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Fourth edition of TWTM...here's your chance to weigh in!


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FWIW - We also had a real flop with Spelling Workout - it didn't work and it seemed like busywork.

 

I would include Math Mammoth - I noticed on another thread its one of the most used programs on the forum.  And its low cost is really wonderful.

 

I also think BFSU should be included though it wasn't a good fit for us - I got a lot out or reading it nonetheless.  I think the books for older grades are probably even more worthwhile.  And while it might be heresy, but I would drop the whole idea of trying to fit science to the history cycle - it doesn't work well for teaching science and historically it seems like an artificiality too. 

 

 

 

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A schedule that worked well for my family in the younger grades was doing science, and history on Fridays. And, of course, math and Latin. The other days, we worked on memorizing for science and history, and sometimes we did some reading, but we couldn't seem to get through all the skills things like dictation and writing and whatever, and have time for history and science. We ran late on Fidays, but it was more interesting stuff, so it was ok. The other days, we had a firm stop time of 2:00. This kept us from skimping on the skills to do content subjects, something that was important not to do with my mildly struggling learners. That might be worth a mention for those who can't fit it all in due to having a child who is wired a bit differently. If you haven't already...

 

Nan

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I feel strongly on two points: science recommendations, and learning differences and special needs.  I will put my thoughts on learning differences and special needs on the Learning Challenges board, but here are some thoughts on science.  I'm glad you're wearing your elephant skin.

 

I strongly recommend revising (or removing) the suggestion to cycle through science in a similar manner to history.  The quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, harmonics, and astronomy is not the same as simply repeating biology, earth science, chemistry, and physics 3 times in a row.  If I were to suggest that in order for a student to become an artful rhetorician all he need do is study the skills of rhetoric over and over again so that at the third pass it would all make sense you would think my suggestion absurd.  I likewise believe the four year science cycle as absurd.  Homeschool parents would be better directed to focus on cultivating observation, reasoning, and personal experience with the wide world through playful experimentation, and solidify their mathematical skill and understanding, or even to do no science at all in the grammar stage.

 

I believe science education has two main components - science content (the body of knowledge amassed and refined through the years, as explained in scientific hypothesis, principle, theory, and law) and scientific process (the scientific method, thinking skills, habits of mind, sharing and review of scientific information, and progression of thought through history).  The repeated sequence approach puts such a heavy emphasis on content and neglects the more important process component.  In this age of information, science, and technology, where we are bombarded with science content (new and old) the well-trained mind is better served by the skill of vetting information than by breadth of content knowledge, though that breadth is important (it just is not as important as process knowledge).  Just like the competent rhetorician has facility with words and ideas, the competent lay scientist has facility with science content and science process.  

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In my 2nd ed., it is listed in the "Source Readings" section of the rhetoric stage science section of the book.  There is a short list for each of the sciences, but then there is an expanded list, and the Darwin book is on it.  Does that exist in your 3rd. ed.?

 

 

 

Hi, my notifications of being quoted doesn't work, so sorry about lack of reply.

 

I don't think it was listed there, but I do recall a readings section for the science areas beyond the specific main suggestions.  My TWTM has been taken by my ds so I cannot actually look at the moment.  I am hoping that ds taking TWTM will prove interesting.  Maybe he will find things that appeal to him.

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I can't figure out how to phrase this. I am sure there is a way to do it using SN vocabulary. Please, please don't mistake my lack of vocabulary for lack of sympathy if you are a SN family. I don't want to hurt anyone but I think it is important to say this. Myaybe someone can figure out what I mean and translate it into the proper language? Or maybe this just isn't generally important enough to anyone outside my family to bother... Anyway, here goes...

 

I have atypical learners. In a regular elementary school classroom, they struggled. They were bright enough verbally that teachers are puzzled by the struggle but not particularly worried about them. Or they didn't listen to them and thought they were lazy or unbright. As a parent, I knew they weren't brilliant, just sort of brightish, and also wondered why I was having to help so much with assignments. When we began homeschooling, some things in TWTM logic stage were difficult, if not impossible. We muddled through as best we could, with me just thinking I had children who were wired differently and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Then we arrived at the point where I had to teach study skills, college survival skills. And suddenly, I could see that TWTM had been teaching those skills all along. I just hadn't recognized them. If I had, I would have backed us up when we first began TWTM to the point where my children began to struggle and worked forward from there. (That's what I did in math. i did it with great confidence in math, convinced that no matter how unmathy one of my children was, there was no reason that with proper grounding, he couldn't get through precalc by the end of high school. He just needed his math thinking straightened out and he needed a ton of practice with the basic skills so he could use them easily and automatically.) The difference between our elementary school and TWTM was that TWTM TAUGHT those skills, whereas the elementary school just had the children start using them without actually teaching them. For many students, this seems to work fine; they figure it out and avoid a lot of dry drill. Mine needed TWTM approach. They will always be a bit different, one especially so. They aren't likely to be historians or anything else that requires one to use academic skills daily or especially quickly. They can manage, though. So - my question is this: How do you tell an atypical learner for whom struggling mightily through TWTM is the answer from one for whom TWTM just isn't going to work no matter how much effort is applied? I'd hate to see parents like me giving up on TWTM. (And for those who think I might have imagined all this, An educational psychologist confirmed the atypicalness of my most atypical learner and was thrilled with the results of my bumbling through TWTM with him. Astounded would be a better word for it.)

