ETC and Saxon - Do you make them do every page?

[Melinda]

I have a question about Saxon and ETC (or really any curriculum, I guess). If your child understands a concept, how much practice do you make them complete?

My 5yo DS is understanding concepts the first time I give them to him and is extremely bored having to do all the extra practice. He told me he feels like he is doing exactly the same thing for 20 or more pages, and it is too easy because it is so repetitious.

He reads well and can figure out any phonetically spelled word, but needs to develop fluency, as he is choppy in his oral reading. At what point is it okay to abandon ETC entirely? We will be starting spelling in the fall (probably All About Spelling).

As far as math goes, he is finishing up Saxon 1. He loves the "doing" part of the lesson and has no problem retaining whatever concept I am trying to teach him. However, once again, he hates the worksheets. If he gets all the questions correct on one side, I have stopped making him do both sides. Is this okay, or does he really need to do both sides of every worksheet for every lesson?

Is there a math program that is as thorough and easy on the teacher as Saxon, but not so repetitive? He loves math, but I think if we continue with Saxon, he will grow to hate it.

What would you do in this situation?

[Angel]

I made dd do all the pages in ETC. Each page is set up differently within the lessons to have them practice with the words. I didn't start dd on ETC till 6, though, and then it was only 2-3 pages a day to start out with.

In Saxon we never do the backside of a worksheet. By the time we get through some of the meeting book (don't do it all every day) and then the lesson, and the time tests (2nd grade) I feel we've done a lot of math. If she ever shows signs of struggle, then we'd stop and do the backside the next day.

He's still very young. Maybe set aside ETC for a few months and just read with him. Come back to it when he's older.

[AudreyTN]

My dd was like that so we dropped ETC. She hasn't really used a phonics program since. After she got those first sounds learned she just read, read, read until she gained fluency. Which didn't take long.

My ds7 is my math whiz. We were using Horizons, there is a test every 10 lessons. I'd let him take the tests and if he got them all right he didn't have to do the previous lessons.

All of that to say this: If my kids KNOW a concept I'll still cover it lightly to give myself peace of mind, but mostly it's skipped.

Hope that helped. :)

[KarenNC]

Which ETC book are you in and are you having him do the "half" books as well?

When my daughter got to the point that she was reading easily and fluently, I used ETC more as a spelling program. She no longer was required to do the exercise of checking the sentence or word that goes with the picture, but she often did it anyway because she thought they were funny.

I did try switching to Spelling Power when she was finished with ETC 4/5, as I figured it would be less repetition for her having to only do pretest and work on words she couldn't already spell. Surprisingly (to me) she asked to go back, so we finished out to 8 and went back to SP later and it's been great. We definitely didn't do the ETC "half" books and I skipped the lessons in ETC 4 on open and closed syllables because they seemed more confusing than helpful to her. The later books do add in more reading comprehension exercises, which helped.

For oral reading fluency, I would give him more practice actually reading aloud in addition to whatever else you are doing. I found that adding in Dolch sight word flashcards beginning at about book 2, as well as the Dick and Jane books, really increased her reading fluency.

For math, you've probably heard this, but have you looked at Singapore? For a child who gets math concepts readily, you can do the Intensive Practice book in place of the regular workbook. It takes the same concept presented in the textbook, but expands it to a more complex level. I have found Singapore to be quite teacher friendly so far (we are in level 3B) even without the home instructor guides and with a child who doesn't necessarily grasp math concepts the way she does language ones:). Even then, I don't necessarily require that she finish all her workbook problems if she is obviously understanding the material well.

[whitestavern]

If my daughter gets everything correct on the front side of the Saxon worksheet, she does not need to do the other side. Bonus on this: my son uses the same book one year later and I don't have to buy a new one!

[Melinda]

Which ETC book are you in and are you having him do the "half" books as well?

We are just starting book 4. Up until now, he has done the 1/2 books, too. I have stopped making him do that. Maybe I just need to lower the amount of pages he's doing per day. I have it set up so that he alternates between ETC and Saxon pages, to try making it more interesting. We are doing 2-3 Saxon/ETC "sections" per day, to try to get him through the material that he feels is not challenging enough, but so that I make sure he has at least covered it. He is bored by this and often driven to tears over having to sit and do his work, which makes me feel horrible and that I am asking too much of him. But then I see how much he has learned this year, and I am unsure of how to proceed. Hope this makes sense!

[Chris in VA]

I did have dd do both sides of the worksheet, most of the time, even if she got them all right. There's a difference between figuring the problems out correctly and reaching the level of automaticity that Saxon goes for, esp with the fact problems.
In Saxon 3, however, I let her skip a few of the problems (just a few).
Your son sounds very advanced. Maybe you could do one side of the Saxon sheet, then occasionally add in some of the Singapore extra work for fun, or get a gifted book from Barnes and Noble or another bookstore, and do a page there instead of what comes so easily.
The Saxon sheets are not identical on both sides, tho--I view it as the way Saxon parks on a concept for mastery (some think it skips around too much in the main lesson, but I say the mastery comes in the worksheet). If he's truly mastered the material, then let him go on.
He is very young, tho--

[Jen in PA]

DD just started ETC 7, and I am really glad we have stuck with the series. She is reading very well, so I considered dropping it.... but she's also on the young side for pushing a lot of writing (she's 5), so I find that the amount of writing in ETC serves as good handwriting practice that I only supplement with a sentence or two of copywork. We don't skip any pages, although we do the sentence completion pages orally because she really struggles with fitting the words onto the lines. She's fine with the writing on the other pages, for the most part. Starting in Book 7, there are longer passages with comprehension questions at the end, which is a nice addition.

[BramFam]

We have never done the "back side" of the worksheets. I thought it was way too much busy work for my 5 year old. That being said, if he started getting problems wrong, I would probably make him do the similar one on the back for practice. I don't even make him do the whole fact sheet. I circle 13 problems for him to do and if he gets them correct he does not have to do the other 12. Then he does the other 12 the next day and I save the fact sheet that is for that lesson for another rainy day. My ds gets really wiggly if I would make him do a whole page. We do review our facts once a week on flashcards. We do it while doing jumping jacks :)

With ETC, we normally do every page. I only have him do 2 pages a day, which normally gets us through 1 lesson a week. We also do 1 lesson from OPG 3 times a week. We did skip the second half of ETC book 2 because my ds was TIRED of blends. He had them down and was more than ready to go on to silent e words. I am thinking that we will go back and do the pages for review someday, maybe during the summer. But I don't feel he is missing any required knowledge from skipping those pages.

Skipping pages is OK. You know your son better than anyone else, you'll know if it is just busy work or not.