, and if not, I'm happy to get it shipped over.  I did so much of that years ago, as you all are light years ahead of us in the homeschooling materials dept.