Looking ahead to next year – English for 4th grade?

I plan on using serl’s Intermediate language lessons for grammar.  This one is for 4th and 5th grade. We are using her Primary Language lessons and enjoying them immensley.  All About Spelling (probably 3)  or Spelling Wisdom for spelling.    For literature selections I look at both Ambleside online and SCM.   I might also start to use one or two Total Language Plus’ a year.

Personally we are in the middle R&S 3, with my 9yr. old, and will continue. We do most of it orally and at a slower pace (only twice a week). It is not much harder than 2. We actually like our discussion time with it. We did do Thoughtful Child in 1st grade. To me it was too disjointed and mostly writing. Our doing things orally with R&S makes it very CM in my opinion. My daughter really notices things in her copywork that she learns in R&S. I like it’s conversational tone, so we will continue with it.

Right now we are camping. When we get back we will be starting written narrations, with her. I think it will be good for her to have the frame work of R&S as she begins this. This is the main reason I chose to continue instead of doing nothing this year.

I have two questions about 4th grade language arts, one of them specifically about the subjects Sonya laid out in her post.

When you say that Vocabulary is “picked up through Literature readings,” I’m wondering if there are specific recommendations on methodology.  We have merely been moving along through our various selections, and I will pick out a word here and there, either asking the children if they can tell me what it means or giving them a general definition myself.  Sometimes, if the word is specific to a topic or time period, we’ll look it up (because Mom readily admits she is unfamiliar with the word–and I think that admission is valuable to their learning).  Of course, there are also times when one of the children will ask the meaning of a word.  Should I be doing something more specific than this?  Or are there additional ideas to reinforce vocabulary acquisition?  I also just realized, while thinking about this, that my children rarely ask for definitions of words when reading independently….and I don’t think they are looking up many on their own.  Yikes!

My second question is this:  I have a 10yo 4th grader who is not a very strong reader.  Prior to Fall 2010, she was enrolled in an online public charter school for a couple of years, and they introduced parts of speech and types of sentences in 2nd and 3rd grade.  We did not use any grammar program this year, but I intend to use something for her and her 11yo brother (who reads at about an early 2nd grade level) beginning Fall 2011.  Since both are somewhat struggling readers yet both have studied sentences and parts of speech, which program would be most suited to this scenario?  Any recommendations?

TIA,

Sue