Invisible Illness, Visible God, Available now!

I'm so excited to finally announce the release of Invisible Illness, Visible God! I've been working on this for the past 10 or more years. Those of you who are familiar with my other blog, Hope Is My Anchor, know that my husband has Chronic Lyme disease. It's not the journey we expected in life, but it's been an honor to walk by his side and seek the Lord together on this journey.

“Jesus is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He meets us in the valleys of life, which are normal for His followers. I so appreciate believers who are real, like David throughout the Psalms, and the Marinello's in this precious book. Thank you for your courage and candor in facing the problems of life and finding the man of sorrows on your journey.”  

~ Steve Demme

Founder of Math-U-See and Building Faith Families

"...like a daily balm for your weary soul reminding you that God is near in your journey...a must read."

~ Shelly Esser

Author and Editor of Just Between Us Magazine 

Invisible Illness, Visible God

When Pain Meets the Power 
of an Indestructible Life

~ 101 Devotions ~

by Merry Marinello

$14.95 
In Stock

Read more about it and check out a sample chapter here.

Copywork Part 2: Teaching Literary Elements

As I said in my post on Copywork andDictation Part 1: Teaching Mechanics, I love copywork as a tool for gently teaching all kinds of things, from grammar and mechanics to literary styles and that ineffable quality of “voice.” You can make a whole language arts course out of copywork and dictation if you want to.  So, in this post I want to focus more on literary elements, although my example below includes some mechanics I mentioned as well.

You can teach literary styles just like you can mechanics. I really think it just depends on what you make of it, and how you plan it out.  One year I focused on copywork/dictation as our main language arts.  Here's a copy of a Sonlight post I wrote that year about The Journeyman—how I chose passages and how I taught them:

First, here are some things that I look for in a dictation passage: Did I go "wow" when I read it? Did it strike me as powerful, poignant, a beautiful description? Did it have a great message? Is it good advice? If it's good to read, it's good to study and emulate. A passage I didn't get around to using, but has great description, is the sunrise on the top of p. 37. The two I did use, I'll post below.

The 2nd I absolutely love for it's beauty and it's power. The first I chose because I thought the message was worthwhile, and in many ways, what summed up Mr. Toppan's teaching also sums up mine.

"Will it always be beautiful, Mr. Toppan?"

"Yes," he answered with conviction, "if you keep true to your own feeling for beauty."

"What do you mean by keeping true?"

Mr. Toppan looked at him until his eyes seemed not to see the boy Jared, but the man Jared might become. "It's letting God have your life, so that your hands do the work He wants you to do. You've begun rightly, Jared, for that's the beginning and end of all my teaching."

Notes: I had my kids do this passage over 2 days (btw, from p. 31). I split it where the line break is. I edited some phrases out and the attributions to make it shorter. It's clear from context who's saying what, and I wanted to get to the heart of the passage without wearing out my children. We discussed what it meant when Mr. Toppan looked at Jared and the kids acted out that kind of expression. We talked about what the message meant too. 

We discussed the use of capitals (names, titles), abbreviations (Mr.) and commas in quotes (lots of practice here). We had been discussing commas in quotations and for phrasing, and this selection added a third usage—around the name of someone we speak to. (There's not one after Mr. Toppan because it's the end of the sentence, but there is one before, and then below there are commas before and after Jared's name when he's addressed.)

I don't go looking for passages that teach certain concepts necessarily—I look for powerful writing and then I ask my kids what they notice, then I point out what I notice, we look at literary elements, then we look at the physical aspects of writing. It gets easier as you get in the mindset of pre-teaching.

The 2nd passage we used: "It was a night for the stars to bless with light—for Eliza, who through the travail of her body had given a child to the world, and for Jared, who through the travail of his soul was giving a man to the world" (p. 98).

This passage might not display its full power until you read it in context, but when you do, wow. When I asked my kids what they noticed, my son noticed the parallel clauses right away—the two travails etc... We talked about why this was a powerful metaphor and what Jared was going through. We talked about em dashes and commas around clauses. This one would have been possible to also do from dictation (sometimes I put names or harder words up on a white board).

