help with LA for dd 10

I don’t really have an answer for you as I am in the same exact situation with my dd10. What I am planning with this second term is to continue with the spelling wisdom on Monday for copy work and Thursday for dictation then I have just purchased a spelling book from Christian Liberty Press for her to do daily (they are short lessons and should only take 5-10 min). Then on Friday I am trying to have her do a written narration. She can do oral narrations great and begs me to let her and complains of writing daily but I have put my foot down and decided that this is something she must learn to do better. I plan on making it a gradual increase so that it is easier for her but we are in this situation to begin with because I went to easy on her because she complained. So now we have to make up for it.

I also plan on intermittently having her do some journal or story starter writing as well in place of the written narration to keep it from getting boring.

I would certainly like to here others ideas and opinions as well.

Have you checked into Writing Tales? I am going to try that with a ds9. There are two levels and you go with the age appropriate level, so you don’t have to do level one first. It’s for 3rd to 5th grade. http://www.writing-tales.com

I was also going to suggest Writing Tales. I ordered Level One to start with my just turned 10 year old daughter. I like that it will have copywork (only once per two-week lesson, though, so you may want to add more), spelling (from words she misspells in her writing), grammar, written narration once a week (retelling the fable or story from the lesson) and creative writing (retelling the story with some creative changes). I like that it is all wrapped up in one. I can add some handwriting practice/copywork on days when she doesn’t have a copywork or big writing assignment (like the two retellings) and feel good about her Langauge Arts. Of course, she also reads daily and orally narrates our family stuff (beautifully). She is also a reluctant writer. Not the creative aspect, but the PHYSICAL aspect. She doesn’t like to physically write like copywork or whatever. But, I’m hoping small assignments each day will improve that slowly.

I started with level one and don’t intend to rush it. I thought if we made it through the two levels over THREE years (4th-6th grades), then I would be happy with that. That will allow for a slower pace, but still cover everything before hitting 7th grade (when I’d like to ramp it up a bit with more formal grammar). At the end of two levels, she will have 60 written narrations and 60 original stories.

Just some ideas. 🙂

My 10yo enjoys Writing Tales. We add Spelling Wisdom, but if you added something like Sequential Spelling (haven’t used it, just saying whatever spelling you choose) and just took both at a pace that was doable I think it might not seem too overwhelming. WT doesn’t take my ds much time at all…maybe 15-20 min. per day (sometimes less, sometimes more). You could always break it up w/a spellling program or alternate days if it’s too much.  Hope you find a good fit:) Blessings, Gina

Miranda,

  I tried Seq, Sp. and it helped only marginally. We did not finish it. He would get the answers correct in the student book, but then still miss these same words when writing. It uses patterns and word groupings; the phonics is subtle.

IMO, you need to figure out the “why” behind her trouble with spelling. I realized that my ds had learned how to read so quickly that he skipped over, and therefore did not absorb, the latter sounding out of phonics that is required with multi-syllable words. For some strange reason, he never memorized the vowels!! Even though I sat with him and instructed him in reading-and he flew ahead reading well despite this. Until he began to write more and then I noticed. Once I figured out the “why” of his spelling struggles, then I narrowed it down between AAS and Megawords; did research and asked questions about those; then taking into account my teaching style, finances, and where we are in our lives currently and chose Megawords.

I personally think WT is an excellent idea; it’s what I would’ve used had I known about it. You won’t need WT AND Easy Grammar.

For my son, he needed specific instruction, not necessarily less work. He’s actually writing more now (which is the only way to learn to write, esp. at his age), but Megawords is one page that takes about 10-15 min. and MC takes about 20-30 min. No complaining anymore; he has the info. he needs to accomplish what he’s been assigned, thereby providing self-confidence without further dependence upon me. Does that make sense?

Regarding more written narrations I plainly figured that that would be putting the cart before the horse. With all his wonderful oral narrations and advanced literature reading and high comprehension, he was hung up on the structure of writing and getting his thoughts down-he needed more directed modeling and instruction-not to mention the frustration of knowing advanced words and their meanings but not knowing how to spell them; so that’s a deterrent, too.

The LA schedule I laid down on paper is as follows:

6th (this year): Megawords, SW, and MC 4A and MC 4; Simply Grammar after first 8 weeks of MC 4A

7th: Megawords; Figuratively Speaking for 1 Sem.; Then Write with the Best 1; Our Mother Tongue

8th: Megawords, Finish Write with the Best 1 and then Vol. 2; Our Mother Tongue

9th: Megawords?; Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings; written narrations; finish OMT, if necessary.

10th-12th: Essay and Research paper ( WwtB may teach Essay writing, but I can’t remember fully)

Megawords has 8 levels and at this time, I expect to use them all. I don’t know how long, or even if, I’ll continue with SW after this year. Just haven’t decided yet. As you can see, after the more step-by-step nature of MC, I’ll be switching to WwtB, which doesn’t teach that way. Then OMT for two years+ for final grammar teaching.

Just thought I’d share in case it may help. I put a lot of praying and research into this last year since he was at an important turning point, IMO. BTW, I did look at Jump-In and, for some reason, I decided on WwtB instead; though others have had great success.

I make a Big Picture plan every year. I admit, I like planning…

Megawords, there are samples:

http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/details.cfm?seriesonly=900M

I scoured the WTM boards, reading people’s experiences and views. All About Spelling was the other one, due to it’s phonics base. But it was too expensive, too teacher intensive and many found that they had trouble with their older children being offended by the more childish-type words to work with at the beginning and it caused a stumbling block. It didn’t take into account that these are older children who could usually read quite well (another reason they were insulted), it was just a spelling issue. NOw, other people have not had that problem; they just went quickly through the first few lessons.

BTW, the reason I”m going to use SG, too is that it’s gentle yet covers the essential grammar. MC just covers enough grammar to form the most important parts of a sentence then moves on. Plus, I didn’t want them to get “rusty” from the 8 weeks of MC before hitting OMT (appropriately rigorous and timely for a 13/14 yr. old). So I decided to fill in the time frame with SG-it’s simple, gentle and gives a full first exposure-but not “rigorous”.

Have you sat down and asked her about why she thinks she has trouble spelling? What does it feel like when asked to write a sentence and/or paragraph? In other words, what about writing causes problems; from her perspective? Open ended questions so she has to think about it because a solution must be found adn you’re there to help her so her input would make things go smoother. Sort of bring her along side of you since this is her education and her future. At age 10, I think they have some interesting perspective and should be moving towards the idea and mind-set of  taking responsibility for their education. My son’s own comments about himself were very helpful to me in addition to my own observations.

Sorry, I’ve only skimmed through the other responses, so I hope I’m not repeating something here.

I’ve used the new editions of LLATL and I think they are overwhelming — so much to do!!  Most of my kids would have a hard time doing that on their own.  If you want to continue with that, I’d just do the copywork and then pick out the most important things from the lesson and do it orally.

OR, switch to Dictation Day by Day as someone else suggested.  It’s free and a good start for a reluctant writer.

I’d totally skip grammar for now unless you just read something like the Ruth Heller books.

All About Spelling is expensive, but it works.  Since she seems adverse to the actual physical act of writing, I think AAS would be a good choice since you can just use the magnetic letter tiles.  It is teacher intensive, but if you’re consistent you can cover a lot of ground in ten minutes a day and you will see improvement in her spelling. Also, AAS holds its value and you’d probably be able to re-sell it.  Megawords is also a good program, but it’s a workbook and she’d have to write.