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Last week we talked about how Charlotte Mason used guided discovery with her students to help them grow in language arts—the art of using language well. With guided discovery, you guide your student’s attention to a particular aspect of a literary passage and encourage him to look closely and discover English and grammar points for himself. Just a short, interesting lesson given before he does his transcription work or prepares the passage for dictation will reap great rewards!
Today we are pleased to announce a new resource that will help you use guided discovery with your student: Using Language Well: English, Grammar, and Writing Points from Spelling Wisdom.
Using Language Well is a companion to Spelling Wisdom. You will find the literary passages in the award-winning Spelling Wisdom books; you will find corresponding guided discovery lessons in the Using Language Well books. They work together.
We’re quite excited about the student books, which will make it simple for your student to discover for himself key points of English usage, punctuation, capitalization, or grammar and give him a rich literary approach to language arts. The lessons are very short and designed to be completed in just a few minutes alongside your Spelling Wisdom exercise, just a couple of times a week.
We’re even more excited about the teacher guides! Yes, they contain the answers to all the lessons. But they also include lots of teaching tips to remind you of how Charlotte approached language arts and valuable tools to walk you step-by-step through teaching composition the Charlotte Mason way.
We have developed a complete set of rubrics and detailed a method for using them effectively, then spread those rubrics over the Using Language Well series to gently lead and support your student’s growth in written narration/composition without overwhelming him (or you). Each teacher guide gives you the next few rubrics in the set and tells you when and how to use them in order to go at your student’s pace. More importantly, it gives you a tangible way to confidently evaluate your student’s written narrations while allowing him to develop his own writing voice and keep his focus on his writing, not on his score.
Visit our website and download the samples to see all the exciting details on Using Language Well.
Whoo hoo! Can’t wait to get this! Another timely product.
Alicia
For Spelling Wisdom book 3 & 4, do you have a Using Language Well coming out in the future?
Yes, our goal is to eventually have a companion Using Language Well book for each Spelling Wisdom book. However, we don’t yet have release dates for those books.
I know you don’t have release dates for the remaining books, but do you think you would have book 3 out by fall of 2016?
I’m very excited to see this product. It seems to cover every problem I’ve had with our past grammar/spelling programs. Thanks!
Cassie, I would love to have Book 3 out by fall, but I can’t assure you that it will happen. 🙂
Started back school today using the spelling wisdom and Using Language well. I’m new to CM this year, I’m sold on this!! Excited about this year. Thank you
Do you still recommend doing Analytical Grammar in 6th – 8th grade? Do you do that alongside Using Language Well and Spelling Wisdom? You guys are amazing and make homeschooling the CM way so easy and understandable! Thank you!!!
Thanks for your kind words! ULW gives a solid introduction to/review of grammar. We will still recommend Analytical Grammar in grades 6–8 for those who want more in-depth grammar study.