Help! WWE 3 is a bust

[mom2kando]

Uggh, It's way too much (and too frustrating) to describe here. My 9 year old 3rd grader has LOVED WWE up until now. This year it's like pulling teeth and honestly, he's not even able to write (dictate) a cohesive paragraph without me questioning and walking him through EVERY. SINGLE. SENTENCE.

 

I'm looking for recommendations for a wiggly sports obsessed boy. He's not a dreamer...doesn't live in his imagination, and actually finds it frustrating to try.

 

What do you think? Here are some I've used or know about...

 

• IEW Student Writing Intensive A (my only hesitation is he will do CC essentials in 4th and they use IEW so it may wind up being overkill)

 

• Brave Writer (this might be to "dreamy" or open ended for him?)

 

• Writing and Rhetoric

 

• Other suggestions?

 

Thank you thank you thank you!

[prairiewindmomma]

Do IEW SWI-A and then come back to WWE3.  It's worth the struggle, but I'd do it later, skip WWE4 and then move into WWS1 in like 8th-9th grade.  

[HomeAgain]

Two things we have used/are using successfully:

 

Writing Tales.  It's a hands on progymnasmata style program, with active games to learn grammar.  Writing is taught still with copywork and slowly, very slowly, moves toward writing their own pieces.

 

Currently we are using ELTL, which also goes through the writing process in a very incremental manner.  I'm coupling it with SOTW, alternating narrations.  ELTL 3 starts by having them copy the first sentence of an oral narration they dictate to you, while in SOTW we're practicing focusing on the subject and creating concise sentences that effectively summarize (not retell) the story.

[blondeviolin]

Treasured Conversations

[Milknhoney]

Rather than switching to something different, it may be that you just need to adapt it to fit your needs.

 

With my oldest, I had a lot going on that year and just couldn't keep up with the workload I'd created for myself. So I ended up dropping WWE 3. He was still giving me narrations for SOTW and writing out his own narrations in the Apologia Jr. notebooking journal, so he was still writing. We picked right back up with WWE 4 the next year and he did just fine with it and is now successfully working through WWS.

 

Now my youngest is in WWE 3. I've added a handwriting curriculum for cursive instruction and since I don't have time to do everything, we're going through WWE at half pace. We do WWE for two days, then we do cursive for two days. Once she's mastered cursive, we'll go back to four days of WWE. Now that I know what the track looks like further ahead, I know that grade 5 is an open year for writing as WWS is better to put off until grade 6. So taking longer than a year for level 3 isn't a big deal. 

 

I also think that it is unrealistic to think your child will be able to have the passage down after hearing you read it twice. So if that is part of the problem, don't worry about that expectation and read through the passage as many times as is necessary for them to get it.

[Terabith]

Yeah, WWE 3 is a HUGE jump.  Even my kid who is accelerated at most things just couldn't remember the passages for the long dictations.  It was kinda nuts. 

[mamaraby]

Uggh, It's way too much (and too frustrating) to describe here. My 9 year old 3rd grader has LOVED WWE up until now. This year it's like pulling teeth and honestly, he's not even able to write (dictate) a cohesive paragraph without me questioning and walking him through EVERY. SINGLE. SENTENCE.

If that is what he needs, then by all means, do that. If you walk him through the process and the end result is acceptable then it was a success, yes? He's 9. He won't need you to hold his hand for the rest of his life, but maybe he does now and that's the great thing about homeschooling because you can do what your student needs and not what the group needs.

 

Maybe check out the videos SWB has on YouTube for her suggestions on how one might consider modifying it. WWE doesn't work exactly as written for us. I do tend to delay it slightly and slow down as needed.

 

My 4th grader is going through it right now. I have her do the reading on her own for days 1 and 3. Then we work on the summary which she writes on her own. We do not do them as dictations. If she struggled with the handwriting, then I'd probably work her into it slowly by doing the writing for her. Often times, I provide the questions for her to help with the summaries. I plan on weaning her off that as the year progresses, but on the other hand, if she needs it then we'll continue on.