Sometimes I point out spelling patterns we are working on. For example, you could point out the igh in night & light.  Or that the wor in world is a pattern when "or" stands for the /er/ sound. The ai in travail. How to turn "give" into "given." I wouldn't necessarily go over all of these, just pick a few to focus on so it won't be overwhelming.

I asked if there were any rhyming words, and my daughter found those.  Things like rhyme and meter sometimes show up in prose and add to the beauty of the language, so it can be fun to look for these in addition to alliteration and other such devices.

By the way, this would be a great book to discuss foreshadowing! I don't want to post a spoiler, but I'll just say if you're looking for it, you can guess much of what will happen. This is a book to relax into and enjoy the beautiful language and the unfolding of the story line. There are lots of other passages one could choose for copywork, I remember almost every chapter having choices, you can't really go wrong in this book. Oh, here's another one: "The moon threw a silver cloak across his shoulders and before it was withdrawn, he was asleep" (p. 44). For that one, you could discuss how personification and imagery are used.

If you can’t think of anything great to discuss, that’s ok. It’s fine to just enjoy some passages, or to ask, “what do you like about this sentence?” and then tell your child what you like.  It's also fine to let your child choose something he or she would like to copy. Good literature is meant first and foremost to be enjoyed.

Copywork and dictation used in this way can be foundational to your language arts, or they can just be a fun extra to do as a break from your everyday language arts program. Use it all the time, or save it for just those times when you are inspired. Most of all, have fun with it!

Copywork and Dictation Part 1: Teaching Mechanics

A lot of different curricula use these methods.  Here are some reasons why it can be helpful, and how I have used it over the years.

First, I see two main reasons to use these approaches:  They can be helpful for teaching mechanics (from spelling to punctuation, capitalization, and so on), and they can also be useful for modeling good writing and teaching literary elements. I love copywork as a tool for gently teaching all kinds of things, from grammar and mechanics to literary styles and that ineffable quality of “voice.” It’s also great for helping a child who struggles with writing to build up stamina. You can start with short segments and gradually lengthen them.

When you know your goal for using the strategy, it can help you to know which one to use.  For example, All About Spelling uses dictation.  It pre-teaches the words so that students have ample practice with them, and then uses dictation to practice them in a more “real world” scenario.  Dictation is also helpful for reviewing previously learned words, to ensure that they are mastered, and it makes a good intermediate step between spelling and writing.

You can use dictation similarly for teaching things like capitalization and punctuation.  Teach the skills, and then let a student practice on a short passage.  You can even do things like “French” dictation where you leave blanks for certain words for students to fill in.  Or present a passage with no punctuation or no capitalization, and see if a student can correctly add the needed mechanics.  I found this approach very helpful when I was teaching dialog, for example.

When doing dictation for mechanics, your goal is to read a phrase or sentence once, have the student pay careful attention, and write what you have said. This also helps students build up working memory skills, which are needed for putting all of the necessary skills together for writing independently. If a sentence is too long, break it up into parts or dictate phrase by phrase.  You can gradually work your child up to longer selections.

If your student makes an error, I wouldn't have them recopy the whole thing. Simply put a light pencil X next to the line for each spelling error (or I write P for punctuation and C for capitalization), have them find their errors and fix them.  If they need help finding or fixing any errors, help them and add that topic back to your list for more study.

If there are lots of errors, the passage is too difficult.

You get a ton more mileage out of copywork and dictation if you pre-teach the passage. This is a step that some curricula skip.  Some students may pick up on things naturally, but many others benefit from a direct approach. Here are some ways to pre-teach a passage for either copywork or dictation:

Are there any unfamiliar spelling patterns that your child hasn't yet studied? Teach him the patterns and any related rules that you know.

Are there any spelling patterns he has been taught but struggles with? Review those.

Are there any words that he might not know the meaning? Discuss the vocabulary. If you aren't sure whether he knows them all, have him read the passage to you and ask him if he knows all of the words. Also make note of any words that are hard for him to read--you might specifically ask if he knows what that word means. If not, look it up in the dictionary together.

Point out the capitalization. Are there any new capitalization rules you should teach? Any you should review?

