Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: writing CM

This topic has 6 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 2 months ago by CJKJ.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

Author
Posts
April 3, 2009 at 1:06 pm
ChristyH
Participant
My soon to be 12 dd is weak in writing, heck I am weak in writing. Actually very weak would be a better description. I have had suggestions of using IEW and Meaningful Composition. They all say they have had great results with their children’s writing improving. I want their writing to be based on what we are learning and not such a seperate subject. To be honest I am leaning toward getting a little book from Lulu on written narrations that was written by Charlotte Mason school teacher just to add a little structure. The other programs seem so big and expensive.
I have to admit I am feeling the pressure to have acedemically sound children lately and we are not writing much. Has anyone hade success with just written narration and then adding stuff later? My heart is saying CM, but my head is saying is it enough. All I can think about is six more years before I am done with formal education and then it is out of my hands. What if they don’t learn how to write?
Am I making any sense? Does anyone understand the pressure?
April 3, 2009 at 1:21 pm
CJKJ
Participant
Have you looked at Bravewriter? I am also looking at writing programs and IEW (which many of my Classical homeschooling friends use) looks very overwhelming to me.
Bravewriter is a completely different approach – I saw some reviews by CMers who love using it and it seems to be much more of a “living” curriculum.
I am strongly considering it for homeschooling this year.
April 3, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Rachel White
Participant
Have you checked out the bookfinder here? There are several choices under composition. Also, Queen Homeschool has a program for your dd’s age level; it’s not expensive.
http://www.queenhomeschool.com/productpages/Language%20Lessons/Language%20Lessons.html
I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about Bravewriter.
Rachel
April 3, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Suzq
Participant
We use IEW and it has been a great help for us. It does take a bit of learning how the program works, but once you have that you can use any material that you are studying and follow their models to teach writing. Narration is built into the program as well. I know that it is expensive but it is also very easy to resell when you are finished with it. To learn more about it you can join the IEW yahoo loop and they have an IEW for sale loop as well. So you may be able to find it used.
April 4, 2009 at 12:55 am
caroline4kids
Member
I think this is terribly interesting. I have IEW and have been considering Bravewriter. I asked my 11 year old today to write a written narration on chapter 7 of CHOW. He did great!! Three very cohesive paragraphs. He has only toyed with IEW (it was too formulaic for me). What he wrote was based just on consistant daily narration. I told him to narrate to himself out loud and then write it down.
It works! 🙂 If this child can read anything and form a decent written summary from memory then I don’t think I have to panic anymore. Thank you Miss Mason.
April 4, 2009 at 12:56 am
caroline4kids
Member
Oh, I also use Queen’s for all of my children, but the writing lessons in there are very gentle and CM in nature.
April 4, 2009 at 12:24 pm
CJKJ
Participant
I believe the Bravewriter creator is a CMer. In her Bravewriter lifestyle section, she talks about how Charlotte Mason influences her thinking (she is a homeschooling mom). For me, I just feel like the program is more gentle than the IEW program.
Here’s the link if you want to check it out.
http://www.bravewriter.com/