1/3 Rod and Staff English Question

[Hope]

Hello Ladies,

Thank you again for all of your help last month.

I ended up shipping back my poor choice for this year and switching to HOD! We are in our 7th year of homeschooling and wanted a good year. My DH helped make this decision, and I could not be more pleased. Carrie & Julie HOD is by far the best curriculum I have ever used. Thank you!!

We were already R&S English users. I have a question about the 1/3 written that I would like to follow.

Is it 1/3 of the entire lesson or 1/3 of the written portion of the lesson or 1/3 of the written and review portions? For example, R&S 4 today had 18 questions to be done orally, 12 questions for written practice, and 12 review questions to be written. Should I have had him write 14 questions total (1/3 of all) or 8 questions total (1/3 of written & review), or 4 questions total (1/3 of written section). I have often skipped reviews and done odds or evens on the written section. I would like to know what HOD users are doing, and what is meant by 1/3 written.

We are loving this beautiful Christ centered, Bible focused, and God centered curriculum. I feel very blessed the Lord led me here.

In Christ,

[Nealewill]

I would say I probably assess the needs of my student. With my younger two kids, they are both in the same level. We read the text together. We will do at least one full section orally together with them going back and forth. And then I have them write down 3 numbered items for up to 2 sections.

With my oldest, she is in the same level you mentioned and I will read the text to her. We usually do the first item orally and will not always finish it if she clearly is understanding it. However, if she struggles at all, we do the whole thing orally. Then I assign 3-6 written numbers (usually 1/2 of one section, more numbers for less writing intensive items) for up to 2 sections.

For all of the kids though, they eventually get to writing stories and such. We do that assignment in full and spread over 2 days if necessary to finish.

[Gwenny]

It all depends on the day and child for me. For my 11 yo in grade 4 R&S, I typically have him write no more than 5 sentences, for example. If there has been a big writing day already, or he is just already starting to get burned out on school, we do it orally or I help him write it. Yesterday, it was a review. We did most orally and then there were 3 sets of 4 words he was supposed to write in alphabetical order. I wrote them on the paper for him and he numbered them. Then he had to pick out the subjects (sometimes compound) and predicates from 5 sentences and write the words down, then diagram those sentences. I decided to have him write those things instead of spending his writing time on the 3 sets of 4 words. Much of the rest of the lesson was writing answers to questions for review. We definitely do that orally.

When my daughter was doing that review, she wrote all of the answers to the written on a review because writing to her is not a big deal.

[Hope]

Thank you Gwenny and Nealewill!

This was helpful. It sounds a bit like what I have always done. It has depended some on the day, what writing they have done that day, and where they are at in the day. It looks like continuing what I have done will probably work.

My example was from ds10 yesterday who is in R&S 4. We read the lesson together and he answered all of the oral questions orally. Then I had him write out 3 of the questions from the written section. The rest of the written section we did together on the white board. I skipped the review, which I have done for so long to save time and I really have thought for a long time it would be helpful if I included those or did at least a portion of them. He had to copy a paragraph in Preparing yesterday, which was my reason for doing 3 written.

Thank you for the input. I can be too easy on them for writing, which is one of the many reasons I picked HOD to help me stop doing that, so I will be mindful of the writing in R&S. It sounds like 1/3 of the written exercises might be about right.

Thank you!

[Gwenny]

I tend to go too easy on my son in writing also. From the beginning I should've been better about having him write the one sentence in the story time box or making sure we did the copywork in the poems from those earlier guides. He would complain or take forever doing it just many times I wouldn't even bring it up! I finally realized that the slow and steady wins the race and those times of practice go a long way. Sometimes when he complain now I tell him that he is writing way less than he should/could be for his age. I know that is NOT helpful at all but I say that in frustration and need to keep that to myself and remind myself to continue to challenge him. It's not his fault, he does struggle but it's also my not requiring more through the years.