Point out the punctuation. Again, any new rules you should teach, or anything you should review?

Comprehension--does he understand the passage he's being asked to copy? What does it mean? Think about why it's a good passage to copy and point that out to him--it might be because it uses beautiful language or is meaningful, or because it relates to a story he read--does he remember that scene and what happened? Or it might be good to copy because he can learn some new mechanics from it, or because it's interesting.

If you are regularly finding more than a couple of new things to teach per passage, it's too hard. If a student makes more than 3-5 mistakes, it's too hard or too long. Shorten it until he can copy it easily, and then gradually work up to longer passages.

One important thing to note: Just because the words are in front of a student, doesn't mean he has the skills to be able to copy them well. He needs to understand what he's copying, or it may as well be in a foreign language, or be a list of phone numbers where we must copy figure by figure without understanding the meaning--and it's easy to make mistakes when copying things without meaning. This actually reinforces wrong strategies (things like guessing, thinking our language is arbitrary etc...) and could be detrimental instead of helpful. So, you want to make sure, however long or short the passage you choose, that he completely understands all aspects of it.

You may find that you need more than one day to work on this--you may need one or two days for pre-teaching the passage before you have him copy it. Count that as part of your total language arts time and keep things doable for him.

If you have a child who struggles greatly while doing copywork, check out #2 on 6 Writing Mistakes to see if this is a strategy you should avoid for awhile. Focus on spelling for awhile using direct, incremental methods such as AAS which uses dictation instead. It might seem like copywork should be the easier of the two, but it's really not easier in some cases.

Next time I’ll write about using copywork and dictation to teach literary elements.

How Much is Enough? Race to Nowhere

As I've read homeschool message boards for the past 13 years, again and again I hear moms question,

"How much is enough?" 

Sometimes this question stems from a need for reassurance from more experienced educators. However, many times this question comes about because of fear.  Fears about test scores, about children "measuring up," about our children's futures (can they compete? can they get into a good college? can they get a good job?).

This drive to measure up and excel comes from all kinds of sources--from friends and family who may fill us with doubts or even actively oppose our choice to homeschool. From reading message boards or talking with other moms and hearing the list of things they do. (Side note--comparisons are a dangerous thing.  We assume other families are doing all that we do PLUS those other items that we can never get to.  There is ALWAYS a trade-off.  Everyone has the same amount of time.  If someone else is doing something that you are not--then you are doing something they are not, even if you don't know what that something is.) Sometimes the fears stem from our own sense of pride, of needing to prove to ourselves or the world that we can do this and be successful.

If this rings true for you...ask yourself at what cost, and if that cost is worth it.

I believe academic excellence has value, and that we as homeschoolers should pursue this.  But it is not the only thing of value--nor the thing of highest value. If you feel a sense of mounting pressure, or that homeschooling has become a rat race...get out. Not out of homeschooling--but out of the trap of this way of thinking.

Here's an interesting movie trailer about the Race to Nowhere that I think has as much relevance for homeschoolers as it does for public and private schoolers:




If you find yourself feeling stuck, here are a few thoughts for you:

1, Pray.  What would God have you focus on in your family, for your homeschool?

2, Ask your children to pray.  What is meaningful to them?  What would they like to learn?  Encourage them to take an active role in shaping their education.  That doesn't mean you will automatically pursue what they suggest, but that you'll seriously consider their opinions and ideas.  I've often found that my kids had great things to share about what to study as well as how to study, and we do yearly reviews as well as other conversations to discuss these issues.

3, Search the Word.  Proverbs is full of wisdom and might be a good place to start.  My kids and I are reading Ecclesiastes right now.  "All is meaningless! A chasing after the wind!"  Together we are asking the question, "what is meaningful?"

4, Talk with older homeschoolers you respect.  What do they feel has been beneficial?  What would they do differently?  Then, sit with what they have to say and decide whether it fits your family or not.  There are as many ways to homeschool as there are unique individuals in this world, so consider the counsel of others carefully.

How about you?  Have you felt pressured to keep piling on the subjects?  What changes would you like to make for next year?

