May I ask for a little more assistance with fourth grade language arts?

[smg0918]

I hope you don't mind a newbie asking all these questions, but I've spent the better part of the last three days poring over this website and I'm so thankful for the depth of knowledge you're all so willing to share.

 

I am trying to complete our language arts choices and have already ordered Writing Tales I and Growing With Grammar. As a reminder, I have nine year old boy/girl twins. My daughter is advanced in LA so I'm actually gearing our materials more for my son, who I would say is an "average" reader and a "so-so" speller. I figure I can tweak the materials to make them more challenging for my DD much more easily than I can tweak them to make them easier for my son, hence the first level of Writing Tales.

 

I'm now trying to decide where to start with AAS. We used Spelling Workout last year (Level C) and are currently using Level D. Both kids enjoy it and my son does very well with his spelling words each week. The problem is that he doesn't seem to retain some of the more challenging words or remember things such as like when to use "w" or "wh" at the beginning of a word. So clearly we need to backtrack a bit and I think AAS will help him in terms of walking him through the rules so to speak. What level of AAS would be the best place to start? My kids just turned 9 in September so they are young fourth graders. Both kids are very bright, but my son is ALL boy and has a hard time focusing. He enjoys Spelling Workout and I don't want to squelch that, but I know he needs more work in spelling development rather than just rote memorization.

 

And now my last question: will AAS, WT and GWG be a complete language arts program? I plan to continue having my kids do 20 - 30 minutes of independent reading every day as well as complete weekly written book reports. Do I need more, and if so, what secular materials would you recommend to round things out? I don't want to make it too writing intensive for my son because I fear he'll just shut down.

 

Thanks again for all the help I've received over the past few days. I really do appreciate it.

[SBP]

That sounds very complete to me... and very much like what I did with my two for fourth, though we used slightly different curricula. The only gap I saw with my two was in "mechanics" - capitalization, punctuation, etc. - and I added in Daily Grams to help with that. It only takes them 5-10 minutes per day and has really helped. Your dc might not need review in this area, however, so I'm by no means suggesting that you need to add it to what you already have. It's just been a worthwhile resource for us, so I thought I'd mention it :).

 

Best of luck to you!

 

SBP

[Amy from WT]

Hi Susan,

 

Welcome to homeschooling, and welcome to the boards!

 

I have used Daily Grams as well, and really liked it too. My only complaint about it was that after awhile it seemed that if I was not using the complement program, Easy Grammar, my children were missing out on some material at times.

 

I do think that GWG covers puncuation and capitalization, though.

 

Susan - you have a private message also....check your mailbox!!

[Titus.Two.Five]

Looks pretty complete to me! ;)

 

You may want to have your daughter doing some dictation and also begin her on written summaries (just a paragraph or so) from her science and/or history a few times per week.

[nukeswife]

I think AAS, WT and GWG would be more than enough. My kids use GWG and AAS but instead of WT we use WWE for writing. I don't think you would need Daily Grams as GWG does cover punctuation and capitalization. The first chapter of my kids GWG this year were on punctuation and capitalization. They are also getting reinforcement of this when doing their WWE.

 

As for the level with AAS. You could probably start with 2 or 3 (I can't remember exactly what's in those levels), my son is now 9.5 and blazing through level 1, but we had done spelling hit or miss the past 2 years so I wanted to make sure to cover the gaps he may have had. If you're really not sure email the writer of AAS, she is really helpful.

[mamato3 all-boy boys]

I'm now trying to decide where to start with AAS......What level of AAS would be the best place to start?

 

Hi!

 

I started using AAS last year with my ds, who was in 3rd grade. It is recommended to start at the beginning -- level 1 -- because the information is cumulative. In Level 1, you children will learn the basic phonograms and a couple more. We moved through level 1 in about a month or so of working 2-3 days a week.

 

You will probably find that the words themselves are not that challenging to your children; however, it is more the reasonsy why we spell the way we do that will be challenging to internalize. This is what I've found with my 4th grader (we're nearing the end of level 3 in AAS right now).

 

We're really enjoyed AAS!

[Shasta Mom]

I think it looks complete..........

[arcara]

I started my dd in AAS 2. There are some sample dictation sentences on the AAS website that you can give your dc to test their level. The 1st chapter in AAS 2 reviews all of the rules from level 1. I agree with the previous post that said that the words may not be too challenging at 1st because the focus is learning WHY the words are spelled as they are. I found this to be true for my oldest.

 

We're really enjoying AAS!

[smg0918]

Thank you all so much for responding. I feel really good about these choices and am really anxious to get started on our new materials. I'm going to email the author of AAS to get her recommendation as to which level to start on.

 

Now that I have language arts out of the way I just have to decide on math, science and social studies! :D

[MerryAtHope]

I'm now trying to decide where to start with AAS. We used Spelling Workout last year (Level C) and are currently using Level D. Both kids enjoy it and my son does very well with his spelling words each week. The problem is that he doesn't seem to retain some of the more challenging words or remember things such as like when to use "w" or "wh" at the beginning of a word. So clearly we need to backtrack a bit and I think AAS will help him in terms of walking him through the rules so to speak. What level of AAS would be the best place to start? My kids just turned 9 in September so they are young fourth graders. Both kids are very bright, but my son is ALL boy and has a hard time focusing. He enjoys Spelling Workout and I don't want to squelch that, but I know he needs more work in spelling development rather than just rote memorization.

 

 

 

Here's a link to an article on the site that can help you decide: http://www.all-about-spelling.com/which-spelling-level.html

 

A lot of people start in level 1 but breeze through it quickly, just to fill in any holes.

 

I started my 9 & 11 yo's in level 2 this year & have gone through it in about 4 months with my oldest, my youngest will take maybe 5-6 months on it, before going on to level 3.

 

Merry :-)