A question re Vocab from Classical Roots.

[Colleen]

Do you add to this at all, or just have your students work through the exercises? My oldest is halfway through Book B and I find it's not very meaty. He completes the exercises quickly and, for the most part, accurately, but I don't know that he retains much. It feels rather like busywork. What are your thoughts on this?

[Hillary in KS]

The only thing we do to add to it is an oral review of the vocabulary/roots every couple of weeks.

Ds has enough "heavy" subjects, and as long as he's retaining the vocabulary I'm okay with just doing the exercises in the book.

[Mad Jenny Flint]

My son works through the exercises, makes flash cards for each unit, and studies the flash cards periodically for all the units just to brush up. Between this, Analytical Grammar lessons, literature readings and discussions, and writing assignments, I think we have enough going on with language arts.

[flyingmommy]

My daughter had this last year with the K12 Virtual Academy. She zoomed through the exercises and doesn't remember a single bit of it.

We're doing Vocabulary Vine this year and she seems to be retaining the info.

Jeannie

[jellogirl]

I have noticed the same problem. I believe WTM has recommendations for using these books, including making flashcards.

[Rhondabee]

Ds is not a flash-card person, so trying to follow the WTM suggestions was like pulling teeth. And, although he was flying through the exercises, he *wasn't* getting them all right.

I bought the Teacher's Guide at Christmas, and backtracked a few chapters. The Teacher's Guide gives suggestions which make it a very teacher-intensive subject, but the activities are fairly short (maybe 10 minutes daily), and they really help my ds remember the meanings of the words. We even use them in everyday conversation (sometimes facetiously...but, it does let me know he is remembering the words). Now, he may miss one or two on the test, but not almost half - LOL!

Of course, you probably weren't looking for teacher-intensive.

[Deece in MN]

My daughter had this last year with the K12 Virtual Academy. She zoomed through the exercises and doesn't remember a single bit of it.

We're doing Vocabulary Vine this year and she seems to be retaining the info.

Jeannie

I'll second Vocabulary Vine. This is what we use and I love it! My dc remember and apply the roots with new words they come across. For example, today we were talking about poetry and iambic pentameter. It wasn't that they had never heard the word pentameter, but because they knew the roots and their meanings they easily understood the concept without me having to explain it. This is just one example. They have applied what they have learned through this program so much more than when we used books that focused on "words to know". Those types of books to me are busy work, Vocabulary Vine is not. JMHO :)

[Miss Peregrine]

Do you add to this at all, or just have your students work through the exercises? My oldest is halfway through Book B and I find it's not very meaty. He completes the exercises quickly and, for the most part, accurately, but I don't know that he retains much. It feels rather like busywork. What are your thoughts on this?

I thought it was rather skimpy, too. DD works through it in no time. I didn't get the teacher's manual, maybe I am missing something?

[Michelle in MO]

My older two always did two vocabulary books per year: VCR in the fall semester, and Wordly Wise in the spring semester. Basically, they just worked through the exercises, and I did not add anything to them, although we did do the tests. Both of them are big readers, however, so the vocabulary study just reinforced what they had already read in other contexts.

For some odd reason, my oldest daughter loves vocabulary words, so she actually brings a thesaurus into her room with her at night sometimes, just to read, so for her retention was pretty easy. I'm not sure why she is so fascinated with words, but she just is.

Otherwise, we didn't spend a lot of time on vocabulary; probably 15 minutes per day. As others said, there is plenty of other work to do with language arts.

[4wildberrys]

We used VCR A in 7th---including the Teachers Guide and lesson plans and tests from Covenant Home Curriculum. That was the only year we used it as dd seemed to have the same "no retention" problem, even though we were using it in a manner that I felt was pretty thorough. There are SO many better word root programs out there----I just don't get why VCR is so popular.

[Frontier Mom]

This probably won't help but that is exactly why we are using "Vocabulary Cartoons." My dc's study ten words per week as per the schedule. Then, they take a test on Friday that is already in the book. The cartoons actually help them remember the words better than all the busy work for the week. As others have said, we can only do so much in a day and I actually think mine are retaining them better with this book than they were with the workbooks.

I got mine at Barnes and Noble with my educator's discount. Here's a link: Vocabulary Cartoons (http://www.amazon.com/Vocabulary-Cartoons-Sat-Word-Power/dp/0965242285)

Every four lessons I would come up with my own comprehensive quiz. I also have them use a certain number of words in their writing assignment, like maybe four. Then they have to use them in context.

[Kathie in VA]

I have VfCR but we haven't gotten too far with it... it gets dropped pretty quick around here.

Has anyone tried or considered: Word Roots software?

--Kathie

[Colleen in NS]

The Teacher's Guide gives suggestions which make it a very teacher-intensive subject, but the activities are fairly short (maybe 10 minutes daily), and they really help my ds remember the meanings of the words.

What suggestions are in the TG? I don't have it, I just use the student books and we do the flashcards (of roots - I gave up on flashcards of derivatives) and exercises. I'm wondering what other things are suggested in the TG, so I can decide if we should be doing other things with it or not.

[Joan in Geneva]

Guide has a test for each 2 lessons, plus discussion points about various words, additional vocab games and activities, additional word learning strategies, lesson by lesson support, key word activity masters.....You do have to be careful because one teacher's guide c 1994 didn't have nearly so many supports as the one c 2005..and I think I got both of them from Rainbow Resources without any clarification.....

I definitely think they help. But there was probably about one question in every test where my son really disagreed with their answer. This tended to happen in the analogies section. Sometimes I could see his point and sometimes I was not really familiar enough with the nuances of the word...

Best,
Joan

[Jackie in NE]

But we dropped it, and for the exact reasons you're stating, Colleen.

It sounded so good, but dd wasn't retaining anything. The exercises were just busy work. I decided that with all the Greek and Latin she'll get, VfCR just wasn't worth the time.

[Rhondabee]

What suggestions are in the TG? I don't have it, I just use the student books and we do the flashcards (of roots - I gave up on flashcards of derivatives) and exercises. I'm wondering what other things are suggested in the TG, so I can decide if we should be doing other things with it or not.


http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=759793#poststop

hth! - We don't really make flashcards at all, anymore. I do have him put the roots, their meanings, and a sample word in his notebook. (Why do we even *have* notebooks, IDK? No one ever looks at them. Oh, well, that's another post. LOL)

[CynthiaOK]

We experienced the same thing. We switched because I hate to have to beef up something if there is something else out there that works better. We have had a much better experience with Wordly Wise 3000 series as well as Vocabulary for the College Bound (I would assume Vocab. for the High School Bound would be equally good).

[Jane in NC]

My son has responded well to this program. He seems to retain the vocabulary, although sometimes argues with usage. I particularly like the writing assignments in the review sections since we found that it is one thing to know the definition of a word, another to know how to use it correctly.

VfCR works for us, but I understand that the program may not work for your student.

Jane

[Nan in Mass]

Yes, usage. I had to check to make sure my son understood how to use the word. The definition alone wasn't sufficient. I had to make him use each word in a sentence for me at the beginning of each lesson so we could discuss the nuances.

[Colleen in NS]

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=759793#poststop

I knew this TG discussion sounded familiar.....:blushing: