New homeschooler trying to figure out a writing curric

[JenJenQ]

Hi,

I am completely new to homeschooling. I have a 8, 6, and 3 year old that I am planning to get out of public school. I am hoping to start homeschool by the end of winter break. Fingers crossed.

Little bit of background info, we are trying a mix of LCC and WTM. We are also secular. We already have a math curric (math mammoth, math facts that stick), Grammar (FLL), Spelling (All About Spelling), Handwriting (Zaner-Bloser), U.S History (Woke Homeschooling), Latin (Intro to Latin Grammar School-charter memoria press), plus some Spanish grammar once a week. 

Where I am having a hard time deciding is with the writing curric for my 8 year old. Reading and writing is where he is most behind. He has a very hard time with comprehension. He can read a story a dozen times and he can't seem to grasp it. My son has trouble with grammar and sentence structure. He has a hard time with a broad writing prompt and has trouble structuring out his writing. However, he is an active kid who hates winded instructions and just wants to get to the point. I am not a strong writer and so would need structure in my lessons to know what to teach and how to teach it. We are on a very limited budget so I didn't even bother looking deeper in IEW once I saw the price tag. I am also interested in progymnasmata.

 

I looked at W&R and I am very interested in it. From the reviews I saw, W&R would appeal to the creativeness in him and make writing actually enjoyable for him but lacks the outlining work he needs. I know it is not secular but from what I read, it doesn't seem to be preachy so I wouldn't mind using it. 

 

Sorry for so much info but I just wanted to give a clear picture.

Thank you guys,

JenJen

[forty-two]

Writing With Ease, maybe?  I've had reluctant writers and doing WWE a year or two behind has worked great for us.  It works on reading comprehension, working up to the ability to summarize; and uses copywork and dictation to work on physical writing and writing mechanics.  For us, WWE1 in 3rd, WWE2 in 4th, and WWE3 in 5th has done wonders with getting reluctant writers comfortable with both written and oral communication.

[almondbutterandjelly]

He's only 8.  The thing you need to realize about public school writing expectations is that they are wrong and developmentally inappropriate for most children.  

That said, we enjoyed copywork from Writing With Ease for writing.  We did not do the dictation.  We did not do the narrations.  We did read the passages.  They are very good.  

For reading comprehension, the workbook series Comprehension Plus might be a nice place to start.  We skipped the end of section writing exercises.

[caffeineandbooks]

Agreeing with forty-two.  WWE took us about ten minutes per day, but the consistent ten minutes every day really builds a good foundation.  WWE1 has them copying sentences, answering comprehension questions (orally) and narrating any one thing they can remember about the selection you read to them.  WWE2 begins to explicitly teach them to identify the main point and they take sentences as dictation.  WWE3 builds to short (3-4 sentence) paragraphs identifying main and supporting details.  You would not need to get comprehension workbooks from elsewhere if you did Writing With Ease as written as it has those questions built in.

I have not used Writing and Rhetoric, but the wisdom I've heard is that it's better to start with kids on the older side of the age range because around Chreia it steps up quite a bit in difficulty.  Perhaps you could do WWE for a couple of years and then have your then-10 and 8 year olds start W&R 1 together?

Best wishes as you transition into homeschooling.  I hope you all enjoy the journey and find it very rewarding!

[wendyroo]

I completely agree with previous posters, and third Writing with Ease.

Public school writing instruction tends to be SOOOO age-inappropriate. I have a friend with a child in a virtual first grade. One of her early assignments was to write a personal narrative...that was it, no instruction, just go do it. My friend was panicking; how do you coach a first grader through writing a personal narrative? The child ended up turning in about 20 words - mostly misspelled, no punctuation, no capitalization, no complete sentences. And she got full points!!! On one hand, I feel that is a completely inappropriate, impossible assignment for that age. OTOH, if I were going to assign a first grader a "personal narrative", I would give them enough support, scaffolding, and revision help to at least expect a couple rudimentary complete sentences that start with capitals and end with punctuation. I don't see how it is "teaching" writing to give pie in the sky assignments and then praise whatever ungrammatical muddle they happen to produce.

For reference, I have four kiddos, and these are my rough writing goals:
K - Letter formation and short, simple oral narrations (often just asking one thing they remember about a story I read to them).

1st - Copywork (plus a little dictation as part of All About Spelling) and longer narrations expecting them to string together several sentences...this sometimes requires prompting like adding a "because.." to the end of their sentence to encourage elaboration. Complete WWE1.

2nd - Emphasis on capitalization and basic punctuation, continuing longer oral narrations and working toward them forming organized paragraphs, beginning VERY simple written narrations if the student is ready. Complete WWE 2 and Evan Moor Super Sentence and Paragraph Writing workbooks.

3rd - More work with complex punctuation, continuing longer oral narrations, working on 3 sentence written narrations. Complete WWE 3 and Evan Moor Text-Based Writing grade 3 workbook. Also enroll in a couple Lantern English courses.

4th - This is the year of the paragraph! By the end of this year I want them to be able to write different types of interesting, well-organized paragraphs with varied sentence types. Complete Evan Moor Text-Based Writing grades 4 and 5 workbooks. Also enroll in a couple Lantern English courses.

5th - Now we start working on writing 3-4 paragraph essays. I use Lantern English and various Teachers Pay Teachers products to work on Intro and Conclusion paragraphs. The kids complete Evan Moor Text-Based Writing grade 6 workbook, writing longer essays that in the past. We might start Writing with Skill if the student is ready.

6th - An emphasis on "academic" writing and citations. Complete WWS 1 and some Lantern English courses. This is where my eldest is right now. I expect that the next two years we will continue the pattern of WWS and Lantern English because it is working quite well.