 

I know this is just one family's experoence, but surely we aren't alone in appreciating having a program that actually teaches those important academic skills, and does it in such a way that the child still gets to do fun, interesting things and have some say in what they are studying and learning, despite some things being a horrible struggle?

 

Nan

 

 

I think it is a good question.  I also think it may be too black and white a question.  There may be children for whom TWTM will work in part, or will work if tweaked, or will work on a different time frame.

 

Taking an example of something like "difficulty writing," one could have a continuum from a child who had no working hands at all, and leaving aside My Left Foot type unusual situations, all TWTM emphasis on physical writing is going to have to be at least tweaked if not dismissed entirely, through greater or worse degrees of dysgraphia, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy...etc. situations, and finally to totally neuro-typical and muscular-typical etc. children.

 

I suppose in my case a decision had to be made balancing the amount of time and effort (and frustration and perhaps depression and other problems) that might come from struggling with something that would not fit well with a child's disability/LD versus what might be available as a work around, a crutch, an alternative answer etc.  

 

Taking handwriting as an example: my ds had worked on it several years in 2 or 3 different brick and mortar schools, and 2 years at home...   From my perspective it was time to give up and let him type.  I cannot turn him into a controlled double-blind experiment.  Maybe if I had stuck with it there would ultimately have been some great advantage that we will never know would have been realized.  Maybe not only his life but the whole world has been made worse because I let him quit trying to learn cursive.  At this point though, I wish I had let it go sooner.  At this point, since it did not yield results, all the time and effort that was spent seems to have been a waste of time and effort.  This is in contrast to the situation you describe where, since you persisted, you can look back and see the struggle and time spent as being worthwhile.

 

I made a different decision with regard to reading.  Learning to read was not working--again with more than one brick and mortar school and my own initial efforts.  But unlike with cursive handwriting where I decided to let him type, the reading problem to me meant needing to find a program or method that would work--or in any case to try several more routes before deciding that conventional book reading was not going to be something he could reasonably master.  

 

Differences in my approach to these were in part due to how important I felt reading is as compared to cursive writing, how good I felt the technological work arounds were in each case, and various other factors.  Had he been a blind child or had different impairments or different severity of impairments, my analysis might have been different and the approach I decided on also different.

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I read my 3rd edition so much that the cover is falling off. It's my hsing bible.

 

I loved: the schedule (days and amount of time) and the curriculum lists. The lists gave me confidence that this curriculum choice will cover what's needed.

 

I wish the "getting started" went something along the lines of "if your itching to buy curriculum try Math Mammoth pdf  grades 1-3 or 1-6 package because its cheap and adaptable. You can pick and choose topics, spend only the amount of time you need on each one, and make it spiral if needed. Then use that info on how your child works to buy other math curriculum." I bought Saxon first but it's expensive, not as adaptable for new moms, and my son ended up being accelerated.

 

I still have problems with Language Arts. I tried Spelling Workout but all we learned was how to do crosswords and it didn't teach me what to try next so I'm currently dropping the subject altogether. We tried Climbing to Good English but wasn't sure of it's approach so we switched to English Lessons Through Literature. ELTL is like MM for Math. It is a good getting started, cheap, option till you know what else you need. I'd also encourage buying the WWE level one workbook the first year to see the idea laid out. Then buy the WWE instructors text to guide you through the other years. You might want to use history for wwe or continue wwe wkbks at that point. We used Saxon phonics k-1 but I quit at that point because he was reading everything he wanted to read. I wish we would have done grade 2 and completed the series because I wonder if we are missing something. It was pricey but (I thought) tried and true. In the end, we didn't finish it because of the price vs worth.

 

I would like to see DORA and ADAM tests added for new hsers. It gave me a ton of confidence that I was on the right path. Testing is not required in my state.

 

It's getting harder to hs on one income. More regulations made this new hser feel like I needed actual books on the shelf.

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I wish the "getting started" went something along the lines of "if you're itching to buy curriculum, try Math Mammoth pdf  grades 1-3 or 1-6 package because it's cheap and adaptable. You can pick and choose topics, spend only the amount of time you need on each one, and make it spiral if needed. Then use that info on how your child works to buy other math curriculum."

 

This is great advice.

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The best *curriculum* I used was Young Historians by Brimwood Press.  My homeschool story is done, and most of my homeschool *stuff* is gone, with the exception of TWTM 3rd, everything I ever got from Brimwood Press and the lit books.  Curricula, all gone, except Brimwood's.  

