An endorsement for MCT from someone who hasn't used it yet

[lwest]

Just wanted to share something I was excited about this morning. 

My kids are poetry lovers but have not had any formal lessons in poetry (1st year home). I am using MCT Town and Island with my DD10 and DD7 next year. I was so excited to get the materials a few months ago that I sat and read through parts of the poetry book from MCT Town with my DD10. 

That was the end of March. My DD hasn't looked at the materials since that day.

This morning my DD10 was sitting reading The Night Before Christmas and she figured out that it was written in anapaest meter. She had never even heard of meter in poetry until the day we read about it in MCT.

[Clemsondana]

We had something similar - my kid did some Disney karaoke at church and came out commenting about the meter in some of the songs.  As an adult, the MCT program has changed the way that I see language.  The idea that adjectives change what a word means made me think about how people talk to, and about, each other.  I've picked up a lot of facts and remembered a lot of things that i had forgotten during the 10 years that we've done this, but the MCT program probably made the biggest, and most unexpected, difference in how I see things.  I'm guessing it's just filling in gaps in my own education, but I'm glad that it did!  

[lwest]

Yes! It has changed the way I see language too. I never thought I would care about grammar. In school I only learned the basic parts of speech and simple mechanics. I was able to do well academically because I was able to use grammar intuitively in my writing. Reading through the MCT materials inspired me to care and I hope it has the same effect on my kids next year.

[daijobu]

The MCT poetry books are really lovely. 

[Little Green Leaves]

That sounds so lovely. I'm totally confused because I had never heard of MCT before I read this post, so after I decoded the acronym I googled it and found a website selling them. There seem to be so many books! Does Grammar Island also contain poetry, or is it purely grammar? I couldn't figure out where to begin with it. Also, what sets this apart from other grammar books? Thanks everyone. 

[Clemsondana]

@Little Green Leaves, each book in a level focuses mainly on one thing.  They one with grammar in the name is pretty much just grammar, and the practice one is 100 practice sentences to use for grammar exercises.  The ones with sentence, paragraph, or essay in their names (for the early levels) focus on writing.  There is one that deals with vocabulary roots, and then the poetry one often has the word 'music' in it somewhere.  Other than the writing itself we do all of it orally, which is great for reluctant writers.  My kids' understanding of grammar and language at the end of elementary school exceeds what I knew at any point in my K-12 education..  He gives a recommended schedule in the new versions, but there are lots of ways to do the books.

[Little Green Leaves]

2 minutes ago, ClemsonDana said:

@Little Green Leaves, each book in a level focuses mainly on one thing.  They one with grammar in the name is pretty much just grammar, and the practice one is 100 practice sentences to use for grammar exercises.  The ones with sentence, paragraph, or essay in their names (for the early levels) focus on writing.  There is one that deals with vocabulary roots, and then the poetry one often has the word 'music' in it somewhere.  Other than the writing itself we do all of it orally, which is great for reluctant writers.  My kids' understanding of grammar and language at the end of elementary school exceeds what I knew at any point in my K-12 education..  He gives a recommended schedule in the new versions, but there are lots of ways to do the books.

Thank you!!

[lwest]

1 hour ago, Little Green Leaves said:

That sounds so lovely. I'm totally confused because I had never heard of MCT before I read this post, so after I decoded the acronym I googled it and found a website selling them. There seem to be so many books! Does Grammar Island also contain poetry, or is it purely grammar? I couldn't figure out where to begin with it. Also, what sets this apart from other grammar books? Thanks everyone. 

As far as I understand, some people pick and choose which parts of the program to do. They might just use the poetry or the vocabulary or the grammar. It all seems very synergistic though. The words in vocabulary are used throughout the other books and the grammar is emphasized in the writing portions. I was totally overwhelmed looking at the program last year but I kept coming across discussions of the snuggle-on-the-couch grammar and the retention from the vocabulary and the love of language the program inspires. Some cons are that there are a lot of books, $, the lesson planning is not as straightforward, and the writing component not working well. I am not sure that we will use the writing component as more than a supplement, but we will see. There are samples on their website for each level and book. 

