Wilson Hill Language Arts courses?

[Rosepetal]

Anyone here have a child taking Language Arts 1,2 or 3 classes with them? Are these online classes for Grades 4, 5, and 6 worth them? I am considering it for fall 2018.

Do they have comprehension quizzes due regularly, paragraph writing, academic papers, and a grammar practices in a year? How many writing assignments are in these classes? How long are the classes?

What are your opinions on those as far as difficulty, appropriate level of work for the ages, etc.? Are they rigorous?

 

Thanks in advance for any input.  :confused1:

 

[ByGrace3]

I am curious about this as well. Trying to decide between the WH LA course or EW1 at WTMA.

[RootAnn]

I'm only familiar with LA4 which is slightly different. Do they have some sample classes on the website for one or two of the teachers?

 

The quizzes are every class period, at the beginning, usually after the prayer, and are almost always 5 multiple choice questions. (Not always, but usually!)

 

If they are like LA4, it is two ninety minute classes per week, but I haven't checked any of the lower level LA for details.

[Rosepetal]

Thanks RootAnn! Could you tell me that how much writing is included in the course the whole year? How many essays your dc has written in the one school year? How much religious is their LA classes?

Unfortunately, there are no samples on the site and they also can’t share due to privacy issues. Otherwise other schools gladly shared the sample class links with me.

[RootAnn]

Well, again, I am only familiar with LA4. I have a kid who took it with a teacher who is no longer with WHA, so I couldn't speak for the current teacher(s). The religion aspect will really depend on the teacher! There will always be a prayer at the beginning & sometimes at the end of class. Some integrate Christian themes into their classes routinely and some do it more sporatically.

 

In LA4, they started off with strong paragraphs, building up rather quickly into short essays. I can't remember for sure how many total - at least four during second semester (well, one of those was a presentation, but they were supposed to write the paper the presentation was based on first) and maybe three during fall semester? The first one was really short because I think the teacher provided the whole intro paragraph except for the thesis statement. (Actually, I think the second one was the same thing.) There was a lot of literary analysis in class. And frequently-missed-grammar stuff. It seemed like they always had homework, but it didn't seem like busy work. Does that make sense? They were always prepping for the next class (reading, writing answers to questions that were thinking questions, not just what-happened questions). 

 

It was a lot more work than my kid who was taking "Honors Composition" (now called Fundamentals of Academic Writing) at WHA with a different teacher. So, YMMV!

[Rosepetal]

Could anyone tell me if any one's son or dd taking WHA LA 1 or 2 this year? Kindly share your experience. Thanks.

[specialkmom]

My ds is in LA2 this year. It is our first time using WHA. He is in 6th grade. So far I’m pleased with the class. But we are only a few weeks in. 

Typing is important, so if you are looking to put your 4th/5th grader in a class, make sure they can type. This is probably the hardest part for my ds. He has done typing for a couple years but is so slow, and partly because I almost never required his work to be typed. My guess is that a parent would be allowed to help with a 4th grader.

Every week the students have copywork, dictation (done in class), vocabulary work (from the literature they are reading), grammar work (mostly done in class), and literature study. There is usually what’s called a Practical Practice (I think this is mostly grammar and mechanics) as well as a quiz (might be over literature and vocabulary).

Sometimes the literature study includes pages to record certain things from the book reading, sometimes it’s a paragraph they need to write. My ds did his first paragraph with A Wrinkle in Time. He had to summarize a chapter in 5-8 sentences. They also did a shorter couple sentence character description where the other classmates had to guess who the character was. 

The class is an hour and a half twice a week. Mrs. McGahey is my ds teacher and she is pretty upbeat and does a good job with teaching material and making it interesting. 

Recitation or memory work is also included. They memorize a new poem or piece every few weeks. He just did Lady Moon and next up is The Secret. 

For the first semester of writing, there are a few writing projects: descriptive paragraph about a place, making your own character, descriptive paragraph about your character, and indirect characterization of your character. But a lot of basics of writing is taught, including formatting. A lot of foundation work. I don’t have the second semester writing schedule yet, but my guess is that there would be more in the second semester. 

I think most of his classmates are 6th grade. But some could be 5th as well. Overall I’m pleased with what he is learning this year and am hopeful we will see improvements in several areas. 

 

[Rosepetal]

Thanks for replying to me in detail. Could anyone compare memoria press online classical composition fable courses and narrative to the online CAP Fable and Narrative writing courses?

Edited September 24, 2018 by Rosepetal