Sonya, or any really experienced CMer–I have a ??

I also would love to hear because we do Queens and it takes about 5 min, then for spelling we do Phonetic Zoo from EIW and it’s like all done in 10 min.

Misty

Sorry for the delay, ladies. I was doing the Books & Things Seminar over the weekend. Here are my thoughts.

Before talking numbers and details, the first thing to nail down is your answer to this question: What is my goal with copywork and dictation, . . . and language arts in general?

In my mind the goal is that my children will be able to communicate clearly and accurately, for I don’t want them to miscommunicate God’s Word and the gospel or inadvertently cause strife between the brethren by a miscommunication. Does that make sense?

So taking that goal in mind, I am satisfied with their copywork if I see that they are making progress toward writing legibly and neatly (which will help reduce chances of miscommunication) and making progress toward correct spelling (likewise). I also watch for the habits of best effort and attention, of course.

Short practice sessions/lessons done regularly can go a long way toward reaching those goals.

With that in mind, here are my opinions on your specific questions.

How do you know when you have enough copy work and dictation?

My kids are doing Queen’s LL (every day) and Spelling Wisdom for dictation (two days a week). I have added in Daily Grammar Practice (five days a week), but that lasts only about five minutes. They also copy their latin lesson three days a week.

Do I need to have them copy or do dictation on anything else? Is this enough?

Yes, I think that’s enough copywork and dictation.

How often should my 10 and 11 year olds crank out a written narration?

At that age, once a week (or even every two weeks) should be sufficient.

Also, I have been having them narrate everything and it is taking forever. How many oral narrations per day do you think is reasonable?

This is an ongoing discussion question among CM moms. Some have their children narrate every book every day; others pick and choose. It’s up to you. I personally try to make sure we do history and science. I don’t have them narrate our literature/read-aloud because it’s a just-enjoy-it-together book in my mind. You have permission to adjust your expectations to save your sanity. 🙂

I also would love to hear because we do Queens and it takes about 5 min, then for spelling we do Phonetic Zoo from EIW and it’s like all done in 10 min.

If it helps any, compare this to the Scripture Memory system that some of us use. It takes about 10 minutes each day to work on learning a new passage, as well as review some of the verses we’ve learned previously. It doesn’t look like much if you look at just one day, but over time it adds up to a LOT!

The main question is not How much time have we spent on this? The main question is Is the time we are spending effective in helping me reach my goal?

That’s my opinion. I’d love to hear from others too.

I appreciated this response, Sonya. Thank you! I have also been using Queen’s Language, Spelling Wisdom, and doing 2-3 written narrations a month with my just turned 11 yr. old this year.

CindyS, I love what you posted and totally agree. At the beginning of this year we worked on writing an excellent paragraph. As the year progressed we have moved into 4-5 paragraph narrations. Because we emphasized form and details vs. amount we have easily moved into longer narrations with excellent grammar, punctuation, and paragraph form.

Nedra

Ok.. sometimes I just need to repeat things in my way to understand.. so ..

My Queen’s & Phonetic Zoo is fine leave it alone. But my 10 yr old s/b doing writen narration. But this is just like 1 narration every week to 2 weeks working on correct words, puncuation and grammer. And it doesn’t have to be long like a paragraph (4-5 sentences).

Is this what I am getting from you> 😳 Embrassed, but needed to be clearn in my mind.

Misty