 

About other changes:  I would probably have benefited by having a chapter on "how to tell if your kid isn't cut out for classical, no matter how stupid you think that is, and what to do about it."  I am not kidding--I did my best to  rear a reader, and it didn't happen.  No one could possibly have read aloud to a child longer or more frequently than I did.  I read aloud to him shelves of long, long books.  Even The Brothers Karamazov.  

 

I don't think he has voluntarily touched a book since he graduated high school.  

 

And I didn't have a clue what to do with that.   

 

Maybe it is already in the book, and I just didn't want to hear it.  

 

:0)

 

That's probably the reality.  

 

Anyway, a serving suggestion.  

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I don't think he has voluntarily touched a book since he graduated high school.  

 

And I didn't have a clue what to do with that.  

 

My middle brother was like that for a LONG time but in his very late 20's or early 30's he started reading again. He even wound up writing & self-publishing a sci fi novel (which wasn't a great masterpiece but it was better than a lot of self-published novels out there).

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Aha. Well, it is keeping some nice company there in the Great Books section! I hate to suggest in some sense "demoting" it, but maybe it deserves a cross listing over in the science books section. As it stands it seems to be one of the few science related books over in the Great Books history and reading area, and I am not sure I would think to look in a history and reading section for things related to science if a bunch of titles did not make me realize that it would be a likely spot. Or perhaps let other books that might now be read mainly for their historical value such as Hippocrates' and Euclid's works also be listed under Great Books, not under the "science" section.

 

This is another one of the reasons that I think having the "how to" parts of TWTM be at the front and then specific recommendations be at the back might be helpful. One might be more likely to find a particular work if they (books, curriculum suggestions, etc.) are found near each other than if one has to look at a section that does not seem to be applicable at a particular moment.

 

This might be especially true for people with those troublesome learning challenge kids and "2E" kids, who are progressing at different uneven levels such that a parent (me!) might be looking at high school science section ideas, but not think to look at grade 12 Great Books.

 

Incidentally, someone said she did not like the ideas of specific times for different subjects to be included. I do. I think it is helpful to have an idea of what to spend on what subject--and also while on the subject of learning challenges, I think it is another potentially useful guide to knowing if a child needs an intervention. If the amount of time does not seem realistic to make forward progress in a subject, or if something is supposed to be "easy" like learning to read, but is not for a particular child that could be an indication that something may be amiss.

please no. Ds21 absolutely loved reading Euclid, and Galileo - he has told me many times that the information he learned by reading those 2 books has been invaluable in his Aerospace Engineering studies at Uni.

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Others have mentioned CLE math, and I'll just add why I think it's worth including: 

 

CLE math would fit well in a resource list for typical learners, and there's also a place for it in a list for kids with special needs. But I think it's especially suitable for kids with mild learning issues, whose parents might not think of consulting a special needs curriculum list. For this reason, it might be helpful to include a little note for readers to know what it offers. CLE is a solid, open-and-go, complete math curriculum that can be effective with students who need daily practice to get math facts and concepts into long term memory and develop automaticity. It is in a workbook format with sufficient white space through pre-algebra, which can be extremely helpful for kids who struggle with writing. It can work with or without direct parental instruction.

 

Personally, I don't think there's anything else like it when it comes to kids with needs like that, and there are a lot of them out there.

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please no. Ds21 absolutely loved reading Euclid, and Galileo - he has told me many times that the information he learned by reading those 2 books has been invaluable in his Aerospace Engineering studies at Uni.

 

 

What high school science and maths program did your ds follow?

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My middle brother was like that for a LONG time but in his very late 20's or early 30's he started reading again. He even wound up writing & self-publishing a sci fi novel (which wasn't a great masterpiece but it was better than a lot of self-published novels out there).

 

Well, there is simply no explanation for this in our home.  That's all I have to say about that.  In a home with more than 3000 books on endless topics...no one had a better opportunity.  I have to say, however, that my son would know how to TURN OFF THE ITALICS in this post.  Gah.

 

THANK YOU for your encouraging email.  

 

I would not want to come of age in this time.  It's just...weird.  All we can do is pray, and hang on to our hats!  :0)

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I hesitate to bring this up since I'm not sure there are very many people in situations similar to mine.  I am a single mom and DD homeschools independently at my place of employment.  This means we have to tote everything with us daily.  Every subject seems to have an encyclopedia (or two), additional texts, a binder, workbooks, etc.  A "streamlined" option would be very helpful for me.  Perhaps book suggestions that are in ebook format, online alternatives to the encyclopedias, or suggestions for curricula with significantly fewer components. I know digital isn't very classical and certainly isn't ideal, but this might be a stumbling block for a lot of people who otherwise would like to try the classical approach.

 

Again, I'm certainly in the minority, but there may be children who homeschool in two homes, are in families who move or travel a lot, or who have severely limited space and/or resources.