Edited June 19, 2020 by lwest

[lwest]

1 hour ago, Little Green Leaves said:

There seem to be so many books! Does Grammar Island also contain poetry, or is it purely grammar? I couldn't figure out where to begin
 

 

He has a guide to using the program and explains the components here and placement information here.

 

 

[Little Green Leaves]

15 hours ago, lwest said:

He has a guide to using the program and explains the components here and placement information here.

 

 

Thank you! I'm feeling stingy about the price, but I'll start by looking over the samples and the placement info. That's really helpful.

[lwest]

1 hour ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Thank you! I'm feeling stingy about the price, but I'll start by looking over the samples and the placement info. That's really helpful.

Keep in mind I haven't actually used it yet, but I've spent a lot of time reading threads and reviews. Many people say you can get by with just the teacher's manuals and skip the student books. The teacher's manuals have everything the student books do. They just have extra information and answers in them. The only consumable is the practice book, but you could just use the teacher's manual and copy the sentence on a whiteboard and do the analysis that way. I balked at the price too, but I have four kids that can go through the books and I am planning to use a whiteboard for the sentences. 

[domestic_engineer]

Yes, you could get by with just the teacher’s manual, especially for the island level. However, when I tried it with Town (Or maybe it was voyage) level, I found myself covering up a lot of things with post-it notes so that the child can answer the questions and “discover” the principle. And then as you get higher up, you end up both crowding around 1 book and by this time the kiddo is physically larger than when you were doing Island level.   I found it annoying to be craning my neck all the time.  So while it’s possible to just buy the teacher’s manual, I found it to easier and more comfortable to each have our own book. 
 

Likewise for the practice book, you can make do with the teacher’s manual. But I prefer buying the student book so that (1) it can be independent and portable when I need it to be and (2) I  think it gives the kid a sense of accomplishment to make it through a physical book (our  curriculum for other subjects does not have a workbook component so this is the only place my kids get this aspect).

Just some observations from someone who’s BTDT ......

[daijobu]

Don't miss the Caesar's English vocabulary books.  They are truly one of a kind when it comes to vocab.  

[Clemsondana]

We've always bought the whole set because we don't necessarily want to sit up under each other to work (and, at this point, my older is 6 feet tall and not especially snuggly).  We can sit on separate chairs/couches and chat while each holding our own book.  It might work differently for other families, especially with the earlier levels.  We don't actually write in the practice book, though - we do it orally. 

[Little Green Leaves]

13 hours ago, daijobu said:

Don't miss the Caesar's English vocabulary books.  They are truly one of a kind when it comes to vocab.  

Yes. I've been looking at the samples on the website and the Caesar's English books look great. 

I confess that the grammar books at the Island and Town levels look a little thin to me. Am I missing something? Looks like they teach a few basic ideas (phrases, clauses) in an appealing way? I am leaning towards just getting the vocabulary and poetics books used and looking for other ideas for grammar and writing.

Edited June 20, 2020 by Little Green Leaves

[domestic_engineer]

I’d argue that the grammar books go deeper into grammar at an earlier age than most other curriculum. Or perhaps more accurately, the books teach concepts to my kids that *I* never learned in my education.  (My prime example is that by the end of town level, the student will be able to distinguish between infinitives, gerunds, and participles.)

The grammar books do not have a lot of repetition within the year. It doesn’t spend weeks talking about compound subjects or compound sentences like I had in elementary school. So perhaps that’s what makes it “thin.”  There’s no drill-and-kill. 

The writing portion is my least favorite component, but I think it still has some merit.  It gives a macro view of writing that other books don’t.   Personally we read those books for the big picture idea, but we also supplemented for the nitty-gritty, hands-on aspect of writing. (Killgallon was my favorite supplement.)

[Little Green Leaves]

4 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

I’d argue that the grammar books go deeper into grammar at an earlier age than most other curriculum. Or perhaps more accurately, the books teach concepts to my kids that *I* never learned in my education.  (My prime example is that by the end of town level, the student will be able to distinguish between infinitives, gerunds, and participles.)

The grammar books do not have a lot of repetition within the year. It doesn’t spend weeks talking about compound subjects or compound sentences like I had in elementary school. So perhaps that’s what makes it “thin.”  There’s no drill-and-kill. 

