help me decide what level of EIW I should use

[kfeusse]

my son, 11 (basically doing 6th grade work this year) has never had any formal writing, but I don't want to make the same mistake with him that I did with my other children and wait until high school to start.  I discovered EIW for  my other 2, so I want my youngest to use it too.  He has had grammar since first grade, using GWG and he has done a fairly good job with that.   I can put him in either the 6 level or the 7th.  From what I can figure out, the biggest difference is 6 includes more grammar and level 7 less grammar and more writing. 

 

I am bit nervous about starting with more writing since he hasn't had any, but I didn't know for sure.

 

Please, if you have had any experience with this...what would you do?

[MerryAtHope]

If he's doing 6th grade work this year, I'd start him with level 6. Especially since you are concerned about level 7 being all writing (the grammar in 7 is "optional" and not even in the regular lessons--we never did it when my oldest did level 7). 

 

That said, I don't think it will make a HUGE difference if he's 7th grade next year and you prefer to have him in 7. It's not like there's tons and tons of writing. I find Essentials in Writing is pretty easy to pace to our needs. If my kids need an extra day or two to work on an outline or a paragraph or something, we take the days needed. There's no schedule saying how quickly you need to work through the assignments. I just schedule 30 minutes per day for writing for my kids and see how far we get each day. 

[kfeusse]

thank you so much for this.  I appreciate it.