 

ETA: Perhaps a small symbol that denotes curricula and resources that are fully secular, or that denote faith-based curricula, if you prefer :)

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What high school science and maths program did your ds follow?

 

We did as recommended in TWTM

 

Saxon Maths, then straight into  first year uni math through a University ( As in AUS parents cannot give credits or scores for homeschooling)

 

Apologia physics and chemistry which ds HATED as he was so pedantic about having everything absolutely correct and could not stand the way apologia used significant figures ( he still says that Apologia is incorrect in this regard) We skipped all the religious parts of apologia.. Then straight into first year uni chemistry and Physics. HE got so high marks on his Open University Maths, Physics and Chemistry  units that he got into Aerospace Engineering  and got credits off his degree.

 

 His great books reading mostly consisted of scientists and  mathematicians. He did no writing on his readings as he has Dyslexia and writing was practically impossible for him at the time.

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one thing

 I never ever managed to work out what the binder was . We used exercise books for all subjects for all levels. it worked fine. I have had quite a few people ask me what the binder thingies are ( maybe an American thing??), I just tell them to use exercise books and everyone is happy.

 

Folders, I think.

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one thing

I never ever managed to work out what the binder was . We used exercise books for all subjects for all levels. it worked fine. I have had quite a few people ask me what the binder thingies are ( maybe an American thing??), I just tell them to use exercise books and everyone is happy.

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I may have missed something, so please feel free to take this with a grain of salt, but possibly some further discussion of the non-Latin foreign language curriculum choices could be helpful to readers, along these lines:

 

--how "parts to whole" are the conversation programs?

 

(I think you imply that they are less so than the written programs, but is there variation even between the conversational programs that you mention?)

 

--how "parts to whole" are the written programs?

 

(If someone is sold on your endorsement of the parts-to-whole approach to Latin, will she be just as happy with the offerings for other foreign languages?)

 

--how to decide whether to start with a conversation program or start with a written program

 

--how to weave the two together (maybe drawing on experiences here) if done simultaneously

 

--how to evaluate how "parts to whole" a non-listed program is? or how "parts to whole" an online course or community college program is?

 

(This could influence the decision whether to teach the language at home.)

 

Maybe I missed something located elsewhere in the book, but in the foreign language sections by grade level, I thought there was room to say more about how the Latin approach you recommend relates to the realities of non-Latin language curricula and materials available to the homeschooler. I agree with you about the value of parts-to-whole approaches, and many readers of WTM will be convinced as well. But this gives rise to a bit of a puzzle. There's no intrinsic reason why modern language conversation can't be taught on a parts-to-whole basis--it used to be--but the trend in language instruction is away from that, and this will be reflected in programs to various degrees. Would some homeschoolers be more satisfied with outsourcing their non-Latin foreign language instruction in hopes of obtaining a more parts-to-whole approach even for the conversation component? I don't know the answers--but thought I would ask.

 

(I don't offer such a thing for Spanish and don't plan to, but maybe someone does.)

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For elementary math, I think Math Mammoth and AOPS's Beast Academy deserve a mention, and probably Miquon too.  I'd definitely retain the recommendation for Right Start as well!  Also, we are just starting to use some Zacarro books but I am optimistic about them being a great problem-solving resource.  

 

My oldest is about to start 5th grade, and looking ahead to the recommendations for upper grades, I'd love to see more recommendations that would give me confidence that if my children decide to enter a math/science/engineering field they will be well-prepared.  I really feel that calculus in high school for such kids is a necessity (or, based on my own experience 20+ years ago, kids without this will be behind when they start college, though obviously not insurmountably so.)

 

I'd also love to see more recommendations for modern languages, particularly more grammar-based approaches ( i.e. not Rosetta Stone types :) )

 

And a bit of a tangent, I loved the topics of your WTM online conference talks -- but the whole audio format isn't too appealing to me.  (Maybe the idea of finding uninterrupted time to listen is daunting, or I am just a visual person and want to be able to see the info and easily jump around, or maybe I am just lame.)   

 

SO anyway, how about writing a book with these kinds of topics?  I would LOVE that.  Or even just type up the transcript of your talks and call it a book?  Or transcripts of all of the talks and put out a conference proceedings??

 

Thanks so much for all of your work!  It has been a huge blessing to me and my family.

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I may have missed something, so please feel free to take this with a grain of salt, but possibly some further discussion of the non-Latin foreign language curriculum choices could be helpful to readers, along these lines:

 

--how "parts to whole" are the conversation programs?

 

(I think you imply that they are less so than the written programs, but is there variation even between the conversational programs that you mention?)

 

--how "parts to whole" are the written programs?

 

(If someone is sold on your endorsement of the parts-to-whole approach to Latin, will she be just as happy with the offerings for other foreign languages?)

 

--how to decide whether to start with a conversation program or start with a written program

 

--how to weave the two together (maybe drawing on experiences here) if done simultaneously

 

--how to evaluate how "parts to whole" a non-listed program is? or how "parts to whole" an online course or community college program is?