Are you looking for good questions to ask your kids, or trying to help them achieve a more in-depth level of thought about their studies?  Here's a great, one-page resource!  It's a list of verbs organized by Blooms' Taxonomy. As you progress down the page, the sections relate to higher level questions. This would be an easy guide to slip into your Teacher Binder, to keep it handy for times when you want to plan a discussion or create an essay assignment for your student.

Mystery of History for High School

People often wonder if the Mystery of History can be used for High School. I'm finding that it can be an excellent fit.

We had used MOH 1 and 2 with Sonlight cores B and C (called 1 and 2 back then) when my kids were younger, and I had always wanted to use them for a 2nd rotation through World History.  I also wanted to follow MOH's schedule, rather than squeeze MOH into Sonlight's 2 year history rotation.  So, when my kids were in 6th and 8th grades, I started with MOH 1 again.  What I found was that MOH 1 was very light for an 8th grader who had used it previously, and who had a strong background in Bible.  Most of the stories were too familiar, and my history-loving son really wanted something more.  It was perfect for my 6th grader though.

So, my son took a break from world history, and did Sonlight's Core 100 for his 9th grade year, while my daughter did MOH 2.  He was looking forward to doing Sonlight's Core 300, but I said he needed to finish the AD years of World History first.  Initially we chose another high school level world history, but after seeing several topics glossed over which I knew MOH discussed with a lot more depth, I encouraged him to give MOH another try.  I gave him one week to decide, but he was instantly hooked!

Volume 2 has shorter readings than volume 3, so he read two chapters per day from Volume 2, and was able to finish up by our semester break.  Now he's reading one chapter per day from Volume 3.  I'm combining this with books from Sonlight Cores G, H, and 200, and he's really enjoying it.

Here's what we're using:

History Resources:
Glencoe World History
100 Most Important Events in Christian History
The Church of the East
What if Jesus had Never Been Born
The Bible Jesus Read
Westminster Shorter Catechism
Heidelberg Catechism

Readers:
1 - Pontius Pilate - 0-100, 20 pages
6 - The Shining Company - 600's, 20 pages
9 - Son of Charlemagne - 781, 1-2 ch
11 - Trumpeter of Krakaw - 1400's, 20 pages
14 - Leonardo da Vinci - 1452, 1-2 ch
16 - The 2nd Mrs. Giaconda - 1480
18 - The Man Who Laid the Egg - 1500, 2 ch
19 - Luther Biography - 1500, 1 ch
22 - Screwtape Letters - 20 pages
24 - Samurai's Tale - 1500's, 2 ch
27 - King's Fifth - 1541, 2 ch

30 - Mary, Bloody Mary - 1553, 2 ch

32 - Shadow of a Bull, 2 ch.

34 - Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde and other stories

Alternates:

Oliver Twist - 1800's, 1-2 ch (40 days
Robinson Crusoe

Snow Treasure
Outlaws of Sherwood
It's a Jungle out There
Ghost in Takaido Inn
Going Solo

I REALLY enjoyed the Pontius Pilate book, that was a great addition to Core 200.

My 8th grader who is only doing MOH 3 is also listening in on the read-alouds, and many of these line up more with her history in the first semester:


Read-Alouds:
1 - King Arthur of the Round Table - 1-2 ch
2 - Hidden Treasure of Galston - 1171, 1 ch
5 - Ramsay Scallop - 1300's
9 - I, Juan de Pareja - 1600's, 2 ch (this one doesn't fit chronologically, but fits nicely with countries/culture)
11 - Murder for her Majesty - 1558 (Elizabeth is Queen), 1 ch.
14 - Shakespeare Stories, Hamlet - 36 Pages (prelude to Shakespeare Stealer)
14 - Shakespeare Stealer - 1587, 2 ch
16 - Tabitha's Travels (Advent Story)
18 - Shakespeare Stories, The Merchant of Venice (my kids request, there's an Adventure's in Odyssey story based on this I guess!)
19 - Pride and Prejudice (Core 200, just because I wanted to)
24 - Out of Many Waters - 1654, 2 ch
26 - Master Cornhill - 1665 (plague), 2 ch
28 - Escape Across the Wide Sea - 1686, 2 ch
30 - Ravenmaster's Secret - 1735, 2 ch
32 - Kidnapped Prince - 1755, 3 ch
34 - Arrow Over the Door - 1777, 2 ch
35 - The Westing Game - 1960's, 1-2 ch, just for fun

Alternates:
Jane Eyre 1800's, 2 ch
The Sherwood Ring - 1800's or 1900's, 10 days
More Shakespeare Stories

We do a quiz about every other week, and do the semester and final exams.  My son will also be doing a research project, and writes daily narrations on his readings.

