60-day returns • free shipping on USA orders $129+
experience covering grammar thoroughly through self-chosen copywork/dictation/narration passages?
- This topic has 8 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 8 months ago by
.
Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
- Posts
Hi there!
I’ve been snooping around for a bit, but am new to posting!
My children are 3 and 4, so I have a bit of time to prepare a very thorough gameplan before heading into the real work of homeschooling. My hope is to teach using Charlotte Mason’s principles, within the classical/historical timeline cycle (ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern day). My philosophy with most things, including education, is “less is more.” And, so, I would like to be able to do this with as few books and programs as possible. In keeping with that, I want as much of my material for grade 1 to be concentrated in ancient history/literature (grade 2 in medieval history/literature etc.).
It is not my intention to “just do copywork and narration”, but to create my own lessons, based on the texts we are reading already, and along the lines of the lessons in English for the Thoughtful Child, the Queens curriculums, or Simply Grammar. However, I do not want to commit to a neverending make-work project if this is too difficult and/or unnecessary.
Does anyone have experience teaching grammar in a formal, structured manner, using self-chosen texts in lessons in line with Charlotte Mason’s approach?
Does anyone have suggestions about whether teaching from non-classically ordered texts for grammar and spelling lessons (those pre-selected in workbooks such as Simply Grammar) interferes much with a classically-ordered reading schedule?
Thank you for your sage advice!
Well, I am not terribly sure of some of what you mean. I”m really not sure what a “non-classically-ordered” text is, for instance.
I teach usage, basic grammar concepts and beginning mechanics using copywork and dictation passages, have done so since we began using copywork and dictation. I confess that I’ve never gone to the extent you are indicating–I didn’t deliberately select passages. I just made use of the copywork and dictation passages I had and brought up what my kids needed to know in the context of those passages. I DO follow this up with a systematic but simple grammar program in the seventh grade, however. But I usually find that my kids have already gleaned a fair portion through our earlier work.
I’ve used copywork passages from AO and also used those as dictation; when SCM came out with Spelling Wisdom I switched to these for dictation and have found the passages to suit my needs admirably for teaching the other things we needed to learn.
I also use the child’s written narrations once that is begun to teach and reinforce the same basic lessons.
Does that answer your question?
Thank you. That is helpful.
To clarify a bit more: I really like the idea of something like Spelling Wisdom so that I don’t have to find my own copywork passages each time. However, I have this thought (which may or may not be valid) that I want to keep all of our work on topic in a given year.
Basically, I want to merge some aspects of a classical education (as I’ve learned primarily from The Well-Trained Mind) with the principles of a Charlotte Mason education. I like the organization and intentional re-enforcement provided by the classical history cycles (the ancient world gets studied in grade 1, grade 5, and grade 9); I like the gentleness and intentional depth of teaching using Charlotte Mason’s principles (I am not nearly as inclined to be “rigorous” as to be “deliberate and thorough”).
So, to be specific, my ideal would be to read living books entirely from the ancient world in grade 1 (the Bible, children’s versions of The Iliad, Aesop’s fables etc.). Therefore, I would like it if all of our grade 1 copywook, dictation and narration were from those sources.
If I were to buy something with pre-selected passages (such as Spelling Wisdom or English for the Thoughtful Child) we would end up having, say, a passage from Aesop’s fables to read/work on in grade 3, when — according to the classical structure — I would want to be immersed in the renaissance world’s literature/history.
My question is: how much work is it to thoroughly cover grammar solely using your own selected passages? And/or is it worth the extra effort to guard the order in which we study literature/history (to keep all things in grade 1 on topic with the ancient world, all things in grade 2 on topic with the medieval world etc.)?
The minimalist in me is torn between wanting to have fewer books / fewer directions/divisions for our lessons in a given day, and wanting not to waste time re-inventing the wheel.
Your idea sounds like Tapestry of Grace. I don’t use this curriculum, but have several friends that do. You might take a look at it at least and see how they did it.
Hm. Well, I have my reservations about merging two systems of learning which result from fundamentally different philosophies about who children are and what knowledge is. But many people here do use various ideas/materials from the “classical” homeschool world and many of us have been in that milieu for periods of time.
I think it silly to insist on reading ONLY things from the exact period of history one is in, to be honest. I can’t think why this would be necessary. Are you going to allow only free reading about/from the period as well? Plus entertainment, art, and all conversation limited to, say, 1600 B.C. when you are there? You’d miss all the rich and lovely books about other times that are intended for the age of child you have, for one thing. And for another–I agree with a basic plan of teaching history chronologically, but consider it intellectually stultifying to limit all learning to one period. Let the children draw the connections themselves. They will do it. Limiting everything they encounter to one time period will not only be an enormous headache for you, but will deprive them of the brain development of making their own connections. But this is one of those areas of difference that pertain to the basic philosophical differences about children and about knowledge that I referred to before.
