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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Sept 16 2010 at 4:00pm | IP Logged
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After homeschooling for 9 years, you would think I would have this down by now, but I'm feeling insecure!  I'm not sure what to use for Language Arts for my ds in 5th grade. His reading is below grade level, although he is catching up.
I generally follow MODG and Intermediate Language Lessons is recommended, but it just doesn't seem to be working for him. I'm looking for other suggestions.
To be honest, I love the copywork / dictation method but I'm just not sure I have the energy to pull the grammar and writing concepts out of the dictation passages. I'd like to think he would get that all just by copying, but I know he wont. He needs more instruction.
My other "issue" is that I've already spent my budget on homeschool materials for the year so I can't afford anything expensive.
Any suggestions?
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Becky
Wife to Wes, Mom to 6 wonderful kids on Earth and 4 in Heaven!
Academy Of The Good Shepherd
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Sept 16 2010 at 5:07pm | IP Logged
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Please excuse the fact that I'm losing my mind! This child is in 4th grade, not 5th.
I should also add that I might have answered my own question. After posting, I went down to the school room we haven't been using and checked out my "language arts" shelves. It's a shame when you have so much curriculum you don't even know what you have! 
I came upon the very old editions of Learning Language ARts Through Literature. These were given to me 9 years ago when a friend, whose kids were no longer using them, passed them along to me. I've never even looked in them.
I pulled the 4th grade book off the shelf and noticed that it is all based on copywork and dictation. I think I've found what I need!
I plan to go through this book carefully this evening and see if it will work for this ds, but I'm still interested in any other suggestions you might have. I know at some point this series gets anti-Catholic, but I'm wondering if that is the case with this older version. I'll have to check it out.
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Becky
Wife to Wes, Mom to 6 wonderful kids on Earth and 4 in Heaven!
Academy Of The Good Shepherd
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Sept 16 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged
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Oh, I'm so glad you went hunting through your shelves, Becky!!! That's always a great resource for me!
Ok...so we're talking language arts for a 4th grader - not a 5th grader.
I have a few other ideas for you and none of them require you spending $$!!!
** Can you identify what is difficult about ILL? Can you slow the pace? Require less of a dictation (in other words...if the assignment is a paragraph, you could only ask for a sentence to be studied for the dictaion)? Is there a way to scale back just a bit so that this program is a better fit? In what way is ILL not working? The reason I ask is because I find PLL and ILL so workable - I thought it might be possible to brainstorm some solutions so that you can modify this so it's a better fit.
** If his reading is below grade level, it would make sense that his language arts abilities might be reflective of that...so perhaps just pulling lang. arts expectations back a bit.
** Is writing an issue? Perhaps scale back the amount of writing he has to do - rather than an assignment-worth-of-writing, ask for 10 minutes of best effort -- even if that is just 2 words.
** I know you know this, but keep lessons short!!!!! If he's already showing signs of frustration, be careful not to go into the frustration zone where he is unable to offer best effort or attention. Grammar lessons can be SUPER SHORT here! They're 5 minutes most of the time.
** Have you checked out the KISS Grammar site? I found the site difficult to navigate at first, but after spending some time with it I started to learn my way around. It is a really nice resource for teaching grammar, with everything printable and everything free. There are some good explanations and articles written by moms discussing how they use this site at Ambleside. If nothing else, you might find some supplementation ideas here. The Printable Books page is a good place to start.
** Check out English Chick Grammar lessons - their section on Grammar Basics/Remedial Grammar is fantastic! It could make a wonderful course of basic grammar and lends itself easily to a short lesson - just print the basic grammar page and check off parts of speech and other concepts as you discuss them throughout the year in your dictation lessons.
** Another helpful and free online resource is the Guide to Grammar and Writing. There's a lot there to browse, and you can build some easy, short lessons from this site.
** I found this very helpful - the Ambleside Online Scope and Sequence is a good guide for what to teach grammar-wise in which grades. I think the AO article makes it very simple and really removes the intimidation factor for approaching the grammar part of language arts as a short lesson with dictation studies.
** You know this already, and I don't want to push it because you said you're looking for something already set up for you...but you CAN do this without anything additional and without a tremendous outlay of time/extra planning on your part. If he's narrating what he's reading to you daily, and you work on one dictation for the week (over 2 - 3 days) and maybe 1 - 2 copywork exercises, you've accomplished a great deal of language arts right there - enough for the week. Once you have a good routine down of reading/narrating, dictations, copywork, you can slowly begin to introduce some short grammar lessons as part of your studied dictations. I don't want to encourage this so much that it seems pushy...because I did read that you really don't want to approach lang arts this way - you'd like something more laid out...so I'll just say that it really can be very simple, and I'm amazed at how effective it is when implemented simply, daily, and consistently.
AND...you may have already found your answer by browsing your own shelves, Becky! Sometimes, just doing that provides me with a different angle, and a fresh point of view.
Let me know if we can narrow this some more. I'd be happy to brainstorm more specifics with you if you want! 
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Sept 23 2010 at 7:09am | IP Logged
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Still figuring this out Jen, but I wanted to thank you for your suggestions. I'm trying the LLATL book I have this week to see how it goes. So far it's working and I think that's mainly because the lessons are short and sweet, which you mentioned as being important. This is my ds with ADHD so "short and sweet" is a necessity!!
I'm going to spend some more time checking out the links you posted above. You are always so helpful with your brainstorming!!!
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Becky
Wife to Wes, Mom to 6 wonderful kids on Earth and 4 in Heaven!
Academy Of The Good Shepherd
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: language arts for 5th grade