 

There are lots of ways to do the dictations - just because it says to read it twice does not mean that you have to stick with that. Just because there's more than one sentence doesn't mean you have to do both all at once. Maybe you do a sentence at a time. Maybe you do it as a studied dictation or maybe you type it out and he fills in the blanks.

 

If you'd rather do another program, then by all means go for it, but you don't have to if you otherwise like WWE.

[wendyroo]

If that is what he needs, then by all means, do that. If you walk him through the process and the end result is acceptable then it was a success, yes? He's 9. He won't need you to hold his hand for the rest of his life, but maybe he does now and that's the great thing about homeschooling because you can do what your student needs and not what the group needs.

 

Maybe check out the videos SWB has on YouTube for her suggestions on how one might consider modifying it. WWE doesn't work exactly as written for us. I do tend to delay it slightly and slow down as needed.

 

My 4th grader is going through it right now. I have her do the reading on her own for days 1 and 3. Then we work on the summary which she writes on her own. We do not do them as dictations. If she struggled with the handwriting, then I'd probably work her into it slowly by doing the writing for her. Often times, I provide the questions for her to help with the summaries. I plan on weaning her off that as the year progresses, but on the other hand, if she needs it then we'll continue on.

 

There are lots of ways to do the dictations - just because it says to read it twice does not mean that you have to stick with that. Just because there's more than one sentence doesn't mean you have to do both all at once. Maybe you do a sentence at a time. Maybe you do it as a studied dictation or maybe you type it out and he fills in the blanks.

 

If you'd rather do another program, then by all means go for it, but you don't have to if you otherwise like WWE.

 

:iagree:

 

My 3rd grader is going through WWE 3 right now, and we are using it precisely because he still needs a lot of guidance to write a coherent paragraph.  We skip the dictation entirely; I am solely using it as paragraph composition practice.  

 

Each day we follow these steps:

1 - I read him any introductory information from the teacher's guide, like vocab he might struggle with or historical background information to help him understand when he reads.

2 - He reads the selection once or twice depending on if he feels he understood it the first time through.

3 - I ask, and he answers the comprehension questions in full sentences.

4 - I give him the narration prompt and any warnings that SWB has provided, like that students will be tempted to include too many details instead of sticking to the main plot elements.

5 - He narrates one sentence at a time, and we discuss whether it introduces the main idea of the passage, offers supporting examples, provides necessary information, etc.  We orally edit the sentence until we think it is doing its job in the paragraph and then I write the sentence down.  We continue this until the narration is complete.

6 - We read and critique the sample narrations in the teacher's guide.  We discuss how they differ from his narration, their strengths and weaknesses, whether they leave readers with a different impression of the passage, etc.

 

This whole process only takes about 15 minutes twice a week, and I can see him gradually becoming a much stronger paragraph writer.  His handwriting is very, very weak, but his typing is coming along well, so later in the year I intend to start having him type his narrations...first as "copywork" from my scribing and then later directly as he/we compose them.

 

Wendy

Edited September 20, 2017 by wendyroo

[mirabillis]

Yeah, WWE 3 is a HUGE jump.  Even my kid who is accelerated at most things just couldn't remember the passages for the long dictations.  It was kinda nuts. 

 

i stopped trying to make them remember them. i think they are ridiculous. we ended up quitting after WWE 3 b/c of that, but journeyed through WWE 3 and just did dictation, sentence to sentence, or part of sentence to part of sentence. i read it as often as needed in as many separate parts as necessary. 

 

then we switched to IEW SWI-A in 5th grade - and stayed with IEW from then on for writing.

 

i thought WWE gave a good solid foundation, and then IEW paved the way for how to write.

 

ETA: oh and we've stuck with it and are on child #4 with WWE 3.

Edited September 21, 2017 by mirabillis

[Lori D.]

Wordsmith Apprentice is great as a break from a writing spine (esp. something like WWE, which can get a bit dry). And after 2-3 years with a more formal spine writing program, it's a great time to take a break with something a bit lighter, more creative, and let the student put some of the things they've been learning into practice.

 

WA is largely done solo by the student, a fun "cub reporter" theme with some silly cartoons, and you can schedule as much/little per day or per week as you wish. See sample pages.

Edited September 21, 2017 by Lori D.