Speaking of MCT ???

[nitascool]

Hubby and I have decide to do MCT next year with our older two but I'm concerned about what level(s) to buy.

Should we start with Island or Town? Should I have them both work at the same level? Would it be possible to do both in a year with my oldest?

My oldest will be in 5th (age grade) but is reading (and comprehending) at 10th grade level. His grammar experience is as follows:
At 4 he did FLL 1 & 2, he found it quite boring.
I'm a bit anal and made him do every single lesson and enrichment activities. He did all the writing himself.
At 5 he did Language 3 which I think was GUM. Can't remember off hand.
At 6 he did Step-by Step Grammar I...Which is diagramming.
He can diagram correctly simple and compound sentences, simple and compound subjects, simple and compound predicates etc. He knows the eight parts of speech, and has a cursory understanding of phrases (more then I do).
At 7 he did Step-by Step Grammar II... Which is Basic Usage.
He know how to use a dictionary, understands the rules of the parts of speech, knows basic sentence requirements, and punctuation rules (though this doesn't always translate into his writing).
At 8 he did Write Source: Write On Track as a review.
He's almost finished with this level and has miss a dozen or so problems in the whole book.

My second son will be in 3rd (age grade) next year and is reading at a 5th grade level. His grammar experience is as follows:
At age 4 he was dictating short stories to me. Here's an example-
The Boat
I have a boat. The boat fell down. The car ran over it. Then my friend picked it up. It was all crashed up. Someone cried, my friend cried. Daddy fixed my boat. I laughed, cuz I was happy. I played with my boat and now it has a pencil on it. (His stories are much more advanced now and he has written quite a few poems over the years that we've really enjoyed.)
At age 5 he did FLL 1. He did it mostly orally.
At age 6 he did FLL 2. He has penmanship problems so we did a lot orally or with me as scribe. He didn't do any of the enrichment activities.
At age 7 he did Write Source: Write Away. Grammar wise he did well.

Penmanship holds him back quite a bit. He has only just begun Italics C. And it is still very messy. He can do spelling orally very well but has trouble with spelling tests which require him to write down the letters. Often mixing letters up or writing them backwards.

We have not done any formal study of poetry or literature outside of simply reading and writing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[joannqn]

I think you'll be fine with the town level. It covers everything in island and then some. The vocabulary at town level is quite advanced and is likely to be too advanced for your youngest.

[nitascool]

:confused:
So would you suggest using Building Language with Grammar Town for my 8yo or just not doing vocabulary at all with him?

Also does Building Poems need to follow Music Hemispheres? Should I buy both of these books or could they do Building Poems without having done Music Hemispheres? They have had no formal poetry study.

Thank you. :)

[starrbuck12]

The 2nd grader did Grammar Island and MOTH this year and it took us about 8 weeks to finish both - but we did a little bit every other day. I wouldn't skip Music of the Hemispheres - this was the one that my daughter REALLY enjoyed. While reading one of the poems, my daughter had tears in her eyes :lol:. I was trying not to make fun of her, but I'm like, "Ya' really liked that poem, eh?" LOL! Kids are funny...

If you can, I would still do Music of the Hemispheres.

[radiobrain]

I hate to say this, but I think that Island level would be more appropriate for your younger kid and Town is a good place to start for the older one.

They will both go through the grammar books quickly. It will solidify what they already know (and possibly put it into words that make "more sense") and get them prepped for 4 level analysis and then move on to the next books.

Music of the Hemispheres is great, but content is re-introduced and expanded upon in Building Poetry. You don't need it for the older kid.

I think that each level jumps up quite dramatically, Town is fine for kids of many ages... and can work with a younger kid... but Voyage is a BIG jump from there. Besides, I think that the stories in Island level are so charming they shouldn't be missed with a younger kid.

Just my opinion.

Your older kid might go through Town level quite quickly, and be ready for Voyage sooner than I am thinking. But I really don't think that you should miss levels, if you possibly can. Besides, your younger kid will use the books too!

Many MCT users start with where they *think* they should be and end up backtracking to Town level. Also, even though a younger kid can do Town level, they might not be ready for Voyage and then what do you do? Island is really fun anyway. ;)

hopefully this isn't confusing!

[patchfire]

II think that Island level would be more appropriate for your younger kid and Town is a good place to start for the older one.

This is what I would suggest, too. You're not going to regret spending the time on Island with your youngest.

[kck]

This is what I would suggest, too. You're not going to regret spending the time on Island with your youngest.

