Writing program advice

I just wanted to add that I, someone who wants this method to work, have been guilty of the “simplicity”, “gentleness” of it all and have NOT required my kids to do what CM suggests.  I have figured out, as easy as this is, I actually HAVE to ask for the work, if I want it to work.  I have not always (but pretty much) required narrations (in any form) from my kids. To be honest, I’d say it’s been off and on.  I do require it if a guide or book asks for it (Apologia, SCM guides) but probably not enough otherwise.  I have probably been too gentle, lol, then wonder why my kids can’t do such and such.  Well, in the past month or so I have increased the expectations and they are doing much bettter and I am much happier with their progress. 

I have made the mistake of not following through with what is prescribed, under the guise of “gentleness” and am needing to make up for that.  For me, I feel that if I just do what is prescribed my kids will succeed in the Lang. Arts dept that would not question the method.  It can work but I have to actually expect the work. 

I see (and want to see) in my kids’ ability to express their own opinion about a book, movie, adventure, etc., in their own words without feeling as if their feelings/thoughts are wrong.  Let me give you a bad example: We read a chapter in CHOW about Christopher Columbus, I found some printables online (one of them would’ve been okay, but not the second one) and had my 9 1/2 yo ds work on them.  It was very challenging for him…I became very frustrated that he could not answer the simple questions (shouldn’t he be able to?) and although he finished it, it was not as enjoyable (for either of us) than if Iwould’ve  just ask for a narration and maybe a picture.  What really got me were the questions. Who cares what someone else thinks is important for my son to know (especially at 9yo), I wanted to know what HE thought and I blew it by trying to “test” him. If I’m being honest, I wanted to see if he could do what those kids in ps school are manufactured to do.  I should’ve and would’ve been happier knowing what HE thought but I didn’t trust the process, ugh.  I hope to not make that mistake again. 

My point is, and I hope I’m on the right track, the CM method encourages the child to think for himself. She discouraged pumping out what others wanted them to know and then wnated them to make connections all on their own.  I find that to be brilliant and honoring of the child.  Also, I think that we should want to know what our kids think and how they feel about “such and such”.  I have to make breakfast and have rambled on long enough.

Amanda,

Your post put into words what has been on my mind for sometime.  My oldest will not start K until next fall but I have often thought it would be helpful to do the first year of history by myself the year before.  Your husband is correct that will help with my confidence to teach.  I am going to prayerfully consider doing the history during his K year in the fall.  

Thanks for your post!

Carolyn

I found this thread very useful, so I’m bumping…

Yes, isn’t this thread lovely?  I think it got lost in the data mix-up the other day.

I was panicking a few days ago about NEEDING a writing program.  I was looking through the forum archives and found this…and it spoke peace to my heart.  

Ditto to all these comments! This is a FABULOUS thread. Has someone been reading my mind? I have been trying to get answers to these questions as well!

A million thanks to Bookworm and everyone else!

Can’t tell you how excited I am to apply all this. What a blessing.

Well I did a search for Writing Strands on the forum..didn’t like what I saw, so if you scroll down the list of old posts that search will bring up you will see search w/ google at the bottom of the page. This is where it is very nice…old posts will appear that has the keywords you typed in!

I read a few before I got to this post. Then I just replied to it! I don’t even know if I explained that well enough!?????

I don’t know how I missed this post before I did all the research into writing programs. Thanks to Michelle and others for explaining so much on the C M way of LA. But I would still like to take a peak at what a typical week of 4th grade learning to write narrations (LA lessons) looks like. We are using Writing Tales right now and it is okay. Their “rough draft” assignment is really a written narration. The program includes some oral narration, written narration, copywork, vocabulary (dictionary skills), spelling practice on the words they misspelled in their rough draft, and some gentle grammar lessons like punctuation, capitalization, and quotation marks so far. So I am wondering how close this is to teaching LA the CM way. Should I keep going with it or drop it? Last week he wrote a full page rough draft of the written narration and we corrected it together but there wasn’t any joy in doing it. But I think I would feel lost on what to do each day if I drop it. He still does some transcription type copywork several days a week too.

I had planned to do IEW next year but I am thinking now to wait a few more years. Thanks.