MOH provides a great spine text to which you can add a variety of literature and projects to round out your high school year.  Here is the MOH website's information for using MOH in highschool.

You might also like these posts on using MOH 1 and 2 with Sonlight, and MOH 3 with Sonlight.

Sonlight and Mystery of History 3

Several people have asked for the book list I put together combining MOH 3 and Sonlight H (plus a few other books)...here it is at long last!  For those who have previously read how we combined SL with MOH 1 and 2, I updated that post with what we *actually* ended up doing with core G.  There were a few books at the end of my original listing that I saved for MOH 3 instead.

Below is what my 8th grade daughter is doing this year (and my 10th grade son is listening in to the read-alouds).  My son is using MOH for high school this year, by surprise--I'll put what he's doing in a separate post.

History Resources:
Famous Men of the Renaissance and Reformation
Famous Men of the 16th and 17th Centuries
Mothers of Famous Men
Ten Girls Who Made History

We continue to enjoy the Famous Men series, that has been a good addition here.

The first few read-alouds actually start from before the time period of MOH 3.  I worked in two new Sonlight G books as well as a core 200 book.  My son is studying MOH 2 and 3 this year, so I chose a few books that would correspond to the MOH 2 time period as well.  It's not an exact science, I realize, but it's been enjoyable!  These could easily be worked into the MOH 2 rotation instead if you wish.

Read-Alouds:
1 - King Arthur of the Round Table - 1-2 ch
2 - Hidden Treasure of Galston - 1171, 1 ch
5 - Ramsay Scallop - 1300's
9 - I, Juan de Pareja - 1600's, 2 ch (this one doesn't fit chronologically, but fits nicely with countries/culture)
11 - Murder for her Majesty - 1558 (Elizabeth is Queen), 1 ch.
14 - Shakespeare Stories, Hamlet - 36 Pages (prelude to Shakespeare Stealer)
14 - Shakespeare Stealer - 1587, 2 ch
16 - Tabitha's Travels (Advent Story)
18 - Shakespeare Stories, The Merchant of Venice (my kids request, there's an Adventure's in Odyssey story based on this I guess!)
19 - Pride and Prejudice (Core 200, just because I wanted to)
24 - Out of Many Waters - 1654, 2 ch
26 - Master Cornhill - 1665 (plague), 2 ch
28 - Escape Across the Wide Sea - 1686, 2 ch
30 - Ravenmaster's Secret - 1735, 2 ch
32 - Kidnapped Prince - 1755, 3 ch
34 - Arrow Over the Door - 1777, 2 ch
35 - The Westing Game - 1960's, 1-2 ch, just for fun

Alternates:
Jane Eyre 1800's, 2 ch
The Sherwood Ring - 1800's or 1900's, 10 days
Oliver Twist - 1800's, 1-2 ch (40 days
Robinson Crusoe
More Shakespeare Stories

Readers:
1 - Trumpeter of Krakow - 1400's, 20 pages
4 - Shadow of a Bull, 2 ch.
6 - Man Who Laid the Egg - 1500, 2 ch.
7 - Luther Biography - 1500, 1 ch
10 - Samurai's Tale - 1500's, 1-2 ch
14 - King's Fifth - 1541, 2 ch
18 - Mary, Bloody Mary - 1553, 2 ch
20 - Iron Peacock - 1650, 1 ch
25 - Ghost in Takaido Inn - 1735, 2 ch
28 - Madeleine Takes Command - 1692, 2 ch
31 - Stowaway - 1768, 2 ch
32 - Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde and other stories
34 - Free Reading

Alternates:
2/11 - Explorers' News
3 - Pedro's Journal
5 - Michaelangelo
13 - Good Queen Bess
16 - Shakespeare Stories
16 - Bard of Avon
28 - Peter the Great
Anne of Green Gables

Sometimes my kids will choose a book off the alternates list, or sometimes during the year they'll ask to read another book instead, so I try to work in a little wiggle room for that.

