R&S English Questions

[training5]

1. How do you personally use this program? Meaning do you have your kids write all the grammar work out? do part oral and part written? Do you use the wkshts?

2. My guys are currently using GWG 4. When switching to R&S, would you suggest the 4th or 5th grade book to start with? I especially do not want them to miss anything as far as the writing goes. I have compared the table of contents and samples of both levels and both programs. I even emailed the author. But I still can't decide.

Thank you. Gee, I have been asking so many questions lately....

[praisefor3]

I can contribute to question 1. This is our 3rd year of using it (2nd - 4th.) I started out doing more than we are doing now. My ds has really caught on to grammar and now that we are in the 3rd year of R&S we are repeating some concepts and just building on them so I don't feel like I have to have him do as many of the writing parts. We do some oral and if there is a worksheet we definitely do that worksheet. If there is no worksheet we will maybe do one section of the exercises or maybe just odds or evens. I started out feeling like I shouldn't skip a single thing and now feel more comfortable skipping what we don't really need.

[momsfamily4]

Hey! I am really glad that you are asking this question as we are in R & S 4 as well, I have been wondering if I need to do more with DD. Most of our grammar consists of Oral excercises from the book. I rarely have her write anything. I was wondering if I needed to do this. I am anxious to see what other moms say.

Thanks!
Brenda

[Chloe]

How many days a week must you do R & S in order to finish the books in a school year. Is it possible to finish the book doing it 3x week? Would you have to do more than one lesson at a time to do this?

Thanks!

[Beth in Central TX]

I do all of the lessons orally with my boys. If diagramming is involved, we will work some of these out on the whiteboard. If I see that diagramming needs more work, I do assign some of the written exercise every now and then; usually for a new concept. My boys do all of the corresponding worksheets, if applicable, for each lesson, and they do take the chapter tests.

I think you could probably go into R&S 5 since it reviews R&S 4, and the concepts are still basic.

[training5]

Thanks for answering my questions! The Hive mind is wonderful!
To answer the piggy back....you would most likely need to do no fewer than 4 days a week. I have my guys doing grammar 5 days and we seem to finish early sometimes.

[Susie in MS]

How many days a week must you do R & S in order to finish the books in a school year. Is it possible to finish the book doing it 3x week? Would you have to do more than one lesson at a time to do this?

Thanks!

Not sure which grade level you are asking about, but grade 4 has 125 lessons, so you could figure that into the amount of days you hs. If you go to this site:
http://www.rodandstaff.info/
you can look at samples that include the entire table of contents. From there you can get the amount of lessons that will be in the books you are wondering about.

[Chloe]

I'll take a look at the samples. That does help.

[Mom to 3 Island Boys]

The only writing we do is any worksheets that go with the lessons. We do the lesson and its exercises (the ones in the book) orally. Even though we only do the book problems orally, we still don't do all of them ~ or even most of them. There is an enormous amount of repetition in the books. I usually just "play it by ear" ~ we go through the exercises orally until I'm sure he understands the material. Once it seems like he's got it, we call it quits~ otherwise it's just kind of going through the motions and bores him to death. If he needs more practice, we keep going and do a few more. When it comes to the worksheets, I feel like they also have quite a bit of busy-work as well and I only circle some of them for him to do. I tell him that if he gets them all correct, he is done. If not, he needs more practice and we do some more.

Which book to start with is really a judgment call. They have a lot of review, but it is also a rigorous program and gets progressively more difficult. If you were to look at the table of contents, they seem like they continually cover the same material, but with each year the material is more challenging and adds more concepts each time you hit the same material. If it were me and I wasn't sure where my previous program left off compared to R&S, I would start with level 4. I think it's easier to quickly go over any of the lessons that may be review than to do the reverse: struggle through lessons that have difficult concepts we have never even seen before.

I think if you do about 3 lessons per week you would finish one of these books in about 42. So I guess whether or not you would finish it in a year depends on how many weeks per year you "do school".

[training5]

Thank you, mom to 3 island boys. That is just what I needed, as well. the last time around with R&S, I had them write everything. They hated it. I think we will follow your and Beth's way this time.

