74Heaven Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 We may have the oppty to join a co op next year where IEW has been used since 1st grade for the students who will be 4th graders next year. Any idea how to "jumpstart" my 3rd grader with little writing experience (and very little interest in writing) to help him be able to join his classmates at their rough skill level next year? I guess what is the best way to get him up to speed quickly - something fairly "canned" or "ready to use" would be best. He is a smart boy with good (tho not amazing) language arts skills. Is there a set of IEW DVDs I should buy? Would the SWI-A DVDs work? Lisaj *** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSDCY Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 IEW is designed to be used with children 3rd grade and up, so I don't think those kids who had done it since 1st grade would work past unit 4 unless the class is for gifted kids. You can certainly buy SWI-A, but it may overlap with the 4th grade coop class you mentioned. Is there a way to check with the teacher what has been covered in the past years and what will be covered next year? That's the surest way to get an idea of how much IEW those other children were exposed to and what your child will learn. In case you are unable to get any information, there are two things you can do. One is teaching him to do key word outline, the other is teaching him how to dress up his sentences. If your child has not started outlining short paragraphs yet, you might want to have him practice that first. Just take any informational paragraph from your history or science reading, and have him write down 3 important words from each sentence. You might want to model that to him a couple of times and then have him do that independently. After he is able to do that, have him use the outline he makes to re-write the paragraph. Once he is able to do that, I think he should be well prepared. Another thing they do is to put "dress-ups" in their writing, teaching children how to use adverbs, adjectives, clauses and prases to dress up their writing. But I think this part will probably be covered again in the 4th grade class so I wouldn't sweat over it. HTH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I would print out the samples from IEW fables, myths and fairytales and do it. There is an example of how they want you to outline in there. Then you could print out samples of Writing Tales and outline those after that model as well. I really think that WWE 2 is probably all he would need before starting it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tullyfamily Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I would join the IEW yahoo group- they are so helpful! You can ask all your ?s there! :) Oh, and do you own TWSS? That is a MUST! The SWI-A gives specific lesson plans but since you are planning on doing the co-op, you might not need SWI. But you defiantly need TWSS!!! HTH! Heather Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
74Heaven Posted February 5, 2009 Author Share Posted February 5, 2009 I would print out the samples from IEW fables, myths and fairytales and do it. There is an example of how they want you to outline in there. Then you could print out samples of Writing Tales and outline those after that model as well. I really think that WWE 2 is probably all he would need before starting it. This would be an easy solution. Also, can you elaborate on how WWE fits in (transitions to?) IEW style writing instruction/assignments? If anyone has time, a brief descrip of WWE 2 might help me to decide which way to go - IEW samples and/or WWE 2? Thanks! Lisaj, who has used IEW in the older grades Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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