Green Bean Posted February 20, 2022 Share Posted February 20, 2022 (edited) The search for grammar continues! Anyone have thoughts? WOL seems a bit like a simpler Shurley Grammar with the chants and songs and a bit like FLL with the added poems and fables sprinkled in, the diagramming, the memorizing, etc.. I'm not looking for heavy diagramming so CAP's system is appealing. I'm also looking at MCT. Lots has been said on this one here already, I know. It is just soo different that I am afraid to trust it. My older kids know definitions thanks to FLL and MP EGR, but application is seriously lacking. I want my last guy to have both the definitions and application down. Does MCT encourage memorizing the definitons/lists? Does he cover punctuation? My other thought on MCT is the writing books. I'm not clear on how they instruct. We like WWE/WWS here so I don't want to give them up. We have poetry/lit through MP so I am not interested in those bits. Can these be left off without compromising the integrity of the program? Really, it is just grammar. How much do we truly need to write well? That is a huge can o' worms. Edited May 3, 2022 by Green Bean Spelling! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted February 20, 2022 Share Posted February 20, 2022 I was going to reply earlier but didn't have time. I thought when I originally read your post that you said that you like WWE. If that is correct, MCT's writing program is not going to be a good fit. They are polar opposite approaches. MCT is wide open, no direct instruction. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2bee Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 I don't like Well Ordered Language. The verbiage is pretentiously and flowery to the point of being hard to understand. When teaching the principal parts of a sentence (Subject and Predicate), they liken it to a King and Queen, explain that the word 'prince' comes from the Latin principus meaning first in importance so just like a prince is first in line to become king so the subject and predicate are the principle parts of a sentence. A later lesson/chapter teaches that Adjectives and Adverbs are like vassals--serving the king (subject) and queen (predicate) of the sentence. Do your children know what a vassal is? Not 1 of the 21 children I used this book with knew what a vassal was. Also, the sentences used for the exercises are rather inane. They're along the lines of Many brown kittens romp playfully. and Mittens fit snugly. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Bean Posted February 21, 2022 Author Share Posted February 21, 2022 (edited) Good to know all this. Sounds like I should pass on WOL. I feel like MCT's langauge is overly flowery, as well, but I love the balls. Edited February 24, 2022 by Green Bean wrong word Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clemsondana Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 It's going to depend on the kid, obviously, but MCT worked great for my kids. It teaches the parts of speech and if you do the practice sentences you practice identifying every word in every sentence. It teaches basic rules - a sentence needs a noun and a verb, compound sentences, complex sentences, use of a semicolon or a comma followed by a conjuction, etc. You don't do a ton of writing, but since we incorporate writing with our history assignments it's actually a better fit for our family to not be writing with directed topics as often. We did find the basic writing instruction in the early levels to be helpful, and Essay Voyage had great essays to read as models. I could imagine people hating the MCT method, but for us it opened our eyes a bit to the beauty and rhythms of language and word choice. We are mostly STEM-types, so without this being explicitly taught it's not someting that we would have necessarily noticed on our own. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desertflower Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 It does depend on the child. I have a child who loves to write. So, CAP W&R is a good fit. Grammar is incorporate in the writing. We did do the first two levels of MCT. Not MCT writing though. They are fun books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Bean Posted February 21, 2022 Author Share Posted February 21, 2022 All great info. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silver Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 I've done Island, Town, and Voyage levels of MCT. We used the grammar books, the "writing" books, the vocabulary books, and the practice books. I didn't find the writing books to be too useful to actually teach writing, nor to give writing assignments from. But they were useful in that they extended the teaching from the grammar books to how it looks in writing. If you choose MCT, you'd probably want to include them. You could get away with skipping the poetry and vocabulary books if you only want grammar. I think each level of of MCT looses some of its charm and usefulness. For example, some of the trickier grammar concepts (such as verbals) were not as well explained as the easier concepts (such as parts of a sentence) were. The essay level felt like a hot mess. It was a huge jump from the paragraph level, lacked a lot of the whimsy, and didn't captivate my language lover anymore. I've decided to space the levels out every other year for my youngest (island in 3rd, town in 5th, voyage--if I do it again--in 7th) and I'm hoping that will help some. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoes+Ships+SealingWax Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 2 hours ago, silver said: I've decided to space the levels out every other year for my youngest. We do this as well, though more for the sake of readiness. We used Island across 1st / 2nd, Town in 3rd / 4th, & plan to use Voyage in 5th / 6th. In-between we use more structured composition programs (W&R, IEW) & spend time on creative writing (NaNoWriMo, playwriting, poetics). It’s been a great balance for us because he is explicitly taught various techniques in the structured curricula, then set free to weave them together as he pleases with MCT. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Bean Posted February 25, 2022 Author Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) Anyone like WOL? Edited February 25, 2022 by Green Bean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Bean Posted February 25, 2022 Author Share Posted February 25, 2022 No one at all? Well that is not encouraging! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LMD Posted February 27, 2022 Share Posted February 27, 2022 We use mct spaced out too. My 9th & 11th graders are using magic lens now. I actually love the voyage level and essay voyage is one of my favourites of the whole series. It has choices of assignments at the end of each chapter plus teaching resources at the end of the teacher book. I'm a big fan of MCT, using grammar island for the 4th time with my 3rd grader at the moment and it's still lovely. I tend to use a meandering mix of MCT, WWE and writing across the curriculum (wtm style) I just had a look at a WOL sample. It looks fine, a bit too textbooky for little kids for me. Would possibly be good to use a get-it-done review. But - as with all curriculum decisions - if you like it, trust your gut! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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