I let my dd pick and choose from the history activities once every week or two.  We do some of the quizzes and the semester and final exams from MOH as well.

I hope this helps!  The dating is just to get a rough idea--usually you can find this information on the back of a book or in the first few pages.  I try to guess how many chapters or pages we'll read, so again, these are guesses.  We're on week 19, and so far have held fairly close to this list.

Smiles for a Moody Teen

"Imagine the harmony in our homes if we were to give encouragement a place of prominence.  Think of what might happen if smiles and hugs for a moody teenager were a more natural response than critical words."

~ Sharon W. Betters

Treasures of Encouragement:

Women Helping Women in the Church 

*************************

Maybe I'd even be a less-moody mom!

Lord, help me to be a loving mom, attentive to the needs of my children.  Help me to really listen, to parent without fear and keep my eyes focused on you.  Help me each day to dwell in your word, to sup on rich fare at your table, to come to you empty, ready to be filled.  Fill me, that I might have something of eternal value to give my precious blessings.  

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Planning Language Arts Part 2

Last time I covered how to set up a language arts plan by thinking through your child's skill level.  This time I'll describe in a little more detail some of the things you might work on in each of these areas, and some of my curriculum choices:

Beginning Reading

Reading instruction will start with basic phonics instruction and your child reading to you single words (perhaps on a word list, cards, or from words built from letter tiles).  When my son was little, I had letter cubes and would build "word rockets" that he liked to pretend blasted off!  Then they'll read simple books to you.  As they get into longer books, you might employ a technique called "buddy reading" where they read a page or paragraph and then you read for awhile.  Eventually this time will become an independent reading time.  

For beginning reading we used a combination of materials:  Reading Reflex, readers from Sonlight, Bob Books, Christian Liberty Press K readers, DK readers--pretty much anything I could get my hands on used or borrowed until they were reading more solidly.  

Reading Reflex uses the Orton-Gillingham phonograms and was helpful for the first half of the book, but when it got to what they call the "advanced code" (letter teams that make up one phonogram such as OA for the long O sound), the program felt very disorganized and didn't work well for us.  I would use All About Reading instead if I had another child to teach now. AAR includes research-based instruction in decoding, fluency, automaticity, vocabulary, comprehension, and phonemic awareness. Sonlight has supplied most of our readers and has usually been a good match here.

Reading and Literature

Some of reading time (or some of read-aloud time) might also be spent in literary discussions. A wonderful resource to help with this is Glencoe which has free literary guides for older students, or the book Deconstructing Penguins for all ages.  Even if you are clueless about literary terms like protagonist, climax, theme, and plot, just having normal, every day discussions about books and poetry can teach these concepts (and it's not hard to learn what these words mean, a little at a time, over the years.  The aforementioned book can help and makes it easy and enjoyable).

As you move into high school, you can make this a more formal learning time.  I have not yet used the following, but like the look of Teaching the Classics from IEW, and Learning Language Arts Through Literature Gold.  Sonlight has a nice combination of award-winning books, and always includes a poetry book as well.

Penmanship

Handwriting doesn't have to involve putting pen to paper to start either.  You can do things like writing with an index finger in sand, pudding, on carpet squares or other tactile surfaces.  There's a great description of air-writing near the end of this article about preventing and correcting reversals that is a wonderful tool for young students.  Writing involves both gross and fine motor muscle tone as well as neurological involvement and working memory, and is fairly complex.  I remember thinking that pre-writing types of activities were not all that important, when in fact they are very important.  I was too anxious to get to "the real thing" (pencil to paper) and if I had it to do over again, I'd spend more time doing fun pre-writing activities such as these.

