Question: 5th Grade

Hi Julie! It’s perfectly normal for written narrations to be a bit awkward for a while. I’ve heard many experienced CM moms say that they the transition from oral to written narrations can take a year or so before things are going smoothly.

Written narrations with copywork and dictation are more than enough writing for 5th grade.

It all depends on what your end goal is. If you want a 5th grader who can do more formal written assignments, you may want a program. This is not my goal, nor was it Charlotte Mason’s.

Her goal was to produce a well read, thinking individual who could write well (in the end) because he/she had been reading and copying from and narrating on the very best books available for years and years.

I recently had my daughter who is 13, do a few more formal writing assignments. I immediately saw how superior written narration is to formal writing assignments. Her written narrations are original and well written and full of descriptive language. It convinced me to stick with written narrations for a bit longer before adding in formal writing direction in high school. She is developing her own personal voice and writing style now and I don’t want to stunt that by forcing her to formalize things too quickly.

I bumped a writing thread to the top that has been a forum favorite for a while now. The advice therein has been very helpful to many of us. Hope you enjoy it! 🙂

Ah! Sorry about the misunderstanding.

One does not need to include creative writing unless the child is interested in writing. Creative writing is harder because now the child must think of what to write about whereas with written narration, she already has the subject and simply needs to come up with her own words to describe what she already knows. It frees them to focus on the mechanics of writing and developing their own style IMO. I’ve had my daughter do a few creative writing assignments here and there and the quality of her writing decreased so I prefer to stick with written narrations until she is a bit older. I see her writing skills and style improving dramatically with written narration so that by the time creative writing is needed, writing will be easy and she can transfer those skills and use her brain power to focus on what to write because she will already know how to write.

Also, written narrations still require much creativity from the student. They are still creating their own version of a story and that requires creativity in it’s own right.

Some students enjoy a book called Story Starters written by Karen Andreola (a CM homeschool mom) for creative writing but I haven’t used it personally.

Creative writing is more important in high school when the student will be required to write essays on a variety of topics.

My 5th grader is doing Analytical Grammar Jr. And Write With the Best volume 1. It gives detailed information on how to teach the course which I needed.