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Three Cheers for Using Language Well !
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SW and ULW match up, lesson for lesson. The first 1/2 of SW and ULW go through lesson 70. If you are already 1/2 way through SW the ULW page gives suggestions on how to “catch up” with ULW.
My DD was on lesson 50 at the end of last year. I chose to start at lesson 40 of ULW and SW at the start of this year. The grammar is a bit of a review from previous used curriculum, but that is where she is comfortable starting for spelling
The challenge of starting with book 2, is if your student is ready for dictation at the book 2 level.
If you print a sample of each, you can see how ULW refers to SW lessons and they line up.
Ok. I’m trying to figure out how to do this. I’ve got a 5th grader and a 6th grader (both boys). Last year we did Junior Analytical Grammar and Junior Mechanicals. The 5th grader did much better than the 6th grader (it was like a puzzle for him) and he really enjoyed it. My 6th grader did fine, but I don’t know how much he actually retained. They both are using SW (5th not a strong speller and in book 1, 6th is super speller and is in book 2) My question is where do we go from here? I want to use ULW, but I don’t know where to start! I am thinking both start with book 1 and fly through the first section and slow down for the second half? Or do I go based on where they are in SW? Help!
Since you’ve already done JAG and JM, Using Language Well would just be review. If you think both boys would benefit from that review, I would probably go with the books they are currently using in Spelling Wisdom. I’d suggest that you look through the ULW lessons from the beginning of the books up to where your students are in the corresponding SW (so if one is on, say, exercise 42 in Spelling Wisdom, take a look at lessons 1–41 in ULW) and see if the material covered needs to be reviewed.
If so, set aside the SW for a few weeks and just do the ULW lessons without the transcription or dictation portions. Once you are caught up, continue on (from lesson 42, in our example) with both UWL and SW side-by-side from there.
If you think the student already has a good grasp on the material that was covered in those previous lessons, then simply pick up where he is in SW and move forward from there.
RE your 6th grader’s retention of punctuation and capitalization mechanics: the rubric guidelines that are included and are used to evaluate his written narrations should help him recall/review mechanics and get in the habit of using them correctly.
Hello Sonya:
Please forgive me if you have already addressed this question. I have read through a lot of this thread but it is beginning to make me dizzy! I hope I have a simple question.My 10yo son has been doing copy work for a few years now. I had planned to start him on dictation this year, but just discovered ULW. I am not sure if he has been doing transcription or not, but I think it is possible. If I did level 1 of ULW and SW, and we started from the beginning, wouldn’t he be doing both dictation and transcription at the same time? Or am I missing something?
Thank you!
Transcription is through lesson 70 of ULW and SW (part 1 of book 1 ULW and SW)
Dictation starts at lesson 71 for the second half of each book.
The ULW page gives a break down of each book, since each book can be used to cover 2 years. I would check there to see where you want to start.
Thank you! But I am still trying to make sense of this. Spelling Wisdom by itself is for dictation. Right? ULW begins with transcription, then moves to dictation. If I purchase both and begin with lesson 1 of both, doing them side by side, he will be working on dictation in SW, and transcription in ULW. Correct? Please help me see if I am missing something! Thank you!
SW originaly was used as dictation only, but if you choose to pair it with ULW, the student will use SW for transcription through lesson 70 of book 1. You would not be doing any dictation, but would use the SW selections as transcription exercises through the instruction of ULW.
I am really excited about this product, but I am really struggling to figure out which level to buy. I have three school age children ages 12,10,and 8. My 12 year old will be using SW book 3 so nothing to figure out there. I had planned to pull copy work and dictation for the eight and 10yr old respectivly from their BYFIAR book and then use it to highlight grammar points AND then I saw ULW…It is exactly what I need! However, I want to keep things as combined as possible (I also have a toddler and we will likely be moving out of state for the second time in a year). So I can’t decide whether to use book 1 or 2 . Both have done copy work and the rising 5th grader has done a tiny bit of dictation but not using SW. Both have had some grammar; they understand capitalization punctuation and have had an introduction to nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc but not a ton of practice. So I would love to hear some opinions on whether I should jump in at book 2 and modify for the 8-year-old or just start both in book 1?
Well, I just decided to go with book one. I figure some review will be beneficial and I will just add dictation in for my 10-year-old!
I’m reading through my materials, gearing up for our start in a week. I just have a simple question. The student books are listed as being consumable. When I look through them, it seems to me that the work *could* be done in a separate notebook, allowing the student book to stay clean and usable for a following student. However, I don’t want to confuse my children or miss a point of the program, so if that would create a problem, I don’t want to do it.
Can you point out to me the importance of having the student write directly in the student journal as opposed to using a separate notebook?
Thanks. 🙂
For Book 1, the first 70 lessons are designed to be done mostly orally. For the remaining lessons in that book, some could easily be done on a separate sheet of paper; but some of them will give a sentence from the exercise and have the student circle punctuation marks and explain why each is used. If you know a lesson like that is coming up, you could copy that sentence or arrange to sit with the student and just have him point to each mark and orally give the explanation for it, and in that way keep the book unmarked.
For Book 2, there are quite a few lessons that give sentences from the exercises and ask the student to parse the italicized words. That could be cumbersome to try to replicate on a separate sheet of paper.
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