Handwriting Without Tears is a favorite here because the methods help to prevent reversals (or help you retrain a child who is doing reversals).  Letters that are commonly reversed such as "b" and "d" are formed differently and contained in different sets of letters ("b" is a "diver" letter and "d" is a "magic C" letter).  I didn't like the look of the letters at first, but then I learned that my kids didn't make letter that looked like the samples anyway--each person develops his or her own personal style.  I really like their Can Do Cursive book for 5th grade as it includes some light grammar and some basic Greek and Latin word roots too.  (I like things that do double-duty!).  My kids also enjoyed a year of A Reason for Writing, which has some nice border papers to write Bible verses on.  We sent the verses to Grandma sometimes, for her refrigerator, or to a friend who was a shut-in. 

Some people use copywork for handwriting practice, but that didn't work here in the early years.  (See mistake #2 for more on copywork).  But this year my 8th grade daughter decided she wants to improve her penmanship, and she is using America the Beautiful from Queen Homeschool for copywork.  Lovely selections!

Spelling

I've tried a lot of programs over the years:  Spelling Power, Natural Speller, Tricks of the Trade, Sequential Spelling, Spectrum, Apples Daily Spelling Drills...at one point I gave up and started writing my own curriculum!  I've also used dictation to teach spelling.  With dictation, you choose a selection from your child's reader that has 5-10 words for the child to learn.  At the beginning of the week, you show the child the passage and spend time pre-teaching the phonics involved in each of the words.  Point out things like various reasons for silent e's, letter teams that are working together, patterns like AY that are generally used at the end of words (while AI is used mid-word), rules for adding suffixes, and so on.  Of all the methods we had tried up to that point, this was the most helpful.  However, it wasn't systematic enough for my kids needs, and it was time-consuming for mom!  

Then I found All About Spelling and that changed everything for us.  After two weeks my then 5th grader told me it was the most effective spelling we had ever tried, and both children begged me not to ever change programs again.  After a year, both of their reading levels had gone up two full grade levels.  You can read my review here.  AAS includes dictation (no having to find your own sources) and some sentence writing starting in Level 3.  After level 3, students have mastered around 1000 words, and it's a good time to start a formal writing program.

Here are tips on how to teach editing skills.

Writing and Grammar

In the early years I like to do informal writing and grammar work.  Things like thank-you notes or making little books, letting them tell me a story that I scribe for them, having them narrate back to me about something we read together or a movie or what happened in Sunday School are all various ways of working on writing and pre-writing skills.  Kids work on organizing their thoughts, summarizing (a very difficult skill that can take years to master), presenting ideas in an interesting way, "hooking" their audience and so on without the pressure of putting pen to paper.  I also like to do interactive journal-writing with my kids--I write a note to them and they write a note back to me in the same notebook.  The notebook  might put in a special place like in front of the door to one's room, on a pillow, or in a "mailbox" made for this purpose. 

Informal grammar is something many of us do naturally.  When our children use the wrong form of a word or state something in a way that doesn't make sense, we might gently restate what they said and have them repeat it.  In our house, this is second nature and we really don't even realize we are doing it!  Later, a formal grammar program can be used.  I like The Writer's Jungle approach of covering grammar 3 times--once each in elementary school, junior high, and high school. You can do a quick refresher as needed. (I'm doing a capitalization and punctuation refresher with my kids this year for the first 8 weeks, and then we'll focus on writing for the rest of the year--which of course requires them to use all of their grammar skills.)

Another way to study grammar at the high school level is through a foreign language.  There's nothing like a language difference to help one understand the grammar in one's native tongue!

For a formal program, again I have tried several things for writing and grammar.  Early on I was drawn to Charlotte Mason type programs like Primary Language Lessons.  I also used Sonlight D LA. Spectrum and Steck Vaughn have LA programs that cover grammar and writing both.  One year I used Jump In from Apologia for writing.  None of these worked "great" for us, so I would use a program for a year or so and then look for something else.  Over the years I learned that my kids needed more incremental and explicit (direct) methods.  My oldest especially doesn't learn from implicit or discovery-oriented methods.  

My daughter did enjoy Karen Andreola's Story Starters for creative writing.

