Now that C is nine and has cursive down and is improving on his typing we wanted to begin a formal writing program. We’re looking at two options – The Excellence in Writing program and The Complete Writer Writing with Ease. The latter is from The Well Trained Mind author and she also endorses the first program though she’s currently working on a middle school level set of her own that would be competition for it.
So Writing with Ease is for 1st through 4th grade and the book I ordered (and linked to above, though I got it from Amazon for $17) and it’s the instructor text. They offer student workbooks but reviews say they’re really not necessary. We use that same author’s grammar program First Language Lessons which we like, but that’s grammar, dictation & narration. We wanted something for more structured writing (essays, poetry, creative writing, etc.) And for $17 for a four year program we can’t beat that!
The Institute for Excellence in Writing program is also a teacher’s guide, it’s a DVD set and teacher syllabus (the teacher binder is $33, the DVD set is $169 but can be borrowed so long as you buy your own syllabus. A local friend is loaning it to me to watch.) In theory it teaches you how to use their writing program for all ages and you can purchase more DVDs that actually teach the lessons or you can create your own lessons (which I plan to do.)
I want to see both options so we can determine which works best for our kids. I was hesitant about buying both but it’s $50 for me to get the teacher guide for both programs together and that way I can decide from kid to kid which I think would be best for their learning style. (I was able to get both for $31 combined thanks to a used copy & a sale.)
So we’re doing First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind for grammar, narration, dictation & some memorization.
Spell to Write & Read for spelling, though it does include some writing exercises & some grammar lessons as enrichment.
Cursive First for handwriting, which they practice with their spelling words, dictation work, and soon their writing program.
Teaching the Classics/Thomas Jefferson Education questions for literature.
Institute for Excellence in Writing and/or Writing with Ease for their writing. We’re waiting for both of those to arrive.
My tentative plan is that we’ll do two writing lessons a week and one grammar lesson for C, since his grammar is much more intensive now (First Language Lessons Level 4.) For Mo we’ll do her two grammar lessons (Level 2) and one to two writing lessons a week, depending on how involved they are. Then all together we do one literature reading and they both do spelling lists & enrichment activities with those. That sounds like a lot but it actually doesn’t take up that much time or coordination.
M: grammar, new memorization
T: new spelling words, writing lesson
W: grammar, spelling enrichment
Th: writing lesson, literature
F: spelling test
And all of them incorporate the cursive/handwriting.
(Update, I’m returning Writing with Ease because I think it’s redundant if you do First Language Lessons and because I think the IEW writing program is better and covers all ages, not just 1st through 4th.)
I’m planning to do the Cursive First next year but not the Spell to Write and Read. I was thinking I would just add in extra cursive practice in different assignments. For Autumn I thought she could do her Fix-It’s in cursive daily (did I tell you about those?) and for Heidi I thought she could do keyword outlines in cursive. Do they give any special instructions for using Cursive First with someone who it really isn’t FIRST for? I think we’ll have all three of the older ones learning cursive at the same time! Esther right from the start and the others right alongside her.
You didn’t tell me about Fix It’s, I want to hear. Cursive First works the same for kids starting with cursive or already doing print – all of mine have started printing on their own around 3 or 4 and were NOT ready to start cursive (according to the guidelines in the book) so we’ve essentially transitioned all of them from print to cursive and it wasn’t a big deal for them at all.
Fix It’s are made by the Institute for Excellence in Writing. They take classics and spread the story over a whole year, striving to maintain the writing of the story but still tell the story for the most part. And you give them a sentence a day that they have to correct. They start by defining one of the words in the sentence, looking for proper indentation, underlining subjects and verbs, and correcting spelling. And then they move on to other things, which we haven’t gotten to yet. We’re still in the beginning since we started this right along with the writing program. The book for 3rd grade is Tom Sawyer. I love the idea that they are learning grammar in the midst of literature instead of grammar simply for the sake of grammar (although that has its place too…).