 

(This could influence the decision whether to teach the language at home.)

 

Maybe I missed something located elsewhere in the book, but in the foreign language sections by grade level, I thought there was room to say more about how the Latin approach you recommend relates to the realities of non-Latin language curricula and materials available to the homeschooler. I agree with you about the value of parts-to-whole approaches, and many readers of WTM will be convinced as well. But this gives rise to a bit of a puzzle. There's no intrinsic reason why modern language conversation can't be taught on a parts-to-whole basis--it used to be--but the trend in language instruction is away from that, and this will be reflected in programs to various degrees. Would some homeschoolers be more satisfied with outsourcing their non-Latin foreign language instruction in hopes of obtaining a more parts-to-whole approach even for the conversation component? I don't know the answers--but thought I would ask.

 

YES YES YES!!!!!!  I would LOVE to see this discussion in the 4th edition!  I'm currently trying to evaluate resources for a non-Latin language for my daughter for her high school years, and it's not easy.  I have loved the whole MP/PL/LC I and II/Henle approach to Latin, and I developed my own study pattern to tackle Henle after seeing how the progression and study patterns worked.  Dd worked through the first level of Henle with it, and ds worked through the first and second levels.  I would like to use a similar study pattern for modern language, but it is difficult to sift through all the programs and books on the market, because I am not sure how to evaluate them or what resources to cobble together.  I can't afford to waste money on this or that and find that this and that are not suitable.

 

And Katharine, I would love to hear more of what you mean by what I bolded in your post.  This is something I've wondered about.  I know the conversational part is important...immersion is a big concept where I live.  But for a home educator who can't afford to outsource courses or even hire a conversational tutor, should that exclude us from at least getting a start on a modern language?  I don't see why it should be so.

 

Susan, this is a book I read awhile ago, and it might be useful to include in TWTM (although maybe there are better books on the topic - I don't know - I just know I liked this one) - it's about learning foreign languages.

 

http://www.word-nerd.ca/about.html

 

 

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Well, there is simply no explanation for this in our home.  That's all I have to say about that.  In a home with more than 3000 books on endless topics...no one had a better opportunity.  I have to say, however, that my son would know how to TURN OFF THE ITALICS in this post.  Gah.

 

THANK YOU for your encouraging email.  

 

I would not want to come of age in this time.  It's just...weird.  All we can do is pray, and hang on to our hats!  :0)

 

My parents have a set of the "Harvard Classics" (marketed as the "Five Foot Shelf of Books") on prominent display in our living room. I read them voluntarily as a 'tween & teen (no wonder TWTM appealed to me when I was researching HSing, LOL!) My middle brother never read anything voluntarily back then aside from comic book collections.

 

My brother isn't reading Homer or Shakespeare now, but TBH, neither am I these days.

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This may have been mentioned before, but Eide's original book (on the logic of English) might be good to include in the grammar stage English section.  It's a good "how to be a better teacher" book.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Uncovering-Logic-English-Common-Sense-Approach/dp/1936706210/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438010335&sr=8-1&keywords=uncovering+the+logic+of+english

 

I also think The Writing Road to Reading, 3rd or 4th editions, deserve a mention there as the same type of book.

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Well, there is simply no explanation for this in our home.

 

I have three children. One loves to read. One would like to read were it easier for him (he listens to a ton of audiobooks). One does not like to read and never reads anything for pleasure, only for university coursework. None of my children are biologically related. My husband does not read for pleasure. I love, love, love to read and am frequently reading multiple books at a time.

 

I think that liking to read is similar to liking to play sports or liking to play video games. Either it appeals to you, or it doesn't. I introduce my kids to great books, but beyond that, I just accept that not everyone loves to read for pleasure.

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One thing that might be added for new homeschoolers is borrowing curricula before buying. I was able to borrow several books amd really read them the year before we began and this was tremendously helpful. Some were clearly not a fit for us and others I loved right away.

 

I have also sat in a bookstore and thoroughly read a curriculum or other school book before buying it. My library carries many homeschool books too.

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Let me know when you find out - it seems odd that this particular book would be left off that particular list.

 

 

p547 has a list of alternate options where Darwin is included.  

 

I'd say the problem is that without your having mentioned such a list and my going back to diligently search, it was not something that I had found previously.  And even SWB did not refer to this page when mentioning that Darwin was still there but rather to a page in the history Great Books section.

 

There is a ton of info in WTM--but often hard to find or easy to miss.  I have come to things in the back of the book that my ds would have liked to do, but that were age limited and he is already past that age.  And when he was that age, I was only reading for the age stage he was at, or a bit before or beyond, but not other chapters toward the back of the book.   Hmmm.

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one thing

 I never ever managed to work out what the binder was . We used exercise books for all subjects for all levels. it worked fine. I have had quite a few people ask me what the binder thingies are ( maybe an American thing??), I just tell them to use exercise books and everyone is happy.