It never hurts anyone to hear an Aesop’s Fable at any time of life or learning. I still am amused by them. We recently translated some from one language to another for fun and we were not studying the Greeks and we did OK. 🙂
So I do not think it at all worth the extra effort to use solely passages of your own selection to conform rigidly with time period in order to do grammar. To me that would be like only doing math using pyramids when studying Egypt. 🙂 Good people like the ones here at SCM have carefully chosen dictation passages based on the spelling words included, literary merit, uplifting content and age-appropriateness. I would rather make use of their hard work than to duplicate it all and multiply the difficulty geometrically by only using selections from the exact time period one is in. I’d rather spend that time reading a delicious book to my guys. I can still select some copywork passages from the books we ARE reading, and I’ve always done that, when I see a sentence or passage that is appealing, or one that uses something I am trying to teach, like a question mark or a semicolon or a dependent clause. But I didn’t exhaustively go through beforehand all our books in order to do this. I don’t have that much time. I like to sleep occasionally.
There are some places which have chosen copywork to go along with the basic time periods, and it would not be hard to use those sentences and learn what they have to teach as you go. But I don’t know about “thoroughly covering grammar” using this–I never attempted to do that, especially at young ages, as I am much more concerned about teaching what is developmentally appropriate than about systematic grammar study in the young years. The ladies here will tell you I have definite opinions about teaching complex grammar to six year olds who can memorize it but not remotely comprehend it; better to teach them to use a period and capitalize their names and not to split words between lines harum-scarum. 🙂
Well for copywork and dictation you could deffinately use your own passages to go with your history cycle. You could also use some of these books: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/julieshields. You have awhile till you start dictation though (CM started around 3rd or 4th grade), so I wouldn’t worry about that right now. When you do get there, something to think about- is your child is getting the words they need to know. I really like Spelling Wisdom because I am sure my kids are getting those 6,000 most used words, and progressing in difficulty along the way.
Now grammar will be easy at first, to do on your own also (capitalization, punctuation,ect.). As time goes on and grammar gets more complex you will probably want to get something for that, unless you are really confident in it.
One more thing to consider, is that you don’t want to make all the connections for your child. CM was not a fan of unit studies because they tend to push too hard to make everything fit together; not allowing the child to connect the dots. Variety is the spice of life. It is a good thing when a year later your child says “Mama, this is from that book you read us awhile ago!”:)
Amazing!
Thank you DawnD and coralloyd! Those are great resources.
I agree that unit study approaches are a bit contrived. What I love about Charlotte Mason’s ideas is that, the learning process she describes, is one I can identify with very strongly. In the end, my hope is that my children will have a few very-deeply rooted and beautiful ideas developed in their hearts because of the intentionality of the information I present. But, I don’t want to jump through hoops to make connections where they don’t exist. However, it seemed to me that picking texts that correlate for both reading and for copywork etc. was not a contrived connection. So it’s great to see other people have already done some of that!
I think this from corallyod sums it up for me…
It is a good thing when a year later your child says “Mama, this is from that book you read us awhile ago!”:)
Doing a line of copywork from Aesop when you read the book a year or two ago and seeing how they still remember it is awesome. You certainly can pull all your stuff from the same time period, but why would you want to? There is too much to enjoy at every age to limit yourself so much. 🙂 My daughter would have missed out on the joy of Little House in the Big Woods as a 5 year old if I made her wait till Year 3 of our history cycle to read it. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she reads it again on her own then!
September, I get what you’re thinking about, and I do take much of my children’s copywork and dictation from what they’re reading – that’s something that was actually suggested by the leader of our local CM discussion group, who’s quite a national authority on CM. However, that same leader also cautioned me against making connections for the child, by trying to be sure that everything they read, study, etc, is connected to a certain subject or period in history. Apparently part of CM’s method is that the children are exposed to a rich feast of ideas, and that over time, they make many connections on their own. It’s a real paradigm shift but I am seeing that the method really works!
So for us, the way it works out is that the children have their history studies, a read-aloud that’s often history related, a bedtime read-aloud that’s usually not related to history, and individual literature books that are usually just great literature. Their copywork, narration or dictation may come from any one of the above. I do find that having some things tied in really does increase their learning and connections, but there are so many gems of books – and important lessons they impart – that we’d have missed if we’d stuck only to books about each time period we’re studying.
My 14-year-old, BTW, loves Spelling Wisdom for dictation, and enjoys the challenge of the varied passages, and has often been inspired to explore a certain author after reading the SW selection.
Blessings,
Aimee
Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
- The topic ‘experience covering grammar thoroughly through self-chosen copywork/dictation/narration passages?’ is closed to new replies.