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How to tweak Rod and Staff English for homeschool


Trilliumlady
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Planning this for daughter for next year.  We’ve done FLL 1-4 and The Nose Tree so far.  I was going to try this for something different.  She will be doing writing with IEW.  So, how have people tweaked the student text to make it useful for homeschooling families?  Any tips would be much appreciated.  I have a few ideas, but would love some experienced perspective.

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A couple of ideas - I do all the grammar lessons and skip the writing lessons (especially if you are doing writing with something else). The writing lessons are marked in the book. If you want her to do it independently, she could read the lesson and then complete the written portion of the exercises. I have also bought the booklet of worksheets and had my kid read the lesson and then complete a worksheet, but there aren't worksheets for every lesson (most but not all). Lately, I've been doing it with my kid orally, so I read the lesson to him and we go over the oral exercises together. Any diagramming we do on scrap paper. Lots of people use a whiteboard.

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I usually started with the review in the teachers guide. That reminded us what we did before. Then we just read through the student text explanation, that was more than enough.  We chose to do most of the exercises orally, even diagramming (I had a page of generic diagrams and sometimes had them just show me which one they would pick and where to put each word). Some exercises I had them write out because mechanics just need to be practiced. Some I just had then mark up the text and considered it consumable. I usually let them do the worksheets as independent practice.

We also did another writing program so we skipped most of the writing lessons, which were usually easy to pick out cuz they had a special border on the lesson or star in the table of contents. 

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So I've used For and Staff from preschool through high school English. I've tweaked differently different years. 

In elementary we did just about every lesson 3-4 times a week. We never finished a text entirely as there are so many lessons in any R&S book, but they aren't missing anything. Everything goes deeper and get touched on again. We did all lessons together, including oral drills from the TM.  That's some of the best stuff from the whole program, the way it drills and reviews from the TM. Then we did the class practice together on the whiteboard to make sure they understand the lesson after reading it from the book. Then I assigned any of the written work I wanted them to do (if any.) Sometimes the oral and the class practice section was enough. We did do all writing assignments. They were all good. 

Then, in later years when they had do much other work going on, including Latin which drills grammar a lot, I only assigned them to read the grammar, made sure they understood it, and I bought the practice pages. We used those as a workbook, so if there was a worksheet I would have them do it, but if not I usually didn't have them do anything besides the class practice orally and the composition exercises. 

At some point as our schedules got heavier with outside classes and writingin other places, we got to where we don't use the grammar a lot. But I'm not so to give them up, so we pull them out occasionally. We'll go a month where we work from them when we're not doing something else. And do we've skipped a grade of them for obe of mine. And the other who isn't as strong in grammar works the 7th grade book for high school as it's still pretty strong stuff to review from. 

 

So basically we used them however I needed them each year as we went. 

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I let me kid write in her book instead of copying things out. She could use the big white board for diagramming as well since that seemed easier and fun. We did a lot orally as the others have mentioned. AND do the extra stuff in the TM - it is quick but so good. 

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So I've used it with 4 kiddos now (my 9 year old is in level 3, oldest finished level 8 and did not go on the the high school books). With my oldest, he both understood grammar and had a tough time with reading comprehension, so I primarily used it for reading comprehension. He would read the sections and do the exercises, and I would check them to make sure he got them. The goal was to teach him to read and understand a text and follow instructions. He did the writing and grammar exercises. I found the writing instruction to be solid if dull. We did change out the topics to make them more interesting, or he would make them funny (his description of his "disorderly room" was priceless). He writes well and has a very strong sense of grammar, and he reads well now, so I found that R+S really filled his needs. The poetry, while not particularly artistic, did at least get that done, and he's having no problems with using those ideas with more complex poetry now.

My second reads well and really struggles with grammar, so I'm supporting her more. She reads it, we do the oral exercises, and then she does about 1/2 the written questions. She's doing pretty well, but we are using it a level behind. I'm doing a different writing program with her because she gets bored more quickly than her brother. That being said, the new writing program is more fun, but less solid. 

For the younger two (level 5 and 3) we're working somewhere in between. They (or I or my sitter) read the book, practice the oral drills (in level 5) and then do the questions (about 1/2 of them). Again, I'm mostly using the books to ensure that they are learning to read and understand instructions. Especially in the level 3 and 4 books, there's a lot of practicing writing sentences, so I do think, unless your kid is a very smooth, prolific writer, you will miss a lot of the meat of the text if you do it all orally. You'll really only get the grammar portion, which is fine if that's what you want, but facility in writing and the internalization of mechanics is really valuable too. 

 

HTH

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