The best choices for us have been Easy Grammar and Essentials in Writing.  Easy Grammar starts off teaching the prepositions and how to find prepositional phrases in a sentence, which then makes it easier to identify the other parts of speech.  Students are taught how to identify one thing at a time, and then given exercises to work on that.  Things like irregular verbs and noun-forms are taught, plus capitalization, punctuation, clauses, how to identify run-on sentences and fragments, etc...  My son really likes this program, while my daughter jokingly calls it "Not Easy Grammar!"  However, she shows more understanding of grammar through this program than through any of the things we tried previously!

Essentials in Writing includes grammar in the elementary grades, but I haven't used those levels, so I can't comment on that.  I like this one so much that I included a complete review here.

Planning Language Arts Simplified

Why is it that Language Arts seems to be the most difficult subject to plan?  One reason is that it encompasses so many subjects--phonics, reading, penmanship, listening skills, spelling, grammar, writing, poetry, literature, vocabulary, speech...  It's overwhelming at times to consider all that we could do, and to try to figure out what we should do.

Another reason is that it can be an area of struggle for some kids.  34% of children struggle with learning to read.  (As a side note, if you are dealing with a child who struggles, here's a free webinar on that topic).  Many struggle with spelling or complain about writing.  

I remember in my early homeschooling years, longing for an all-in-one language arts curriculum.  I knew if I chose separate curricula for all the various topics that I would either miss something or end up with 3 hours of work per day for my kids to do!  The trouble was, I could never find an all-in-one that fit us.  Kids tend to learn to read faster than they learn to write or spell, and programs that lined up these subjects frustrated us by being too slow for reading or too advanced for writing.  

So, I decided to come up with some basic goals.  Why do we teach language arts?  What are we trying to accomplish?

At the basic level, language arts is all about communication.  Taking in information, and being able to communicate with others.  We've actually been working on these skills from babyhood.  We have already taught them a lot about how to speak and to listen, vocabulary, grammar, syntax, all before they even hit school-age.  We don't really think about it, but we've been busy! 

Practically speaking though, I needed a plan for moving forward.  What order should I teach skills, and what priority do I give them?

Reading Aloud

For all children, 20-30 minutes minimum reading literature aloud to your child is a wonderful way to naturally build language arts skills as well as pass on your values, character training, and just enjoy some snuggle time. 

You can cover so much through this.  It's a great way to teach vocabulary (I often stop to see if my kids know a word, or they will stop me and ask for a definition.  If I don't like the one I come up with, I pull out the dictionary and we look the word up together.)  Syntax and grammar and the flow of our language are taught informally.  Poetry can teach rhyming, alliteration, and the musicality of language.  You can work on listening skills and oral comprehension by asking simple questions like, "What do you think will happen next," or, "Why do you think the character did that?  Would you have done that?"  Most of all, reading aloud can help your child develop a life-long love of learning.  I still read to my high school and junior high students, and will as long as I can get away with it!

Building a Plan for Daily Work:

To reign in our budgets (both time and money!), I recommend some basic time limits for daily work.  I like to do 30-60 minutes or so for kindergarten and first grade, and 60-90 minutes for second grade and up.  

To fill this time, set your priorities.  A basic beginning plan might start like this:

Phonics and reading instruction:  20-30 minutes

Penmanship: 10 minutes

When a child becomes somewhat fluent in reading simple three and four sound words, add in:

Spelling: 20 minutes

When a child can read chapter books fluently, then that Phonics/reading instruction time becomes:

Silent Reading:  30 minutes  

You may still want to have your children read aloud to you on a daily basis.  We cover this during our Bible time, but you could also choose to have them read a paragraph from a reader to you each day.

When your child is ready for more, you can add in grammar or writing instruction.  I start off working on these topics informally, as I find it easier to add in a formal writing program after a child can spell around a thousand words.

Writing or Grammar: 30 minutes

Writing and Grammar do not have to be taught simultaneously.  You can choose to focus on one per year, do units in 6, 9, 12, or 18 week segments, alternate days, or use a program that incorporates both.  

Eventually Speech can be woven in to that writing/grammar time slot.  

So that's it!  Think through your goals, the skills of your child, and step by step build your plan.  You don't have to do every language arts topic every year.  Next time I'll cover what each of these topics might entail, and some of my favorite curriculum choices.