 

These would be the three inch files - you know the ones with the levers that open and close the rings?

 

That's what I use anyway.

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And Katharine, I would love to hear more of what you mean by what I bolded in your post. [There's no intrinsic reason why modern language conversation can't be taught on a parts-to-whole basis--it used to be] This is something I've wondered about.  I know the conversational part is important...immersion is a big concept where I live.  But for a home educator who can't afford to outsource courses or even hire a conversational tutor, should that exclude us from at least getting a start on a modern language?  I don't see why it should be so.

 

Colleen, I don't consider myself an expert on this but I'll share what I was thinking, FWIW. I really was drawing on my own experiences studying French and Russian in the 1970s and 1980s. Whether that makes me dangerous or sage, I'll leave it to others to decide.

 

I had the privilege of studying at academically strong schools (New England prep school/Ivy League) and for both languages the approach was what we would call parts-to-whole or grammar-translation.

 

I wrote a longer post with more details of how we were taught, but have saved it for later as maybe it is overkill in this thread. But in short, the methods and results convinced me that this type of language program is at the very least an outstanding foundation for eventual, grammatically-correct oral fluency (and what other kind would we want?) Grammar and writing ability were emphasized somewhat at the expense of short-term oral work, but we did do some oral work, and what we did was parts-to-whole based and tied tightly to the grammar and vocabulary we had been taught. I found myself thinking in French, which strikes me as a good sign. Also in French, we reached the point of quite fluent writing (as on the A.P.), which I think is also good sign.

 

(Russian is harder so it takes longer to reach the same point, though a native speaker I met later told me my grammar was very good and that if I went to Russia, I'd be speaking well soon. Her compliments to my college teachers and to my university, which had a strong foreign service program.)

 

In a Spanish thread a while back I posted a link that you might find helpful. The writer is not involved in homeschooling, but she is a fluent French teacher who wanted to learn Spanish, and she put together a program for herself using free, old Foreign Service materials and lots of audio resources. She is a wealth of information.

 

http://www.tobefluent.com/free-online-spanish-resources/

 

In this thread she describes how forms-and-drills based the old FSI program is and how that is helping her in speaking:

 

http://www.tobefluent.com/2014/02/07/talk-like-a-diplomat-from-1961-how-i-use-fsi-spanish/

 

The FSI program might or might not be suitable for children--it's from the sixties and I gather there are some sexist moments--but it illustrates the point that conversation can be taught on a parts-to-whole basis.

 

(BTW she is also Canadian--you are in Nova Scotia, yes?)

 

Overall, I feel on stronger ground saying "yes there could be such a thing as a parts-to-whole conversation program" than I do saying "yes you definitely can create one yourself for your child if there isn't one out there," which is certainly a harder problem.

 

That said, there are some great tools available now--like the free audio editor Audacity, which lets you slow down the audio of a native speaker--which would make great adjuncts to anything you might try at home.

 

Last of all, depending on university policies and your goals, I suppose you might not have to have a huge oral component to your homeschool foreign language program. What they require for admission and what they require for placement credit may be two different things. But others are much more knowledgeable than I am about that, and you wouldn't want your child put into a truly boring level for lack of oral proficiency.

 

So this is "thinking out loud" but I hope it is helpful. Maybe others will chime in.

 

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Colleen, I don't consider myself an expert on this but I'll share what I was thinking, FWIW. I really was drawing on my own experiences studying French and Russian in the 1970s and 1980s. Whether that makes me dangerous or sage, I'll leave it to others to decide.

 

I had the privilege of studying at academically strong schools (New England prep school/Ivy League) and for both languages the approach was what we would call parts-to-whole or grammar-translation.

 

I wrote a longer post with more details of how we were taught, but have saved it for later as maybe it is overkill in this thread. But in short, the methods and results convinced me that this type of language program is at the very least an outstanding foundation for eventual, grammatically-correct oral fluency (and what other kind would we want?) Grammar and writing ability were emphasized somewhat at the expense of short-term oral work, but we did do some oral work, and what we did was parts-to-whole based and tied tightly to the grammar and vocabulary we had been taught. I found myself thinking in French, which strikes me as a good sign. Also in French, we reached the point of quite fluent writing (as on the A.P.), which I think is also good sign.

 

(Russian is harder so it takes longer to reach the same point, though a native speaker I met later told me my grammar was very good and that if I went to Russia, I'd be speaking well soon. Her compliments to my college teachers and to my university, which had a strong foreign service program.)

 

In a Spanish thread a while back I posted a link that you might find helpful. The writer is not involved in homeschooling, but she is a fluent French teacher who wanted to learn Spanish, and she put together a program for herself using free, old Foreign Service materials and lots of audio resources. She is a wealth of information.

