Houston, we have a problem.....

Five words or less has become Sam's motto for writing. He will put up his hand and try to summarize George Washington or any subject that he thinks that he will have to write about into five words or less. His summary for the first President of the United States....

He was a tall man.

He eliminated George, Washington, general, president and a great number of other words because he did not want to attempt the spelling. He certainly didn't want to mention surveyer, plantation, French and Indian War , Declaration of Independence or any other particular event. So he sifted through all the information that he knows about President Washington and managed to find 5 words that he can spell without thinking and that became his summary.

Obviously I need to rethink writing.

If I remove the written narrations he will speak volumes about our first President complete with actions and sound effects. However even his oral narrations are becoming a bit stilted since there is always that looming thought......"will I be expected to write this down?"

So that is the first step----completely eliminate any original writing from his weekly routine. I know this but have continue to blindly follow our curriculum into doing written narrations before their time. No more written narrations for the rest of the year!

So we will follow Charlotte Mason suggestions to the letter. Copywork, Oral Narrations and Dictation. Copywork, Oral Narrations and Dictation. Copywork. Oral Narrations. Dictation.

While pondering this dilemma of the 5 finger summary, I happened to come across a series of lectures by Susan Wise Bauer on writing. Her perspective on oral narrations, dictation is a bit different than Charlotte Mason's.

SWB's oral narrations are to help the child to summarize and find the main point of a passage. CM's oral narrations are an opportunity for the child to tell what he knows from a passage. SWB's approaches dictations with the expectation that the instructor will help the child as much as possible including spelling words if needed. CM's dictation is a prepared dictation that the child is instructed to "see" each word and the instructor covers mistakes as they happen and allows the child to correct after the exercise is completed.

That is my very basic understanding about the differences between SWB's writing plan and CM's writing plan! I'm sure there can be much debate about the similarities and differences between the two but I really have no desire to decide which way is best and why. I have only one desire at this point....



How to get my writing-phobic son to write!

I re-read SWB's Strong Foundations with the goal to make sure I have my basis covered with our readings from MFW Adventures. Ultimately, I decided to make it easier on myself and use Writing with Ease 2.

Oral Narrations-Let's start with the easiest for Sam. If I eliminate the threat...I mean possibility .....of a written narration he has the ability to become quite eloquent with his oral narrations. I will continue to follow CM's goal in oral narrations for all our reading with MFW's Adventures. I will allow him the opportunity to tell what he knows of a subject while encouraging to speak in complete sentences and using all the wonderful vocabulary that he has acquired.

I will use Writing with Ease to help him learn the ability to summarize and find the main idea. There are two exercises each week.

Copywork. He doesn't like it but we need more of it.WWE2 has a weekly selection. MFW Adv has a weekly selection from scripture that is being memorized.

Dictation. Day 3 of WWE2 is a dictation exercise that he would have done as copywork the previous day. Day 4 is a dictation exercise of his summary. That may be too similar to a written narrations so we may have to skip it for now. There are also sentences for dictation in All About Spelling.

The other dilemma is Primary Language Lessons. PLL is a great resource for teaching LA with a gentle intro of grammar. The problem is that it is in a non consumable book form and Sam is finding it cumbersome to use. We have tried a variety of solutions to help him with using a book and a separate piece of paper. He prefers that I re-write the information so he can do the exercises. I really have no desire to re-write the exercises. I'm just that lazy! I also saw no real need to take a subject that is not natural for him and make it more difficult by using a resource that he finds cumbersome.

So I have searched for alternatives. My options were to buy something new or use what I have. I have Learning Language Arts Through Literature so that is what we are going to trial.

LLATL has a weekly copywork exercise.....which can be done as dictation as the year progresses. There are exercises in grammar that are similar to PLL's that are in a format that are easier for him to use. There are also weekly spelling that I feel we can probably skip since we are using AAS.

So that brings our revamped LA program for Sam----

Writing With Ease2-copywork, dictation, oral narrations.

Learning Language Arts Through Literature-copywork, grammar.

+ MFW Adventures -copywork selection and oral narrations.

All About Spelling-dictation

This will give us 2-3 selections per week of copywork, 2-3 selections for dictations, ample opportunities to practice CM's oral narrations in addition to 2 opportunities to practice SWB's summary narrations.

Let's see where this takes us!