:iagree: We spent the year doing the Island level with a Highly to profoundly gifted 3rd grader that reads somewhere at high school level. It was still totally appropriate. We did do additional writing and journaling than in the program, but it's been great. The stories are so fun - we've been quoting them all year (my kindy daughter even loved them). We could have probably done it a year or 2 sooner with him, but having him be able to do writing applying some of his new found knowledge has made the program more meaningful for us!

[joannqn]

:confused:
So would you suggest using Building Language with Grammar Town for my 8yo or just not doing vocabulary at all with him?

Also does Building Poems need to follow Music Hemispheres? Should I buy both of these books or could they do Building Poems without having done Music Hemispheres? They have had no formal poetry study.

Thank you. :)


As everyone would suggested, doing Island with the younger and Town with the older would probably be best.

However, they would probably be ok doing Town together if you needed them on the save level. The hardest part about that is the fact that vocabulary is very advanced in Town and the grammar goes a bit faster. It really depends on how good he is in language arts already.

I personally didn't like the Music Hemispheres book, and my daughter and I didn't get what they were trying to teach until we got to Building Poems. That didn't stop me from using the entire Island level with my son, especially since I finally understood what we were supposed to have gotten out of it. (I just didn't feel it taught very well.) My son is 8 and doing Island level with no problem even though he isn't my language child. I don't think he'll have any problems with Town next year when he's 8, turning 9.

[Crimson Wife]

We started at the "town" level and haven't had any problems with it so far. I agree that the vocabulary book Caesar's English is probably the most challenging part. My DD has always been very verbal (this was my kid who had 150+ words at 15 months) so it's been fine for her. But these are the kinds of words taught:

languor
sublime
allude
venerate
undulate
remonstrate
superfluous
genial
furtive
placid
perplex
visage
sagacity
pervade
stolid

Plus there are around 50 Latin roots taught.

You know your kids best of course :-)

[StephanieZ]

I hate to say this, but I think that Island level would be more appropriate for your younger kid and Town is a good place to start for the older one.

:iagree:

I haven't seen the Sentence Island level, but I think the writing in Paragraph Town would be more appropriate for the 5th grader, while the Island more appropriate for the 3rd grader. I am really looking forward to using Island with my little when she hits 3rd grade (maybe 2nd if I can't resist that long.) Just from the little I've read/heard about it, I am somewhat regretting the exposure to the writing portion of it. . . MCT is just such good stuff. . . I hate to miss any of it! I wouldn't want to miss the chance for my little to do each and every level!

It is really rich material . . . If I were in your shoes, I'd be tempeted to buy Island level NOW and go through it quickly with your older child first over then next few months. Then, next school year (fall?) you could use Island with your younger and Town with your older. You could even do the Music book with BOTH kids now. . .

[StephanieZ]

:iagree: We spent the year doing the Island level with a Highly to profoundly gifted 3rd grader that reads somewhere at high school level. It was still totally appropriate. We did do additional writing and journaling than in the program, but it's been great. The stories are so fun - we've been quoting them all year (my kindy daughter even loved them). We could have probably done it a year or 2 sooner with him, but having him be able to do writing applying some of his new found knowledge has made the program more meaningful for us!

It is great to hear this. I am so tempted to start Island next year with my then-2nd grader (also hg or pg) and yet I keep telling myself it will be more meaningful if I give it another year (and besides, what's the rush!!). . . Your words will help me hold off a bit longer. . . Thanks for sharing!

[Kuovonne]

It is great to hear this. I am so tempted to start Island next year with my then-2nd grader (also hg or pg) and yet I keep telling myself it will be more meaningful if I give it another year (and besides, what's the rush!!). . . Your words will help me hold off a bit longer. . . Thanks for sharing!

If you want to wait, by all means, wait. I've looked ahead at some of the assignments in Sentence Island and I know that my daughter will have to stick to the easiest ones. If I had waited a year, she would probably be able to do more, and we would get through the books faster.

I took the plunge young because my daughter's run-on sentences and bad poetry were really getting on my nerves so I really wanted to start *something* with her right away and MCT fit the bill.

[LisaDSB]

It is great to hear this. I am so tempted to start Island next year with my then-2nd grader (also hg or pg) and yet I keep telling myself it will be more meaningful if I give it another year (and besides, what's the rush!!). . . Your words will help me hold off a bit longer. . . Thanks for sharing!

I agree with this sentiment. I see a lot of people on here wanting to rush into MCT with their 6 & 7 year olds or younger (and, honestly, it's so wonderful who can blame them?). However, there is a reason why it is designed to start with grade 3 gifted or grade 4 average. It is a much more challenging program than meets the eye.

It's one thing to just read the books with your children (which my younger one often did along with my older one last year), but to really get something out of the program, I believe you need to have the high-level discussions and do the writing assignments that bring all this stuff home.

