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Mary Fifer
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| Posted: Sept 29 2012 at 12:47am | IP Logged
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I'm with Marilyn.
First, I want to apologize for cramming so much information into my post above - I was SOOOO new to websites and barely knew what a forum was or how it worked. I did not see that I was adding too much that did not apply to the topic of this thread.
Now I understand the idea of keeping one idea in one thread and that is the reason that I write today nearly two years later.
We were snowed out of going to that IEW meeting, but a friend of mine loaned me her TWSS last year which convinced us to buy our own copy. Mr. Pudewa is a born teacher and our children love what he is teaching. I am using some of his ideas with our younger children but it is our 12th grader who is zooming ahead simply "taking the course" herself and using it toward her research paper. I am so impressed with the changes in her writing, spelling, handwriting and eagerness to write. This alone was worth the price of the DVDs and binder. He's right that a high school student can gain a great deal from the course in a short time.
Our set has bonus DVDs and in one of these he explains that in the time that had lapsed since he had first published the DVDs he saw that he should have promoted being sure to move through the units rather than dwelling on the early units too long. If you do something through all the units through the year, you and your children do not get stumped or bored so easily. I agree with him that actually doing it is the key to understanding what he's taught. I was glad to hear, too, that he wouldn't have changed the original DVDs.
As for Marilyn's question of age at the start of this thread, I'm finding that our older children benefit most; but that I'm teaching the younger ones with more confidence and better ideas so they might be the long term winners.
Again and again, thank you for posting this info!
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Mary
Saint Anne's Helper for Catechism Class
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Jan 20 2015 at 11:37am | IP Logged
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Also bumping this thread for the 10th Anniversary of 4Real!
I have poured over this thread off and on over the years. I love that there is so much wisdom here from past and present members.
At my home these days we are using IEW, and that's working so well.
It was this thread that encouraged me to give it a good try. 
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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Mary Fifer
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| Posted: Jan 20 2015 at 3:50pm | IP Logged
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Yea Melinda!
This is such good news!
I think that what Mr. Pudewa teaches is the best way to "teach writing", certainly the improvement of one's writing.
I was just thinking of this forum this morning, thinking that I need to add to an old post, too; so this is a welcome bump.
Congratulations 4Real!
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Mary
Saint Anne's Helper for Catechism Class
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MarilynW
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| Posted: Jan 20 2015 at 4:45pm | IP Logged
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OK - so I started this thread almost 6 years ago. Here are my thoughts:
IEW worked wonderfully for us - my oldest was a natural writer and did not really need it. My boys thrived on it for several years, and are good writers in high school. Now I have the second batch of kids - I read too many reviews and decided to change things - tried Classical Composition and Writing and Rhetoric - dumped them and have come full circle back to IEW. My fifth grade son is thriving on IEW - writing is a joy again.
I think I have learned my lesson to just keep what works and quit trying new things. We narrate naturally through the day, but I will keep my Writing with Ease and First Language Lessons in younger grades. Right now life is very busy and I love that I cover all the bases for narration, copywork and dictation, as well as grammar.
So this is the sequence I will follow:
1. K - narration and copywork
2. 1st - narration, dictation and copywork. Use WWE and FLL if needed
3. 2nd, 3rd and 4th - narration, dictation and copywork. Use FLL and WWE.
5th - IEW and FLL
6th - Writing with Skill and Analytical Grammar
7th - Writing with Skill and Analytical Grammar
8th - IEW and analytical Grammar
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Marilyn
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SallyT
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Marilyn,
I'm curious to know about your Classical Composition experience. Did you use the Memoria Press materials, or something else? I'm looking at starting the MP cycle of the Progym with my rising 7th grader next year. He's using Sheldon's Advanced Language Lessons (found it as a free e-book online -- like PLL and ILL, but the next step up) right now, and I like it for much the same reasons that I'm liking ILL for my 5th grader. It cycles us through grammar, usage, and composition at a gentle but steady pace.
BUT as we move toward high school, I'm pondering a more classical approach to composition this time. I'd be curious to know what you didn't like about the materials you used.
Thanks!
Sally
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MarilynW
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| Posted: Jan 21 2015 at 9:06am | IP Logged
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Hi Sally,
Re Classical Composition - I did buy Memoria Press materials and I had Kolbe Lesson plans if I needed them. I am generally a huge fan of anything Memoria Press, and our education is definitely more classical than anything else. But I really did not like the Classical Composition - we found it dry and non-intuitive and just not enjoyable. I was doing it with my 4th grader who is just a really motivated and bright boy who is enthusiastic about his work. And he really disliked it...and so did I. This is a child who loves narrating, reads everything etc - but his face would just fall at writing. Now we are doing IEW - he loves writing again, and writes elaborate paragraphs with great enthusiasm.
