For those that use WWE and/or R&S English

[Lfwfv]

If you use the WWE workbook in first grade, do you also require narrations across the curriculum? I wish I felt comfortable just implementing the SWB guidelines across the curriculum since it would be a great aid in retention of the material, but after looking at the WWE workbook, I don't think i would do nearly as good a job of helping my dc to eventually learn to find the main points, come up with a concise narration etc. without the workbook prompts. Perhaps I could use the WWE workbook in lieu of literature narrations, but do one narration in science and one narration in history each week (so four total per week)?

 

Also, has anybody jumped right into the grade 2 R&S grammar book instead of using FLL first? I was hoping to do this, but SWB seems to say this isn't a great idea from what I can see in TWTM4 so far. I like the format of R&S better than FLL, and they seemed to cover similar things, but maybe i'm missing something. Would love to hear from any BTDT homeschool moms.

 

thanks!

[desertflower]

With regard to your question about WWE:

 

It could depend on your child. I didn't for my oldest because he seemed bored of it after a few weeks. Plus, he is an auditory learner. and I don't think I will for my middle child either at least not at first.

 

I don't know anything about rod and staff.

 

Hth

[Lfwfv]

 I didn't for my oldest because he seemed bored of it after a few weeks. Plus, he is an auditory learner. and I don't think I will for my middle child either at least not at first.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the response! Do you mean to say you did not use the WWE workbook, and simply followed the recommendations of narration across the curriculum instead?

 

[ScoutTN]

For first, I just chose my own stuff for narrations and copywork. We have jumped into WWE 2 in second and it has been fine. My kids do one or two other narrations a week at that age. Not necessarily formal ones. Could just be casual retelling of an event or a story.

 

We do FLL 1-4, then jump to R&S 6.

[desertflower]

Thanks for the response! Do you mean to say you did not use the WWE workbook, and simply followed the recommendations of narration across the curriculum instead?

 

 

Sorry I was not clear.  I didn't feel comfortable guiding him in narrations across the curriculum.  So, I just did WWE  1 workbook and didn't make him do narrations in anything else.

 

When he was in WWE 2, we did the workbook and did narrations in Sotw and a science book.  He seem to have grasped it fast, and I soon dropped the narrations in Sotw and in the science book.  Just ended up doing WWE 2 workbook. 

 

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

I don't require a lot of narrations across the curriculum, but we do WWE and then switch to CAP Writing and Rhetoric after WWE3, which also includes dictation and copy work.  I did not care for FLL.  It was too simplistic for me, and my son had a glazed look every time.  Oral lessons are not the best for him.  

 

However, FLL and Shurley are some of the few standalone grammar programs available for first grade.  I have to think that since R&S starts in second grade that there are many kids who start grammar in second grade with R&S just fine.  However, I would encourage an all encompassing language arts in first grade that includes some basic writing and sentence structure.

[Lfwfv]

Thank you both for your helpful responses.

 

So, I just looked at the Grade 2 R&S English again. It covers the following:

 

Unit 1: Learning about sentences (complete sentences, statements, questions, upper case letters, punctuation etc.)

Unit 2: Basic Building Block or Our Language (nouns/verbs)

Unit 3: Pronouns

Unit 4: More Building blocks of English

Unit 5: Using our Language

Unit Six: Building our vocabulary

 

There is one poem covered at the end of each unit.

 

It looks very incremental, lots of review, and like I could do a lot of it verbally. Does this look in line with first grade requirements in something like FLL or Shurley? I think i might just start the grade 2 in first grade then...my ds is not even four and already reading at a 1st to 2nd grade level, so I'm pretty sure, given he would be starting first grade two years from now, he'd be ready for it...

[2_girls_mommy]

I started with R&S English grade 2 in grade 2 for both of mine. We never did WWE or FLL. In first I did WTM style narrations in SOTW and I did R&S 1st grade reading and phonics which covered a lot of LA stuffs. Worked great for us. I don't even think WWE existed when we started and there was only 1 FLL. I was already using some R&S stuffs, so I just stuck with that. Worked great for us.

[Kat w]

I use wwe everyday. Every child is going to be different in how quickly they learn and how they store details and can recall them.