[JenJenQ]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the help. Thank you for laying out it clearly. I am like my son in that I need clear starting point or else I get lost.

I've heard of WWE but was unsure which one to start with my son or how it works. It appealed to me because I heard it was very structured but was worried about whether my son would learn from it since he is in 3rd grade. I ignorantly assumed that I would have to start at WWE3

[JenJenQ]

I have to keep reminding myself that there is that pressure in public school, one of the reason that I decided to take him out. He feels it and has been asking when will we be starting homeschool since he wants to get out already. 

One of my reluctance initially to WWE was that cooywork and such goes into WWE4 and in my mind I was thinking "Well, he's already doing paragraphs in 3rd grade so why would we backtrack to dictation and copywork." However, as I wrote out clearly where he struggles and your replies helped me clear out what may work, I see that I was wrong. He struggles with writing paragraphs and so there are benefits in taking that step back. 

 

I really appreciate your help! It helped immensely. 

[sweet2ndchance]

Another benefit of taking a step back is the chance to build confidence. This is especially helpful in a subject that is difficult for your child. I would start your son at WWE level 1 (there is a reason it is called "level 1" and not "grade 1") and work at his pace.

[caffeineandbooks]

I did feel a bit of that "grass is greener" worry that my kid wasn't writing "enough", but having completed WWE3 I love that the paragraphs he writes are strong and well constructed, and - well, easy for him.  It is Writing With "Ease", after all.  He didn't do WWE4 - Susan Wise Bauer now says for most kids, three levels is probably enough.  I'm currently working through Writing With Skill myself and loving it - it's similarly a very carefully graded, incremental program that will guide him from paragraphs to research papers.  They look like they're "behind" in WWE, but the foundation being built is very solid and they more than catch up.

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, JenJenQ said:

I have to keep reminding myself that there is that pressure in public school, one of the reason that I decided to take him out. He feels it and has been asking when will we be starting homeschool since he wants to get out already. 

One of my reluctance initially to WWE was that cooywork and such goes into WWE4 and in my mind I was thinking "Well, he's already doing paragraphs in 3rd grade so why would we backtrack to dictation and copywork." However, as I wrote out clearly where he struggles and your replies helped me clear out what may work, I see that I was wrong. He struggles with writing paragraphs and so there are benefits in taking that step back. 

 

I really appreciate your help! It helped immensely. 

It’s really really worth it.  We didn’t have the full writing with ease program just the how to book and used that in grade 3 for my oldest.  It made a big difference.  He needed the writing process and the thinking process it be separated so he could just concentrate on the writing skills.

[JenJenQ]

I have always had so much trouble writing essays. My skills are mediocre which is why I was having such a hard time trying to find the right program for my son. I was worried that if I didn't pick the right one, he would struggle too. In my mind, since he is already learning paragraph structure in his class, I initially felt that we should just stick with it and continue working at it. 

3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

He needed the writing process and the thinking process it be separated so he could just concentrate on the writing skills

When I read your reply, it clicked! Goodness, you helped me work it out. Thank you! He has such a hard time joining both concepts. It seems obvious now but at least I got there.

[wendyroo]

Two other recommendations.

Susan Wise Bauer has a series of amazing audio lectures on teaching writing called A Plan for Teaching Writing. She has them focused on elementary, middle and high school. I have been watching all of them since my kids were little, and they have really given me a sense of where we are headed and how we can get there one step at a time.

Also, I have found The Writing Revolution very helpful. It isn't a curriculum book, but rather it outlines a method that can be used to strengthen writing skills at any age or level. I use many of the exercises with my kids as oral games.

For example, we play Build a Sentence. I give them a bud sentence we all know something about: Dogs live. Then we go youngest to oldest adding something on. The 5 year old makes it, "Dogs live in houses." 7 year old: "Big dogs live in houses." 9 year old: "Big dogs don't always live in houses." 11 year old: "Big, white sled dogs don't always live in houses when running the Iditarod." Me: "Big, white sled dogs don't always live in houses when running the Iditarod because houses are often too heavy to tow behind the sleds."

Sometimes I will up the challenge and target a specific skill by announcing a bonus round: High fives for anyone who adds an adverb or double points if you add a "where phrase" to the beginning of the sentence (we don't actually keep score, so this is entirely symbolic 😉).

[JenJenQ]

Thank you pp! I will definitely look into that. One usually thinks that writing has to be with pen and paper which is why I struggle and so does my child. Orally, he can come up with stories but once it's time to put it on paper..phew.  This will even help me improve! 

[kristin0713]

I love Bravewriter for those ages.  She has podcasts about the stages of growth in writing that are excellent.  In addition, lots of reading aloud together and shared reading for the independent readers.  I would not do anything more formal than that for an 8yo. The younger ones need solid phonics instruction until they can read and spell. 

[SilverMoon]

I'd fifth or sixth Writing With Ease for that kid. There's a placement test on the WTM website. Since he doesn't have to keep up with the class there's no need to shove him through writing programs he's not ready for, regardless the number on the cover. 🙂 Meet him right where he's at and don't let him think he's not able, regardless past grades. ♥ 

My youngest also struggles with writing. He only used WWE style writing until age 10. He started in Writing Tales volume 1, which is a touch easier than the first Writing & Rhetoric. The grammar is way too easy for a kid who's been through FLL: we just consider it a light day. He types his rough and final drafts and found his writer's voice in the process (I'd get about five syllables if he had to write that by hand). When he finishes this we'll either do WT 2 or start W&R. It's worked well for him. 

[kiwik]

The younger 2 don't need anything.  There are a bunch of things you could use for the older.  If he is staying home long term WWE, if not still use WWE  but maybe add in something else from time to time.