I thought I would try Writing and Rhetoric (Classical Academic Press) which goes through the progym. We liked this MUCH better than classical composition - it was more Charlotte Mason and interesting. My son liked this, but we decided to just return to IEW.
If you want to do the progym - I think Writing and Rhetoric is more intuitive and interesting than Classical Composition esp. for younger kids.
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Marilyn
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SallyT
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Thanks for the feedback. I would be starting with a 7th grader next year -- we don't do much formal composition before middle school. I often wonder about MP's assignments of grade level. I too like their materials very much, but I would tend toward later implementation of many of them, rather than earlier.
Again, many thanks!
Sally
PS: And thanks for the recommendation of Writing and Rhetoric. Something else to look at.
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knowloveserve
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I bought IEW and loved it. But we could never make it happen time wise. So I've been wringing my hands all year long that this year looks far more unschooly than I intended or wanted. My baby is just so very needy, I don't really feel like I can do ANYTHING on some days. It's tough.
As a natural born writer, I agonize over the fact that my 6th and 4th graders can barely make a paragraph. It's hard for me to understand why it's so hard for them! This is why I loved IEW; it gave me the tools to teach something that frankly I didn't realize needed to be taught!
Still, it's just not happening this year. All I can do is morning basket readings lately and a math lesson for each kid. I'm thinking that I want to have an IEW summer intensive....
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Ellie
The Bleeding Pelican
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SallyT
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Ellie, I know what you mean. I was horrified this year when my 12yo came home from CCD with the assignment to read the Book of Job and write three paragraphs (okay, I thought the whole assignment was a little intense for one week, but his teacher is a former Marine, and it's Confirmation Prep Boot Camp in there). I was less horrified by the assignment than I was by what he asked me about it: "So -- what's a paragraph?"
Hello? You read all. the. time? Ever notice how the text is in, like, chunks on the page, marked by indentations? Apparently not. And apparently I had never pointed this out or explained it. So he got a crash course in the paragraph right there. It took him five hours to write those three paragraphs (I think he read the Book of Job faster than that), but since then things have gotten easier . . .
Some of it really is a maturity thing. I've shared many times before that my now-17-year-old, when he was in late elementary/early middle school, could barely squeeze out a sentence in response to any assignment. He read all the time and was really articulate, so I knew he knew how English is supposed to sound. He just . . . couldn't . . . put . . . it . . . together, for the longest time. But at 12 or 13, some switch flipped, and it did become easier and more automatic. He's now a very good natural writer.
That aside, I still wanted more guidance for my 11- and 12yos this year. After not looking at Intermediate Language Lessons for years, because my older kids hated it so much, I'm finding that my current 11-year-old enjoys it. It has prompted her to do a good bit of writing: narrations, outlines, paragraphs, little stories. I give her a good bit of leeway with the assignments, and I don't correct them heavily at this stage. I'm more concerned with encouraging the writing onto the page at all than with how correct it is. There's time for that later.
For my 12yo, after the Book of Job adventure, I went looking for something more oriented toward composition than the KISS grammar he had been doing. I realized that what I wanted was for him to be doing the kind of thing his sister had been doing in ILL, but at a little higher level.
So I searched around and found Sheldon's Advanced Language Lessons, which I mentioned in one of my previous posts. After some thought, I think I am going to stick with it for the next year or so, however long it takes us to get through it, rather than switching to the Progym model. It covers grammar basics -- subjects, predicates, identifying same in various kinds of sentences, parts of speech, etc -- but also basics of composition via narrations, dictation, review of the paragraph, outlining, and so on, all in the same kind of gentle spiral that ILL follows.
Again, I allow him a good bit of latitude in how he responds to the assignments. One assignment last week started with a comic poem about a girl who memorized 6x9 by renaming her doll "54," and then when the teacher asks her in class what 6x9 is, she says the doll's original name instead of "54." The student was then supposed to write a story relating some similarly humorous "schoolroom story." Obviously we were going to be a little free-wheeling about that. What my son wound up writing was something called "The Day Sir Walter Raleigh Went to the Coffee-Table Auction." But it did have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it didn't take five hours to write.
I like these books -- ILL and ALL -- precisely because they're not a whole program. It's not time-consuming. I do usually sit down with the child to make sure the lesson gets read and understood, and that they know what to do for the writing part. It's not a lot of writing every day, but a kind of movement from coverage of nuts and bolts to sentence-writing to something longer. I like that ALL still includes copywork and dictation, though in rotation with other things.
(I also like that it's free. I downloaded the PDF onto my computer, onto the laptop the kids share for school -- they do most of their writing on the laptop -- and onto my son's Kindle. Can't beat free . . . )
Sally
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CrunchyMom
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Ellie, I have been neglecting writing myself, also with a needy baby, but as the baby approaches 2, I've been trying to revamp the mom intensive things like narration, dictation, and writing.