 

We have some learning challenges , so we do it everyday with wwe , then I'll pick either a read aloud ir a science book we've read and try it then too.

 

I like the scripted part of wwe.

It helps know the most effective and targeted areas to focus. ( less wasted time and frustration).

 

And the wwe build on each other sequentially.

Writing is a staple for college, which is alot of parents goals for their kids today.

 

I think what you said about wwe in lue of lit narrations and do alt. History and science. Sounds really good.

 

I haven't used r&s.

[gratitude]

Rod and Staff is a very solid grammar program, and I have been very pleased with it. All 3 of mine started grade 2 R&S English in 2nd grade. They really know what a complete sentence is and how to structure a paragraph from R&S composition lessons. They also have had the benefits in their writing from years of doing diagramming. I highly recommend it.

 

I am currently using WWE and WWS with Rod and Staff. My children love Susan's program, and it contains all of the elements of composition and literature study that I am wanting in their education.

 

The two together are a fabulous combination. You won't need Rod and Staff for first grade and WWE will be plenty for that age.

 

I did start oral narration with all 3 of mine in first grade. I did oral narrations at that age in both Bible history and science. They were not as focused as WWE at that age and were more of a telling back.

 

I hope that helps.

Edited August 14, 2016 by gratitude

[redsquirrel]

If you use the WWE workbook in first grade, do you also require narrations across the curriculum? I wish I felt comfortable just implementing the SWB guidelines across the curriculum since it would be a great aid in retention of the material, but after looking at the WWE workbook, I don't think i would do nearly as good a job of helping my dc to eventually learn to find the main points, come up with a concise narration etc. without the workbook prompts. Perhaps I could use the WWE workbook in lieu of literature narrations, but do one narration in science and one narration in history each week (so four total per week)?

 

Also, has anybody jumped right into the grade 2 R&S grammar book instead of using FLL first? I was hoping to do this, but SWB seems to say this isn't a great idea from what I can see in TWTM4 so far. I like the format of R&S better than FLL, and they seemed to cover similar things, but maybe i'm missing something. Would love to hear from any BTDT homeschool moms.

 

thanks!

 

I used WWE 1-4 with DS1 and WWE 1-3 with DS2.  I did require narration in history. We used SOTW and the AG.  Narrations were super, super easy with the AG and I saw no reason not to do it. Narration does build writing skills for later in life, and now that I have a high school kid and a middle schooler, I say the more narrations the better, TBH. 

 

I also did narrations in science, but that was for the younger years when we mostly followed WTM for science. I would read a page from the science encyclopedia and ask them for three things they remembered about what I just read.  I would write those down and then have them illustrate it.

 

I can't help you with the second question. I used FLL 1-4 and then moved to R&S. I like R&S ok, it's the best middle grades grammar out there IMO, but my kids and I miss FLL. We liked that much better. 

 

[Kat w]

I used WWE 1-4 with DS1 and WWE 1-3 with DS2. I did require narration in history. We used SOTW and the AG. Narrations were super, super easy with the AG and I saw no reason not to do it. Narration does build writing skills for later in life, and now that I have a high school kid and a middle schooler, I say the more narrations the better, TBH.

 

I also did narrations in science, but that was for the younger years when we mostly followed WTM for science. I would read a page from the science encyclopedia and ask them for three things they remembered about what I just read. I would write those down and then have them illustrate it.

 

I can't help you with the second question. I used FLL 1-4 and then moved to R&S. I like R&S ok, it's the best middle grades grammar out there IMO, but my kids and I miss FLL. We liked that much better.

 

I wish I could do that. My guys are very...LC. We're working on it. Trying to work on drawing out details ...sigh.

 

I did thst with my big kids. They are nt. One is dyslexic.

 

Different kids have different struggels and things that dint quite...glitch together.

 

And sometimes the curriculum we use over laps with the narrations... Esp swb curriculum.

I love the wwe and fll and SOTW.

 

Some of it...were just not there yet. My 2 lil guys are on the spectrum. Makes narrations way more difficult.

 

I agree...narrations and WWE very important . I've said thst a bunch too.