 

http://www.tobefluent.com/free-online-spanish-resources/

 

In this thread she describes how forms-and-drills based the old FSI program is and how that is helping her in speaking:

 

http://www.tobefluent.com/2014/02/07/talk-like-a-diplomat-from-1961-how-i-use-fsi-spanish/

The FSI program might or might not be suitable for children--it's from the sixties and I gather there are some sexist moments--but it illustrates the point that conversation can be taught on a parts-to-whole basis.

 

(BTW she is also Canadian--you are in Nova Scotia, yes?)

 

Overall, I feel on stronger ground saying "yes there could be such a thing as a parts-to-whole conversation program" than I do saying "yes you definitely can create one yourself for your child if there isn't one out there," which is certainly a harder problem.

 

That said, there are some great tools available now--like the free audio editor Audacity, which lets you slow down the audio of a native speaker--which would make great adjuncts to anything you might try at home.

 

Last of all, depending on university policies and your goals, I suppose you might not have to have a huge oral component to your homeschool foreign language program. What they require for admission and what they require for placement credit may be two different things. But others are much more knowledgeable than I am about that, and you wouldn't want your child put into a truly boring level for lack of oral proficiency.

 

So this is "thinking out loud" but I hope it is helpful. Maybe others will chime in.

 

 

Thank you for all of this!!!  And could you please pm me your saved post with details about how you were taught?

 

Yes, I am in Nova Scotia (and I once lived in NJ for a few years).

 

I wish I could remember what books I used for my French classes in high school back in the early 80s - I remember loving doing dictation in French, because we learned how to pronounce the words, spell them, and write out sentences all at the same time.  And I think there was a big emphasis on grammar (in which I got lost, because I hadn't a good background in English grammar).

 

 

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And Katharine, I would love to hear more of what you mean by what I bolded in your post.  This is something I've wondered about.  I know the conversational part is important...immersion is a big concept where I live.  But for a home educator who can't afford to outsource courses or even hire a conversational tutor, should that exclude us from at least getting a start on a modern language?  I don't see why it should be so.

 

I think learning a foreign language through reading and writing before speaking is possible. That's what we're attempting here. 

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Thank you for all of this!!!  And could you please pm me your saved post with details about how you were taught?

 

Yes, I am in Nova Scotia (and I once lived in NJ for a few years).

 

I wish I could remember what books I used for my French classes in high school back in the early 80s - I remember loving doing dictation in French, because we learned how to pronounce the words, spell them, and write out sentences all at the same time.  And I think there was a big emphasis on grammar (in which I got lost, because I hadn't a good background in English grammar).

 

 

 

You're welcome!

 

I had to laugh that you loved dictation. I did too--it's one of the very "details" I left out for brevity's sake. I do think it's valuable--how can we understand what we've heard until we know what we've heard? Dictations let the teacher test our oral comprehension--at least, our ability to tell what was said.

 

I hope you find what you are looking for!

 

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I think learning a foreign language through reading and writing before speaking is possible. That's what we're attempting here. 

 

Rosie, I admire what you do and why, and I also enjoy your understatement. You make an excellent point--there's a whole world of people who are going to spend a lot more time interacting with the printed word, for unimpeachable reasons.

 

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Apologia physics and chemistry which ds HATED as he was so pedantic about having everything absolutely correct and could not stand the way apologia used significant figures ( he still says that Apologia is incorrect in this regard)

 

 

I must ask...in what way does Apologia use sig figs incorrectly? 

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Last of all, depending on university policies and your goals, I suppose you might not have to have a huge oral component to your homeschool foreign language program. 

 

I found I couldn't teach my child proper Spanish pronunciation (since everything came out of my mouth with a French accent), but we covered Spanish grammar & vocab as best as possible with Getting Started with Spanish & attempted about half of Spanish for Children A (too fast for us, not enough repetition/practice), and then added Duolingo.

 

Susan, I would definitely add the "Getting Started..." books as options for just about any foreign language beginners and as a quick summer or semester jump start before a high school level class.

 

When my eldest started her high school level Spanish 1 class last year, she could really focus on the pronunciation & conversation component while having half of the vocab and much of the grammar somewhat learned. It was a great example of SWB's "don't try two (or more) hard things at the same time." It was also her first year of online classes, so she was getting used to all that. But  :thumbup1:  with SWB's advice to start in 8th (vs 9th or later) & other wise mutterings, she rocked them.

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I'd also like to recommend adding to the Preschool Beginning Readers list the Elephant, Piggie, and Pigeon books by Mo Willems.  They are a favorite at our house.  There are only about 1 to 10 words on each page, but yet the books manage to tell delightfully humorous stories.  These books were a big factor in getting my youngest reading books on his own and fluently.

 

 

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Oh, now I know , the ones where the pages tear and fly out all the time.

 so glad I stuck with exercise books.