I don't know much about the format of IEW, but one thing I like about Bravewriter that you could likely apply in principle is how Julie emphasizes that less is more. Her lifestyle approach includes dictation, which she suggests bears fruit even if only done weekly or a few times a month, freewriting, which is timed and is just an exercise in helping to get thoughts on paper without any emphasis on form (we have not started this yet, but I hope to soon), and then a more formal project only once a month.
I don't own Jot It Down or Partnership Writing, but if you look at the samples, she offers suggestions for schedules, and the child spends a full week on topic selection and research or brainstorming, another on drafting, a third on revision, and a fourth on spit and polish. Also, you can read more about Partnership Writing, but I think it is one of the concepts that is most valuable in its program, one that is skipped by other programs, and that is the natural need for lots of help where you and your child essentially write together.
Anyway, all that to say that your boys' need for your help isn't necessarily a failing on your part, it could just be the natural stage of writing for them (sort of like how Sally says the switch flipped for her son). Also, Julie counts any writing the child does. Are your boys making lists, signs, notes, letters, etc...? Since you find yourself unschooling by default, you might start looking at what they are doing like an unschooler would, and I would bet they are accomplishing more than you think informally.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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knowloveserve
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Thank you for those thoughts Lindsay and Sally!
Sally, what hope to hear about your children's progression! I think I should revisit ILL for the remainder of the year here. We have LoG, but it feels so tedious and how many "Yet more adverb practice!" pages can I really push on my kids?!
Lindsay, I have Bravewriter too and I liked it when I read it... I just got distracted with implementing it. I think the precise schedule structure for IEW helped us.
The boys do make lists, "Don't touch my stuff!" signs, thank you cards, and they are constantly sketching out little comics with captions and all that.
In days like these, you're right... it's important to count what they ARE doing, not what they aren't.
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: Jan 27 2015 at 1:00pm | IP Logged
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MarilynW wrote:
So this is the sequence I will follow:
1. K - narration and copywork
2. 1st - narration, dictation and copywork. Use WWE and FLL if needed
3. 2nd, 3rd and 4th - narration, dictation and copywork. Use FLL and WWE.
5th - IEW and FLL
6th - Writing with Skill and Analytical Grammar
7th - Writing with Skill and Analytical Grammar
8th - IEW and analytical Grammar |
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Marilyn, thank you for this glimpse! My oldest is 5th and started IEW this year. My next one is 3rd and we touch on grammar topics like capitals, plurals, etc., but I'm waiting until he's 5th grade to really dive into writing. He's just now finally able to communicate a narration this year.
I also like waiting until 6th for formalized grammar. My oldest (6th next year) will begin a more formal study of grammar following the Analyical Grammar 3-year approach which seems just the right pace for grammar introduction found here.
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Lara
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SallyT
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I've never had any of the BraveWriter books, but I do get her Daily Writing Tips via email (you can sign up at the site; they're free). For encouraging kids to write as part of their daily lives, and to have fun with writing without being bogged down in self-consciousness, these really are great.
Prior to this year, I have encouraged my kids to
1) write letters -- the 11yo has a pen pal in Belgium with whom she corresponds about once a month. They've been doing this since they were 9, and it's a great way to work on things like spelling and sentence clarity (because she usually wants me to look over her letter before she sends it) without seeming to do so in a schooly way.
2) email (with siblings, extended family, and a couple of selected friends who are also allowed to email)
3) write fan fiction. In fact, the first indication that I had that maybe I shouldn't worry about the now-17-year-old was that I discovered he was writing Redwall fan fiction at a Redwall website. He was probably 11 at the time, and up to then I really wasn't sure he could write a paragraph. He could.
4) make shopping lists, write notes, and other small daily writing, because writing is writing, and the point is to use it as part of your thought process
5) do copywork. "Remember that thing you copied this morning? That was a sentence (or a paragraph, or a stanza, or whatever)"
It just occurred to me that I should poll my Homeschool Connections poetry-writing students, to see what preparation they had in writing prior to high school. The tiny class I have now are really kind of elite writers -- they range from excellent to unbelievable -- and I'd be interested to know more about their writing backgrounds. Of course, they're in my class because they're actively interested in writing, but they're also just good at the nuts and bolts of it. Even their chat is articulate!
Which reminds me that for middle and high school, Homeschool Connections is another option. There are many general and targeted classes in writing -- I think we're the largest department at HSC (though I could be wrong about that) -- anyway, the offerings are huge. I haven't had my kids in any of these classes, because I just started teaching for HSC this year, but that may well be on the radar for the future. I have my eye on the college-prep writing courses for sure . . .
Just more thoughts . . . :)
Sally
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Can we talk writing programs again?!!