I'm quite sure there are kids here more capable than my youngest, and I'm not speaking about them, but my DS7 is a highly verbal, possibly PG (99.9th percentile) child, who reads and comprehends at a minimum grade 8 level (that was as of last summer) and I still didn't feel he was ready to start Grammar Island this year. My DS9 (HG+ but more math and science oriented) seems to be the perfect age for it and he's getting a lot out of the program, as was intended. We had actually started Grammar Island last year with him, but we didn't do much more than read the grammar book -- he just wasn't ready then for more.

Waiting another year with DS7 has meant that this year he has been stuck doing some pretty boring grammar work (FLL), but I feel confident that he'll be ready next year for the kind of thinking that MCT requires.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but this has been on my mind a lot as I've seen younger and younger kids starting this program and I thought this was a good opening to share my thoughts.

It's a great program, but, honestly, you'll get more out of it if you wait until your child is ready.

[kck]

I don't mean to offend anyone, but this has been on my mind a lot as I've seen younger and younger kids starting this program and I thought this was a good opening to share my thoughts.

It's a great program, but, honestly, you'll get more out of it if you wait until your child is ready.

I totally agree as well. I feel like we're definitely able to approach it at a deeper level than we would have if we would have done it a year ago. It's been really fun this year with PGish DS 3rd grade. He's produced pages of pages of writing this year. Everyone knows their own child best, but I definitely don't regret waiting on it at all.

[Kuovonne]

I see a lot of people on here wanting to rush into MCT with their 6 & 7 year olds or younger (and, honestly, it's so wonderful who can blame them?). However, there is a reason why it is designed to start with grade 3 gifted or grade 4 average. It is a much more challenging program than meets the eye.

I'm one of the more vocal people rushing into MCT with my 6 year old, and Sparkle isn't even gifted, just accelerated.

It's one thing to just read the books with your children (which my younger one often did along with my older one last year), but to really get something out of the program, I believe you need to have the high-level discussions and do the writing assignments that bring all this stuff home.

I think that I am having those discussions with Sparkle. I don't move on until we've discussed everything that I can think of discussing on a page. If I waited a few years, the discussions would be quicker, and Sparkle would pick out more things on her own the first time, but I don't think that our discussions would be any deeper, simply because I have no idea what else we could possibly discuss.

We haven't had many writing assignments since we aren't very far into the program. You can see samples of Sparkle's MCT writing in my other thread. I'm proud of her because I think she does well for a 6 year old. If anyone thinks that Sparkle's writing is sub-standard for Island level, regardless of age, I would love to see what Island level writing is supposed to be like, as I truly have no idea what 3rd/4th grade writing is like.

Compared to other people using MCT, even other people using MCT with 6 year olds, I'm going incredibly slowly. We've been at it for over three months and we've only done half of Grammar Island and a quarter of Music of the Hemispheres. If I waited a few years, it would probably take us only two weeks to cover the same material. But I don't want to wait and read her bad writing for years before doing anything about it.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but this has been on my mind a lot as I've seen younger and younger kids starting this program and I thought this was a good opening to share my thoughts.

I'm sorry if my postings have been pushing kids into this program too young. I try to keep Sparkle's exact age out of my MCT posts on the K-8 board and just say that she's on the young end. I thought that it was safe to say her age on this board, especially as I felt her age was an important part of my "brag." That's also why I posted my brag on this board and not the K-8 one.

It's a great program, but, honestly, you'll get more out of it if you wait until your child is ready.

For us, I think that starting Sparkle early won't impact how much she gets out of MCT. Her quantity of writing will be less, and it will take longer, but I'm okay with that. I think that 20 minutes per day is a reasonable amount of time to spend on language arts for her age, and I choose to spend those 20 minutes on MCT. None of the other language arts programs that I investigated could give Sparkle the specific tools she needs to work on her particular writing problems (problems that really bother *me* even if they are normal for her age).

[LisaDSB]

Hi Kuovonne,

Hey, if it's working for you then that's great. I just sensed that the posts about younger kids doing the program were, perhaps, making other people feel that their 5 or 6 year old should be doing this. I simply wanted to tell people that it's okay to wait until grade 3 or 4 for this stuff. Each kiddo is different and you know yours best. And it's totally fine to share their successes on here, regardless of age.

Okay, back to basting the turkey....Happy Easter!