 

Pages flying out? No, I don't usually have a problem with pages flying out, but then again, it's not very windy in my house. Glad you found what works for you! :)

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Pinched fingers. Pages tearing out. Pages falling out when you add another page, especially in the middle. We used them, because we had a variety of paper tpes and copied materials and it was a cheap way to keep everything organized, but I had to do a bit of work to find ones with levers soft enough for the children to be able to use. I recycled clear plastic sleeves from my husband's work and made liberal use of the little stickies you put around holes. The children loved sticking those on. The binders acted as a sanity check for me. We used one a year with dividers. It provided very obvious visual evidence of how much written output the children were producing. It worked because almost all their assignments started with a blank sheet of paper. If a few months into the school year their binders were almost empty, I knew we weren't doing enough work on skills/output.

 

Nan

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Some ideas that I found helpful that might be mentioned, if they haven't been already... (I gave away my third edition before I read most of it and as somebody mentioned, the book is dense with information and it is easy to miss things. (It is, amazingly, easy to read, though.))

 

- Input and output don't have to be the same level. My children needed the input to be at a much higher level than that of the output they were able to produce. This was a huge problem with methods other than TWTM.

- Because my children struggled somewhat with academics, we could "do" even less of "it all" than many families. When they were younger, I found it helpful to choose each year one subject to use as a medium for learning to think (usually math or Latin) and one subject to do in a check-the-box, skimpy manner. The rest we did on a sort of medium level.

- Skills versus content was a really useful concept. For me, this was the key to understanding how to make TWTM work and why it was the best approach. (We are a sieve-brained family. I have VERY little control over what my children absorb content-wise.)

- Starting with a blank sheet of per helped me to make sure it was my child who was doing the work. And it mimicked grownup academics. And it made them practise writing and copying. Having me not touch the book helped as well. It is astonishing how easy it is to do half your child's work for him when you are sitting next to him, sharing the book, working pne-on-one.

- Some subjects need to be touched twice a day to "stick" (math and foreign languages for us). This meant having "homework". It was a huge bother but otherwise, we could work hard for months and get nowhere.

- Someone here mentioned that with older students, she considered it her job to control the pace at which they moved through the material, in order to ensure that they got through enough material to give credit on the transcript and to keep them from getting stuck or perfecting one thing too much. Working "to mastery" didn't work in high school for us because as the material became more complex, it was often necessary to move ahead in order and keep going in order to understand some earlier bit.

- Some subjects seemed to be power subjects, ones that provided instruction and practice in many skills and practice combining them in a useful way. Dictation was one. Latin was another. Latin provided practice copying, paying attention to detail, grammar and spelling and vocabulary, practice with the physical act of writing, history, perspective, ... My children can 't read Latin now, as adults, but we all agree that it was well worth doing. I didn't realize how much my I-hate-to-write, no-school-since-kindergarten child was learning until I compared his ability to do paperwork with other children's at a homeschool program at the science museum where they were expected to do quite a bit of written work.

 

Just in case it helps you to make TWTM approach more understandable...

 

Nan

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Ok, I am the person who was sort of complaining about the "Critical Thinking in US History Series"  Again, I think the execution is terrible even if the idea behind it is very good.  What about something like "Document Based Assessment in US History" by Walch Publications? Or History Detective?

 

Honestly, I am not sure many people actually use "Critical Thinking".  I know I got the set and then :confused1:   I do very occasionally see people ask about it in the Logic Forum, but maybe once a year.

 

And as much as it pains me to say it, I do think there is going to have to be some discussion of Common Core and how it pertains to classical homeschooling and homeschoolers in general. It doesn't have to be long. There are good and bad points to it (good- common core in math made it easy for me to try a new math curriculum with my younger boy. Due to common core I knew it wouldn't mess up the entire math sequence. Bad- I think there is too much emphasis on non fiction reading in the middle years and too little on science and history in all years).

 

High school years: How to reconcile the AP juggernaut and all that we are told colleges expect with a classical education at home.  How do APs fit in the history cycle?

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And about science textbooks. I was under the impression that rhetoric stage sciences were set up more like science classes at St. John College - reading original texts. You can see my kids are young, so not much attention paid there. :tongue_smilie:  But I  saw the other day that in TWTM there are some textbook recommendations. If Apologia is recommended, why not include far superior Campbell's high school bio, or Hewitt's physics, or Conceptual Chem along with math based secular texts for those attempting to go into sciences. Unless of course you plan to stay away from science textbooks. 

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I just remembered another thing, reminded by the comment above about the Critical Thinking for American history books.  I also found the regular Critical Thinking books recommended for 7th-8th grade unusable, they were really structured for classroom use and I thought they would be difficult to adapt.  I also thought that Building Thinking Skills was kind of just annoying busy work. I know I'm not the only one, I've read a lot of other posters who said the same thing. So unless there is a rousing response to this post, that is one you might consider dropping!

 

We really liked Mind Benders, enough that I'm getting it again for my 2nd child. They (the Critical Thinking Company) have a bunch of new, related books (Balance benders etc.) that might not have been available when the last edition was published.  You might just list CTC as a good source for this kind of material for upper elementary, without being on the hook for suggesting particular materials for particular ages?  They seem to be somewhat hit or miss.

 

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