WWE does build and goes incremental. It's an awesome program. Her narrations style made my big kids great writers and have done very well in college with it.

 

At a very small snails pace with my lil guys.

[Kat w]

I wish she would write an fll fir upper grades...maybe?? :)

[Upennmama]

I think it really depends on your kid. My DD7 is a great reader and can write and form letters easily, but doesn't like that the narrations in WWE require a lot of thought. I think that's great, that she's being challenged, and although she rolls her eyes when I bring out the book, she's improved immensely. The same goes for my 14 yo dd, who thought WWS was hard and boring, but I saw huge leaps in her writing abilities. I sometimes skip the copywork on weeks that my 7yo has done a lot of writing, but generally I do still require narration. If your child struggles to form letters or narrate, I think WWE is enough.

[Lfwfv]

Rod and Staff is a very solid grammar program, and I have been very pleased with it. All 3 of mine started grade 2 R&S English in 2nd grade. They really know what a complete sentence is and how to structure a paragraph from R&S composition lessons. They also have had the benefits in their writing from years of doing diagramming. I highly recommend it.

 

I am currently using WWE and WWS with Rod and Staff. My children love Susan's program, and it contains all of the elements of composition and literature study that I am wanting in their education.

 

The two together are a fabulous combination. You won't need Rod and Staff for first grade and WWE will be plenty for that age.

 

I did start oral narration with all 3 of mine in first grade. I did oral narrations at that age in both Bible history and science. They were not as focused as WWE at that age and were more of a telling back.

 

I hope that helps.

 

Incredibly helpful, thank you!!!

 

I especially like to hear you did find the writing stuff in R&S helpful. I like the very incremental approach and also thought it might complement the WWE/WWS nicely, but then second-guessed myself when SWB says to skip the R&S comp stuff in the newest version of TWTM. I think, for my own piece of mind, I will use both the R&S and WWE as completely as we can (verbally if/when necessary to not overdo writing), and see how that works for us. As a teacher, it really appeals to my style...incremental, methodical, no frills...

 

Thanks again for sharing your experience.

 

Edited August 15, 2016 by Lfwfv

[Lfwfv]

I used WWE 1-4 with DS1 and WWE 1-3 with DS2.  I did require narration in history. We used SOTW and the AG.  Narrations were super, super easy with the AG and I saw no reason not to do it. Narration does build writing skills for later in life, and now that I have a high school kid and a middle schooler, I say the more narrations the better, TBH. 

 

I also did narrations in science, but that was for the younger years when we mostly followed WTM for science. I would read a page from the science encyclopedia and ask them for three things they remembered about what I just read.  I would write those down and then have them illustrate it.

 

I can't help you with the second question. I used FLL 1-4 and then moved to R&S. I like R&S ok, it's the best middle grades grammar out there IMO, but my kids and I miss FLL. We liked that much better. 

 

 

Very helpful, thanks! I just realized that I am already planning on SOTW with activity guide, so I will have guided narrations with the WWE (covering lit-- I think i plan to use a lot of the lit she uses in WWE for our "free reading"/read aloud/non-history related reading choices), and also the SOTW. I also plan on using the Apologia science for younger grades which also includes narration, so yeah, I think we'll be ok. Good to hear R&S gets good reviews from everybody.

[redsquirrel]

Very helpful, thanks! I just realized that I am already planning on SOTW with activity guide, so I will have guided narrations with the WWE (covering lit-- I think i plan to use a lot of the lit she uses in WWE for our "free reading"/read aloud/non-history related reading choices), and also the SOTW. I also plan on using the Apologia science for younger grades which also includes narration, so yeah, I think we'll be ok. Good to hear R&S gets good reviews from everybody.

 

I didn't use the R&S writing instruction. For years 5-8 I only use the grammar assignments from R&S. We use WWS for middle grades writing. That is a fairly common combination for the logic stage.

 

Another really common combination is FLL 1-4 followed by Hake grammar and WWS.

[Noreen Claire]

We are starting at home with 2nd grade this year. I love the ideas behind WWE, but I was disappointed that the readings/narrations/dictations were not related to the rest of the curriculum. I came across a recommendation in a forum post (wish I could find which one it was) for Classical House of Learning Literature, which ties in the methods of WWE to books that line up with the SOTW books. (Her website is now closed, but all of her files are available for download for free.) She includes suggested picture books and novels and lists narration questions and copywork, just like as in WWE.

