writing instruction

[foronemoresoul]

I am putting together my plans for next year for my 10 yo, 8 yo, and 6 yo. Up to now I have used the Writing With Ease program from Peace Hill Press for writing instruction. My older daughter has used the composition program from K12 as well. I am trying to decide what to do going forward. I will continue with Writing With Ease for my 8 and 6 yo, but both my 8 and 10 yo enjoy writing. I need help giving them direction in improving their writing. I have considered using IEW and have also looked at a myriad of other choices for next year. I am really at a loss here. I'm not sure where to begin with IEW or even if it is the best choice for us. What has worked for others here? Tanya, do you have suggestions? I would prefer not to use a separate "composition" course next year, but rather would like to integrate writing assignments into other coursework such as history and science. My 10 yo likes to put together 5 paragraph essays on topics I give her. My 8 yo enjoys writing paragraphs on assigned topics as well.

Thanks for your input.

Cheryl

[tanya]

Cheryl,

It's funny you should ask about writing. That has been on our minds the past couple of months. We really like Writing With Ease, but we feel like we are already generally following Susan's philosophy in our study guides and didn't want to add a separate writing program.

So, we have decided to write a separate little guide for each grade (3rd-6th) for composition. It will be one composition lesson per week, following what the students are reading in our literature program as laid out in our lesson plans. This guide will incorporate dictation and narration in 3rd-4th grades. We haven't worked out grades 5-6 yet.

For grades 3-4, we will assign a short passage (from the reading students are doing in their literature for the week) and give some guided questions for students to answer orally. Then, we will ask students to orally give a short summary of their reading and then write that summary down. We will also give 2 dictation sentences from the passage.

For older students, we need to incorporate outlining according to Writing With Ease. We will work that out this summer when we have several teachers over here working with us.

I found that when I was teaching 5th-6th grades, the enrichment activities in our literature guides gave me plenty of writing prompts to use. I would let the students summarize chapters orally (I would write them on the board), then we would look at the summary and get rid of anything we left out or add any necessary information. Finally, the students would copy the paragraph - perfectly! - from the board. There are lots of writing opportunities in our literature and history guides to help you streamline your writing within the curriculum you are using.

I do think that IEW provides a good writing course if you feel like you need more structured help. I haven't looked closely at it, but I hear great things about it. But if you can proof your children's work and have them re-write until perfect without too much effort on your part, I really prefer having students write within their other class subjects. And I think Writing With Ease is a nice handbook to give you the guidance you need.

I hope this helps. It is mostly my opinion, and I don't know that that is worth much!

Cheers,

Tanya

[andrew]

Cheryl,

Success to your writing endeavor! If you are concerned about where to start with IEW, the best place is the TWSS/SWI Combo Pack, an efficient and economical way to get started with IEW that has your student learning from Andrew Pudewa while you are learning how to teach writing. You mentioned that you did not want a separate composition course, which is only too understandable! IEW teaches you exactly how to incorporate writing into your other subjects and not make it a separate course unto itself, and I have found that to be immensely gratifying! There is also a lot encouraging advice and testimonials on the IEW website that you might find very helpful as well.

Blessings,