[Capt_Uhura]

ONe thing that Dr. K mentioned on the yahoogroup is that the ages/grades given are for classrooms and that given the 1:1 nature of Hsing, that he finds HS'd kids can do the program earlier. I'm also doing Island level with a 6yr11month old. We started in February. He insisted on sitting in with his 4th grade big brother. When we first started Grammar Island, I would review what was covered previously by re-reading the stories, reading Mudd's summaries etc and he enjoyed re-reading on his own. The boys read the various parts and it's a very nice family moment for us. Now that my 1st grader has the grammar down, he is going through Sentence Island with his big brother w/out needing any extra review. He does Practice Island independently (about half way through) and seldom makes an error. My current plan is to do Sentence Island again with him next year when he's writing more independently. For now, I focus on narration, copywork and dictation using WWE and in content areas. We're only on chapter 4 of Sentence Island. It's fun when my 1st grader exclaims when doing WWE dictation, "OH I know why a comma is needed here. You have two independent clauses joined with a conjunction. See here? Subject predicate and subject predicate." Obviously, started with a kid this age, there will be gap years since there is a HUGE jump from Town to Voyage level in Writing. I might need a gap year for my 4th grader as I don't know if he'll be ready for Voyage level in 6th grade. We'll do Town level in 5th grade. Not sure how I will prevent my 1st grader from doing Town level, perhaps doing it after he goes to bed. :lol:

[The Dragon Academy]

I would go with Island for the younger and Town for the older.

[Shawna in Texas]

I think you could easily do the Island level with a 1st or 2nd grader, but then you'd have to wait a little bit, even with the highly gifted, to start Town. From what I can tell (samples and others' experiences) is that the writing and the vocab would be too difficult to go with a 7-8 year old.

I think I'll probably buy the Island set early on, though. Children have a tendency to want to read things over and over. :001_smile:

[nitascool]

Financially speaking we simply can't afford to buy both levels in August, but could get the second level in January. I am more concerned Grammar wise with my 3rd grader and writing (as in putting the thoughts onto the page) with my 5th. So taking that into consideration if I get Island for the 3rd grader I'll have my 5th grader do it to (thinking get him used to the different method). Doing the grammar portions together, but accelerating vocabulary, writing and practice. So we'd do something like this:

August
Grammar Island for both boys (about 1 month)
Building Language for my 5th (about 4 months) 3rd (about 8 months)
Sentence Island for my 5th (about 4 months) 3rd (about 8 months)
Practice Island for my 5th (about 4 months) 3rd (about 8 months)
Music Hemispheres for both boys (about 4 months)

Mid-January
Grammar Town for my 5th (about 1 months)
Caesar's English I, Paragraph Town and Practice Town for my 5th (about 4 months)
Building Poems for both boys (about 4 months)

Which would take us just a little into our summer with Town.

Do you think this would be feasible for my 5th grader who gets a kick out of using words and already knows a couple hundred Latin roots? He was diagramming 20 or so sentences a week in his last program. So 25 a month would be a much lighter load then he's done previously.

Also if I do have them both doing Island level together would I need two practice books?

Thanks so much :bigear:

[radiobrain]

Building Language for my 5th (about 4 months) 3rd (about 8 months)



Do you think this would be feasible for my 5th grader who gets a kick out of using words and already knows a couple hundred Latin roots? He was diagramming 20 or so sentences a week in his last program. So 25 a month would be a much lighter load then he's done previously.

Also if I do have them both doing Island level together would I need two practice books?

Thanks so much :bigear:

I think your 5th grader would not like Building Language, especially with that much root/vocab under his belt already. It will also take a lot less than 4 months.

I found BL to be the weakest of all the books, and CE1 so far is my favorite. Odd. :tongue_smilie:Is there a ANY way that you can work out a deal w/ RFWP to also get the CE1 and nor have it screw up your "basic HS package" pricing? If not, I think you should just skip vocab with your 5th grader until you get Town level. It doesn't seem like he would be missing anything. I would worry that it would sour him to the whole program, where CE could inspire serious blossoming.

Does anyone else feel this way?

I am about ready to loan you my CE1!

[The Dragon Academy]

I am about ready to loan you my CE1!

You go, girl!

[nitascool]

Aww Radiobrain what a sweet offer. :) I'll have to look into what RFWP can do to accommodate us. Thanks for the advice.

[StephanieZ]

Personally, I don't think I'd want to do just the poetry books alone as LA at any time. I'd rather blend them in over several months while doing other LA as well. You could just do poetry for an hour once a week. . . and get it done in those 3-4 months while doing your other LA at the same time. That will compress your schedule nicely.

I didn't bother to buy two practice books for my 2 dc. I just make copies of one (and am keeping it pristine for when my younger child is ready for it.) I think you could even get away with NO practice book if you're willing to type up the sentences on Word and print them out (with the 4 lines underneath).