English Lessons Through Literature?

[NoseInABook]

Okay, what in the heck am I doing with this? I have level 4 for my 4th grader who has completed Writing With Ease 1-3 and First Language Lessons 1-3. I bought the workbook to go with it and it doesn't match up to what we're doing in the actual book... I've taken to having her write everything in a common place book instead of messing with the workbook. Is that how most people teach it? Do you really do 1 chapter's worth of work each day that you're teaching with it? Do you do it as written or do you tweak it? It feels like a LOT of work on top of our spelling (All About Spelling level 4) and reading (Memoria Press' Lit guides). 

 

I was super excited to get going with Barefoot Ragamuffins curriculum and so far this is the most stressful stuff to try to figure out how to juggle. I'm feeling the same way about Quark Chronicles too. We haven't even touched the workbooks because it doesn't make any sense on how to teach with it.

[Sammish]

I did levels 1 & 2, and my experience was that it wasn't that much work. What do you mean when you say your workbook doesn't match up?

 

I believe the way it should go is:

 

Read the literature chapter that is noted at the beginning of the lesson.

-Do the grammar lesson (usually pretty short).

-Read the poem (which is also printed in the workbook)

-Read the fable

-Do the copywork (also written in the workbook, with lines below it so your student can write it)

-Do the written work (I think? Like diagramming or finding nouns and verbs in your copywork or narrating)

 

The workbook isn't required, but it does have a place for the student to do the exercises in it. We didn't use the workbook for level 1, and I just had my son do his copywork in a separate notebook.

 

The author recommends doing one lesson a day, but only doing lessons three days a week. 

 

We followed it mostly as written, except we didn't read the literature, because we were using a different program for that. 

 

We also used Quark Chronicles, but I'll admit we didn't use the workbook. We just read the chapters (usually spread out over 3 days, because they're long!). I coordinated another related book to read along with Quark, and we read that the other two days. The workbook tells which additional books to read (pick one from the appropriate age range), and then tells you how many chapters to read to go along with the Quark chapters. There's vocab words from the chapter, and space for the student to write definitions, as well as copywork from the chapter. It also has you doing an experiment from another book, and then there's some scientific method pages to fill out as you do the experiment. 

 

So the way it would work is you read Quark over a couple of days, doing the vocab and copywork along with it. Then read your supplemental book one day, and then do the experiment another day, along with the scientific method pages (if desired) in the notebook.

 

The experiments and supplemental reading are just done in order (do experiment 1, then 2, then 3, etc.), so they don't actually line up with what you're reading in Quark. That's the big reason we didn't do them (or use her supplemental books). I like things to be related! So I picked other books that I liked better to read along with them. 

 

Does all of that make sense, or have I just further muddied the waters? :) It looks like a lot, but it's really not- it does go pretty fast. Since we didn't do the literature reading, it took us 10-15 minutes, tops, to do ELTL. 

Edited September 17, 2016 by Sammish

[coastalfam]

Did you e-mail the author your questions? She is really responsive and helpful. We are doing ELTL 3. We have the workbook, and it aligns perfectly with what we have. We do do the reading. I have my son read the chapter on his own before we start, and I have him keep me abreast of what is happening in the story, which works on comprehension and narration skills in a practical, natural way. We do not have a reading program, as I feel ELTL addresses that. My son does, however, chaos other books beside the ELTL book to read. We do use All About Spelling, and we use it on Tuesday and Thursday, and we do ELTL on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. This is how it is scheduled in the Wayfarers curriculum planner from the same publisher. Perhaps you are using it too many times a week? In Wayfarers, ELTL is 3 days a week and spelling work is 2 days a week. I am a huge ELTL fan as I feel it is comprehensive in itself, and very straightforward for me. If we hadn't already been accustom to AAS, I would be using prepared dictation as outlined in the ELTL manual for our spelling work as well.