Not sure what to do next…

We use Growing with Grammar and love it, but I would never start grammar as young as your DD (unless your state or province requires it).  Have your DD focus on reading and copywork – this is perfect for age 7, along with plenty of wonderful read alouds by you….science, history, literature, artist and composer bio’s…get her to fall in in love with reading and everything YOU read to her.

Again on grammar – We started GWG at age 9.5/10 years and that was just about right for us. 

On reading – AAR wasn’t a great fit for us, either.  Just too structured.  We ended up just doing a few Explode the Code workbooks to just keep awareness of phonics alongside our readers ( we did daily reading aloud from the readers by my children) and it went fine.  Another idea – If you take the time to pre-read (or even just scan) your DD’s pathway reader chapter each day for words you know will stump her, you can start her read aloud session with a little reading “lesson”.  Simply put the hard words on a white board and walking her through the sounding-out or breaking into syllables.  Don’t worry if you don’t know phonics “perfectly”, just do the sounding out and syllable break down as you would any word unknown to yourself.  Do this little task daily or a few times per week  until about 4th grade and then if you still feel you want more phonics, just go to a phonics based spelling program (phonetic zoo or megawords) to continue to reinforce phonics.  In the meantime, you’ve kept the early years pleasant and light and more about learning to love reading than learning to memorize phonics rules.

HTH!  Angie

You are most welcome, AFthful!  Yes, enjoy the hear of “freedom” and a focus on reading.  Don’t forget that daily copywork is part of a CM education as well.  This is the key that answers your question on “enough”.  You can purchase a copybook  from a HS catalogue or here on SCM, or you can make and print a sheet of copywork for your DD for each day.  (more work but you get to custom choose exactly what she copies, which is nice)  Have your DD spend 5 minutes per day on copywork; 5 minutes is plenty as long as she is putting her most diligent effort, taking time to form each letter carefully and as neatly as she can. 

Note if you opt to do your copywork (make a sheet for your daughter each day) there are free web tools such as the Zaner Bloser website, StartWrite software and the likes.  It’s pretty easy, though it is an extra teacher prep step each day (or at the start of your week).  When I was reading the Thornton Burgess “Adventures of” series to my kids, I often chose their copywork passage from the chapter we’d read the previous day.  These books were VERY beloved, so my kids felt a real little thrill when they saw a little part of yesterday’s chapter on their copywork. 

HTH, Angie

Agreeing with HollyS! 

We used the 100 Lessons, McGuffey’s, with our older children, and have added the “I Can Read” books to our DD7’s daily routine.  She is using these now and picking up speed.  Comprehension hasn’t ever been a problem for her, just fluent, smooth reading.  She’s excited!