The writing portion is my least favorite component, but I think it still has some merit.  It gives a macro view of writing that other books don’t.   Personally we read those books for the big picture idea, but we also supplemented for the nitty-gritty, hands-on aspect of writing. (Killgallon was my favorite supplement.)

Thanks a lot. I feel really torn about this -- honestly the expense is a turn-off (when I went to the site it was over 200 dollars for a one-year set) so I'm trying to figure out what I actually need here. 

By "thin" I mean that the grammar books look like something my kids would treat as a picture book and would want to devour in one sitting, so I'd either have to hide the book from them, or else let them at it and then drag them through rereading and applying it. I'm thinking that it might work better to just get a more traditional writing curriculum and then adding my own explanations as we go. I'll look into Killgallon.

[domestic_engineer]

21 hours ago, Little Green Leaves said:

I'm feeling stingy about the price, 

Price is a definite drawback to the program!  I’m able to justify the price only when I calculate the price per kid. If I only had one child, It would be a hard sell. 
 

ETA: the used book market can be a little hairy to navigate with all the different printings. Books printed more than 8-10 years ago are definitely not worth buying. But for printings and reprintings within the last 8 years, I don’t know how much value was added in each reprinting. 
 

if you can handle iBooks, you could buy discounted iTunes gift cards to bring the price down even more. 

Edited June 20, 2020 by domestic_engineer

[domestic_engineer]

7 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

By "thin" I mean that the grammar books look like something my kids would treat as a picture book and would want to devour in one sitting, so I'd either have to hide the book from them, or else let them at it and then drag them through rereading and applying it. 

Yes, it’s possible this will happen. And I think that’s part of the authors intention. The author believes grammar is to be joy not a drudgery. So I think he’d be delighted if his audience stole the book away. 🙂

The Practice book is the one that is truly the key, I think, to teaching the kids. The grammar book is meant to front load all the information in a short period of time. But then throughout the year on a daily or every other day basis, the child interacts with those grammar ideas in short spurts  by doing the practice book. 

[lwest]

2 hours ago, domestic_engineer said:

Price is a definite drawback to the program!  I’m able to justify the price only when I calculate the price per kid. If I only had one child, It would be a hard sell. 
 

ETA: the used book market can be a little hairy to navigate with all the different printings. Books printed more than 8-10 years ago are definitely not worth buying. But for printings and reprintings within the last 8 years, I don’t know how much value was added in each reprinting. 
 

if you can handle iBooks, you could buy discounted iTunes gift cards to bring the price down even more. 

 

In my local market they do not come up very often on used sites and when they do they seem to hold value and they go quickly.

[Little Green Leaves]

3 hours ago, domestic_engineer said:

Price is a definite drawback to the program!  I’m able to justify the price only when I calculate the price per kid. If I only had one child, It would be a hard sell. 
 

ETA: the used book market can be a little hairy to navigate with all the different printings. Books printed more than 8-10 years ago are definitely not worth buying. But for printings and reprintings within the last 8 years, I don’t know how much value was added in each reprinting. 
 

if you can handle iBooks, you could buy discounted iTunes gift cards to bring the price down even more. 

I've just been so overboard with book-buying for the last few months. I was used to relying on the library for everything -- free-reading books, reference books, science and history supplements -- so it's been a shock to suddenly have to buy all those books! I think some of the MCT books are available through ThriftBooks, so that could be my way to give them a try. Thanks for explaining how it all works; that's really helpful.

[domestic_engineer]

@ClemsonDana and @daijobu  Did you do all the levels of poetry?   While we continue to use the grammar portion (now finishing ML1), I only did the first three levels of poetry. How are the upper levels of the poetry strand?

[daijobu]

1 hour ago, domestic_engineer said:

@ClemsonDana and @daijobu  Did you do all the levels of poetry?   While we continue to use the grammar portion (now finishing ML1), I only did the first three levels of poetry. How are the upper levels of the poetry strand?

 

I didn't, we gave it up in middle school, just due to time and other priorities.  But I regret that decision, and wish we had continued.  I'm actually thinking about buying them myself just to improve my own writing.