 

I like the idea of tying in the history, literature, reading, and writing parts of the curriculum together. I would like to follow along chronologically with science and add in biographies and stories about science in the historical context, but I will have a newborn in October, so that will have to wait until next year. ;-)

 

 

[redsquirrel]

We are starting at home with 2nd grade this year. I love the ideas behind WWE, but I was disappointed that the readings/narrations/dictations were not related to the rest of the curriculum. I came across a recommendation in a forum post (wish I could find which one it was) for Classical House of Learning Literature, which ties in the methods of WWE to books that line up with the SOTW books. (Her website is now closed, but all of her files are available for download for free.) She includes suggested picture books and novels and lists narration questions and copywork, just like as in WWE.

 

I like the idea of tying in the history, literature, reading, and writing parts of the curriculum together. I would like to follow along chronologically with science and add in biographies and stories about science in the historical context, but I will have a newborn in October, so that will have to wait until next year. ;-)

 

There is also the text book by SWB "the complete writer" which was created for people who don't want to use the workbooks. It gives great guidance for week by week and month by month picking out sentences for dictation and copywork and choosing passages from history or whatever for narration.  It's all four years of writing instruction in one book broken down for you, but you pick the readings.  The workbooks were created for all us lazy people who wanted someone else to pick the passages, lol.

[ALB]

We being grammar in 2nd with R&S 2.  I prefer it to FLL.  I also appreciate the writing instruction in it, and wouldn't skip it altogether.  It covers different things than WWE, which I consider helpful.  

Lots of it can be done orally, but writing out at least a portion of the exercises really helps cement the skills being learned, and helps build writing stamina.

[Lfwfv]

Thanks ALB! That is exactly what I was thinking...wwe plus r&s grammar AND writing for a (hopefully) complete program. I really like the specific instructions on good sentence construction, paragraphs, and the scope and sequence of the writing throughout the r&s program. I do think it looks like that, in combo with Susan's stuff, could work really well for our family, and for my goals for my kids. Time will tell, but your post encourages me to give it a try :)

Edited August 16, 2016 by Lfwfv

[kiwik]

We are starting at home with 2nd grade this year. I love the ideas behind WWE, but I was disappointed that the readings/narrations/dictations were not related to the rest of the curriculum. I came across a recommendation in a forum post (wish I could find which one it was) for Classical House of Learning Literature, which ties in the methods of WWE to books that line up with the SOTW books. (Her website is now closed, but all of her files are available for download for free.) She includes suggested picture books and novels and lists narration questions and copywork, just like as in WWE.

 

I like the idea of tying in the history, literature, reading, and writing parts of the curriculum together. I would like to follow along chronologically with science and add in biographies and stories about science in the historical context, but I will have a newborn in October, so that will have to wait until next year. ;-)

My kids are happy to listen to history and talk about it a bit. If I asked them to write or narrate they would soon hate history. If your child isn't keen on writing the workbooks help.

[Noreen Claire]

There is also the text book by SWB "the complete writer" which was created for people who don't want to use the workbooks. It gives great guidance for week by week and month by month picking out sentences for dictation and copywork and choosing passages from history or whatever for narration.  It's all four years of writing instruction in one book broken down for you, but you pick the readings.  The workbooks were created for all us lazy people who wanted someone else to pick the passages, lol.

 

I have that book - I just couldn't see myself having the time (or brain power) to pick the passages myself, either! I like the CHOLL because she already wrote out the questions to ask after the recommended readings and has two levels of copywork/dictation sentences included.

 

My kid loves the history (so far), and has liked reading more about topics we have read about in SOTW. (He listened to the entirety of Rick Riordan's 'Percy Jackson' series in July - I wouldn't even have known about it if I hadn't read her SOTW-linked book list.) I figure this program gets him history, reading, writing, narration, dictation, and copy work all wrapped up in one program, if we use it along with SOTW. I'm trying to kill as many birds with one stone as possible!