Memoria Press Literature Guides

[veryblueberry]

My daughter will be in 6th.  I have purchased some MP items and am considering the literature.  Please tell me about the literature guides, whats in them, how long they take daily, weekly, etc.  I am pretty sure I can get literature guides for the same books elsewhere but don't want to go down that road unless its absolutely necessary.

Thanks

[serendipitous journey]

You can download samples (usually of the first lesson or two) from the MP website. 

The format is: key ideas to go over with the child before reading, vocabulary to go over before reading, comprehension questions for after reading, and optional enrichment/extension activities.  After a string of lessons there is a review lesson and then you can give the test.  Lather, rinse & repeat; with a cumulative final at the end.   (Early elementary literature guides do not, as I recall, tend to have the tests). 

Most full-on MP users use the guides pretty much as scheduled/written (you can purchase a pdf or a physical lesson plan for the year of literature you are planning, if you don't have or want the full curriculum manual) though if the child is either in a very early grade or transitioning into MP, often parents assign only some of the comprehension questions to be answered in writing, working up to doing everything in writing by the end of the year (barring special needs). 

Some parents give the tests as open-book.  Many of the teacher manuals have asterisks marking the central vocab. and concepts, which will be on the tests, so that it is easy to help the child focus on those elements. 

I myself find that often I disagree with the answers to the comp. questions (one disagreement every lesson or two) and I don't like the way they train the child to think about books.  They are a great check for careful reading, though, and my older fellow is an inveterate skimmer of fiction so I need to teach better habits.  Right now I just have him read a chapter, then we go over the whole lesson orally, I teach any vocabulary he doesn't know, and if he doesn't "miss" more than one comprehension question we're good to go.  Any that he does miss or disagree with, he just needs to hunt around in the book and then show me textual support for his argument (or lack of argument).  We do not test literature. 

For literature writing, we use the WTM guidelines and write something every week or two, and do an oral "composition" a 2-3 days a week (he is currently doing grade 5/6 WTM literature writing, I plan to amp it up so that he can start the grade 7 WTM-style literary analysis by August). 

HTH!

[Bay Lake Mom]

I’ve “tried” a few of these with my daughter in 3rd & 4th. I love the idea of them, but WOW, they require a lot of writing!  It ruined the book for my daughter. We ended up completing most of the guide orally. I felt like we could have accomplished a lot more simply using narration techniques (oral & written).  

The MP guides might be an excellent choice for the right student, but I felt like it took the joy out of reading for my student. I actually liked the Veritas Press guides more, but they still require a ton of writing. 

I would definitely look closely at the samples. 

[Gobblygook]

I use the MP guides. As with any curriculum, you need to make it work for YOU. They were written for a classroom environment and in those classrooms, not everything is completed 100% in writing. I use them as a guide for discussion and only require my children to complete select answers in writing as practice for writing well-constructed, concise responses. With my younger kids, we develop a sentence together orally and then he/she writes it down. Sometimes, I write the sentence on the board and they use it as copywork. Often, we just discuss the questions orally. 

[SevenDaisies]

8 minutes ago, Gobblygook said:

I use the MP guides. As with any curriculum, you need to make it work for YOU. They were written for a classroom environment and in those classrooms, not everything is completed 100% in writing. I use them as a guide for discussion and only require my children to complete select answers in writing as practice for writing well-constructed, concise responses. With my younger kids, we develop a sentence together orally and then he/she writes it down. Sometimes, I write the sentence on the board and they use it as copywork. Often, we just discuss the questions orally. 

This is what MP recommends and is how we handle the guides as well. My kids never write in all the answers.

[ktgrok]

On 6/14/2018 at 7:50 AM, Bay Lake Mom said:

I’ve “tried” a few of these with my daughter in 3rd & 4th. I love the idea of them, but WOW, they require a lot of writing!  It ruined the book for my daughter. We ended up completing most of the guide orally. I felt like we could have accomplished a lot more simply using narration techniques (oral & written).  

The MP guides might be an excellent choice for the right student, but I felt like it took the joy out of reading for my student. I actually liked the Veritas Press guides more, but they still require a ton of writing. 

I would definitely look closely at the samples. 

It's really not meant to be completed all in writing. In the classroom they do a lot of them on the whiteboard/chalkboard, with different students calling out answers to different questions or going up to write them on the board. So it's totally okay to use them mostly orally, just having them do some of it in writing.