[Daisy]

I'm using 3rd grade. We do diagramming on the white board. DD does the writing assignments. Exercises that are one-word answers (Write down the noun in each sentence) we usually do orally. I use the worksheets when I cannot go over the material with her. She can read the lesson in the car and the worksheet lets me know she "got it". I also use the worksheets as review before the test or as extra practice in an area of difficulty.

I do not suppliment with another writing program so she must do all the writing assignments (practice with paragraphs, that sort of thing).

Oh, I guess I should add that we do grammar 4x a week and we also do the tests.

[Beth in Central TX]

I've taught R&S grammar 3 through 6 so far, and I use all of the worksheets and chapter tests. I schedule R&S grammar for 4 days a week and I've been able to finish all our work within a 36-week school year. We usually take Fridays off from grammar.

[Mom2legomaniacs]

We are in R&S4 this year. We usually do grammar every day. Most of it is done orally. Like some of the others, I do have ds write out some of the diagramming. I do not use the worksheets, but do have him take the tests (written). Maybe once a week, I will have him do a whole lesson by writing it out (if the schedule is really tight, orally). I do have him do all the writing assignments at this point, but I often let him use a topic that is more of interest to him. I will re-evaluate this soon since I will be buying IEW for writing. It may be too much to do R&S writing exercises along with IEW.

If ds had to write all the lessons daily, there would be a revolt. I am transitioning to getting him to do more writing, but gradually.

[Raders Fan]

Because we lost a lot of time due to dh taking a new job across the country, we do the Oral Review, Class Practice, Written Practice, and Review all orally. I always have some handwork to do so that I can sit patiently with them while we do all this (it probably takes me an hour to do level 6 and level 7 with two children). They do the composition work unless I feel we have covered that material well in other areas of study.

I think doing the work orally has been good for my dc. If there is a concept they are struggling with, I know it right away, not after they have completed the lesson.

HTH,
Jennifer

[pixelroper]

The only writing we do is any worksheets that go with the lessons. We do the lesson and its exercises (the ones in the book) orally. Even though we only do the book problems orally, we still don't do all of them ~ or even most of them. There is an enormous amount of repetition in the books. I usually just "play it by ear" ~ we go through the exercises orally until I'm sure he understands the material. Once it seems like he's got it, we call it quits~ otherwise it's just kind of going through the motions and bores him to death.


similar to our plan of action, except everyday, dd gets grammar in Latin and writing program as well. We move at a good clip using the grammar in other subjects to reinforce.

Look at the samples.

R&S is very thorough. dd in 4th level

[melissaL]

hi,
we do grammer around 4 times a week, we do all the orall section, and 1/2 of all the other exercises written
MelissaL

[Ellie]

When I used R&S English, I required dc to do all of the written work. Of course, there's not as much written work as you might think. Sometimes the instructions say just to write the correct punctuation in a sentence, or to write just the proper nons and capitalize them properly. Also, the teacher has discretion to assign only part of the work, depending on how the dc are doing.

[Lolly]

I recommend starting at grade level up to 5th grade. After that, always start with 5th.

How to proceed with lessons. You need to complete about 4 lessons per week. If you hit a week where you can only manage 3, you are fine as long as it doesn't become a consistant habit. Do the oral review. (Trust me on this one. It really is necessary.) I highly recommend doing the written portions of the assignment on paper. We have done the diagramming on white boards. That is writing and just makes it seem easier for the kids. It also provides instant feedback which seems to actually make the process work better. They don't keep making the same mistake over and over. Just make sure that they attempt the sentence entirely on their own before giving correction. They need to think it all through and may catch their own mistakes as they continue diagramming. The review section is also needed. If the lesson has had a lot of written work, I allow the review to be done orally if it is just a one word type of answer. Ellie is very correct when she says it isn't as much writing as it may seem. The authors are very good at having the right amount of written work for the level. The worksheets are nice, but not necessary at all. The are good for if extra practice is needed before moving on to the next lesson. If you use the worksheets, you will need to schedule 5 days a week for English.

One thing you didn't ask is can you stop the book before you have finished. THis is a very common question. My advice is to keep going until you have covered prepositions. The next book will expect you to have knowledge of prepositions and use it before it is covered in that book. It will really trip you up if you don't know your prepositions from the year before! I only made that mistake once.