Guest LittleFrodo19 Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 Hi! My son has been doing the First Language Lessons and Writing with Ease curriculum since he began school. We started Writing with Skill at the beginning of this last school year and are having some challenges. I put it on hold this most current 9 weeks - he was getting very stressed about it, and it was taking him several hours a day to complete the work. I like all of the information presented, but I'm not sure if it's just right for him, or maybe it's too early yet? He's 11 years old, and mostly on a 6th grade level. If I have him write a two-level outline on a topic or story he know plenty about, he does great! Then, if I ask him to write an essay from that outline, he also understands. I'm just not quite sure what to do with the Writing with Skill. Can I condense it for him? Or should I just wait for now? For the record, he does still require quite a bit of general grammar review to keep up with that part of it. To sum up: -6th grader having challenges with writing with skill. -wondering if I should wait for now on it, or find an alternative that works better for him. Thanks! Missy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 It's a normal challenge. We bumped into it too. Just keep trying, working for a couple of hours each day. He needs to be able to take notes (outline) about a subject he doesn't know much about and write an essay on that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 You are not alone. Check out this older thread for some ideas of how other people have used WWS 1. I'm expecting to move into WWS1 next year(ish) so I'm following these threads with interest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 I set it aside and came back to it. I think the challenge is mostly with some of the reading selections. My son sometimes got hung up on just understanding the reading. Also, he tended to rush through the instruction and didn't understand it because he rushed. We came back to it and finished it the next year and he had no trouble. Several hours per day seems like way too much time. I cut back on some of the overwhelming aspects by letting my son type longer assignments. That helped too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TarynB Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 I set it aside and came back to it. I think the challenge is mostly with some of the reading selections. My son sometimes got hung up on just understanding the reading. Also, he tended to rush through the instruction and didn't understand it because he rushed. We came back to it and finished it the next year and he had no trouble. Several hours per day seems like way too much time. I cut back on some of the overwhelming aspects by letting my son type longer assignments. That helped too. :iagree: We started WWS1 in 6th grade, got through about 1/3 of it, and set it aside. It was going OK but it seemed like too much. We picked it back up in 7th grade and I was amazed at the change in his level of understanding and how much less hand-holding was required. The extra year of maturity made a big difference and he got so much more out of it a year later. And working on it several hours per day seems counter-productive. If it is taking that much time, it is possible the program is not a good fit for that child, but in my experience it just might be a bit too soon, and waiting a little while might really help. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 I agree with Sparkly and TarynB: Two hours is too much - burnout city! And maybe 6th grade is too soon. Spend some more time having him do outlines, and write a short essay from his outline. Come back to WWS later. A lot of what makes WWS hard is the level of the readings, which is newly challenging for 5th-6th graders who are still learning to "read-to-learn" and couple that with hard new writing challenges, and it can be too much. You will probably be pleasantly surprised that it goes more smoothly in 6 months. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LittleFrodo19 Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 Thank you so much for your input! I'm reading through the other board with a simlar topic, too, and seeing how others are using this curriculum. Again, thanks for your time responding! Missy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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