Writing program

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  • January 15, 2012 at 3:24 pm
    petitemom
    Participant

    I was just reading over some old posts and saw that written naration is suggested over writing programs.

    This year we did a little bit of “The well trained mind” and “writing strand” (bare minimum).

    3rd grader is doing simple story starter, 5th grader Andreola’s Story starter.

    I just want to have an idea for next year..

    Should I just drop everything and do written naration? How often do you do that?

    And when and how do you teach things like making paragraphs and grammar rules?

    Sorry, lots of questions.

    thanks 😉

    January 15, 2012 at 10:02 pm
    Bookworm
    Participant

    Hi!

    I personally don’t assign writing programs at all in third grade; we do copywork, oral narration and start doing some light work getting ready for studied dictation and Latin.  (Meaning we go over, in our copywork, some conventions like capitalizing first words of sentences and names and ending punctuation.  And we do a little bit of basic parts-of-speech work as we go over our copywork.)  By age 10-11 I start working on written narrations; we begin with one a week and move up gradually over a few years to doing one every day.  We do a basic grammar program in 7th-8th grade and also we study Latin; that takes care of grammar.  We learn things like making paragraphs as we progress in written narrations; we take a narration that is not paragraphed and learn how to do it and then “practice” over the next several until they seem to understand.  We do this with many other writing principles and rules as we go.  In high school or right before, we learn essay form and then in late high school we learn research paper form, in preparation for what they will be expected to do in college.  We detested Writing Strands with passion.  We quit WTM when my oldest was in 2nd grade; it was either that or put the dears back in public school, I couldn’t take it anymore.  LOL

    January 15, 2012 at 10:29 pm
    petitemom
    Participant

    Thanks bookworm. We did not get such bad experience w/writing strand but we really haven’t done that much and my kids are older than yours were.

    So I guess I do not have to worry too much about my 8 yeard old not understanding how to make paragraphs. Good to know!

    Is 10-11 when most people start to do written narrations? What do you do before that, only oral narration or any other kind of writting as well?

    If I don’t do Latin would that mean I should start teaching grammar around 7th grade?

    Oh and one more question, what would I do w/out this forum? lol!

    January 15, 2012 at 10:59 pm
    Bookworm
    Participant

    No, nothing bad will happen if an 8yo isn’t a paragraphing expert.  Some people may be able to start written narrations at nine-ish but my kids were NOT ready (and the oldest ones were still rebelling from the writing programs I periodically inflicted on them out of panic.)  Copywork is what I do for writing practice before that.  Copywork is a GOLD MINE and should never be underestimated, much like narration it is a workhorse that can teach your younger child what they need to know at that time.

    Yes, I’d hold off on intensive grammar until around 7th grade.  You can work gently on things like basic punctuation and a little on parts of speech if you like.  You can use their copywork, dictation and narrations to work on this.

    Can’t help you about the forum.  Smile  You’ll just have to stick around, I guess!

    January 15, 2012 at 11:19 pm
    petitemom
    Participant

    thanks again, I am just starting this year so I was not too clear on all this. It is good to read what others are doing.

    For vocabulary I have my kids find words they do not know, write the sentence from the book where they find them and write the definition from the dictionary.

    I guess that could count as copywork right!?!

    Not sure if I have been doing enough copywork, dictation and narrations, I’ll keep working on it…

    I do think I want to keep using Story Starter once a week, they seem to be enjoying that…

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