Writing in Res. to Ref.

[Starla]

In the program placement chart for Res. to Ref. it says that child should be able to write an 8-12 sentence narration on own. My son meets all the other criteria for Res. to Ref. but not this one. Do you think he would do okay if we started out the year with him writing only 3-5 sentence narration, then slowly build it up? Is this something that can be built up to as we work through the guide or should I consider a different guide? (This son has gone through Bigger, Preparing, and this last year we did 1/2 year of Mystery of History, then picked up CTC mid-way through the guide....probably not the best way to do it. ) He can write paragraphs, and he writes in cursive, he's just not used to doing such long paragraphs. I'm thinking we could start slow and then gradually increase it, or do you think it is too much? He is only 10 years old - his birthday is in December.

We COULD consider going through CTC again this time from the very beginning, - but we've already hit that history part....and honestly his grammar, math skills, reading skills, etc. fit the Res. to Ref. Just not the writing part. (for that he places more in the CTC guide) However, we did CTC with skipping a lot of it - and I didn't even buy the notebooking pages that go with it this last year so we've done some writing, but not all the notebooking that goes with it. Maybe we should just hit the ancients again this year and this time do everything in the guide as written (CTC)....(different science since we've done most of that)

I've also thought of the idea of going clear back to the Preparing Guide and do that this year once more and instead add in the extensions, change up his science, math, and language arts to give him another year to mature before we hit RtR. Any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas would be most appreciated. Thank you!

A PS - I've also thought of having him just do the first 1/2 of CTC for this next year for the history part anyways (since we never used the Story of the Ancient World book, using the extensions for his reading too, and then 1/2 way through next year when we hit the Rome and Greek books, (which we did this year already) - THEN start Res. to Ref. Maybe for science for a filler we could use some Answers in Genesis or Apologia stuff until we would go through Res. to Ref. science. I am open to many ideas - just not sure which way to turn at this point.... My leaning is to plow through Res. to Ref. - but just not sure my boy can handle the writing part.

[countrymom]

Based on my experience of trying to change things up to fit this need and that need, I would NOT recommend that route. I would rule out Preparing because then you have too big of a jump to Res to Rev. My first choice would be to do CTC as is with all of the notebooking (lots of great writing), placing him where he fits for math and language arts. My 2nd choice would be to take Res to Rev 1/2 speed for awhile to work on the writing. If your son has not done "Write With the Best" or something similar, I would go with the CTC choice.

[LynnH]

It does sound like he missed out on most of the skill building that is built into the CTC guide, especially in the writing area. If you did RTR then I would start out half speed I think, since he is on the youngest end of the guide, making sure to do everything as written with the exception of letting him write the shorter narrations at first. Is he up to doing 2 written narrations a week? In RTR they do written narrations in science as well as history. If you think by the middle of the year he would be up to the longer narrations, and he fits in the guide otherwise then yes I think you could do it.

On the other hand going back to CTC and working from the beginning doing everything as written is also a good idea. Has he done Write with the Best?

[Starla]

He has worked through about 1/2 of Write with the Best. We are still working through that book, even now, but have not finished it..... (since I didn't start it until 1/2 way through our year) Was thinking of using "Igniting your Writing" that Carrie suggests to use (she has it listed with the DITHOR guide) instead of the EIW book that Res. to Ref. recommends, no matter what guide we end up in.... Feel that the EIW book would be too overwhelming for him.

[Gwenny]

What about doing the first half of the CtC guide exactly as written (well, except for if he's in higher grammar)-but I mean with all of the writing, narrations, notebooking, etc. Continue working on WWTB and then stopping where you started last time if you think he's progressed well. Then start on RTR. Don't forget that it's not really the content of the history that you are worrying about, it's building the skills. Especially since you are trying to adequately prepare him for all of the learning in the next guides.

[Starla]

That's interesting, Nancy, because that's sort of what I thought of and am feeling more at peace about it. That means that his years might be broken up with different guides as we go along, but nothing wrong with that. But doing the first 1/2 of CTC as written and perhaps using the extension readings or the boy interest pack for extra reading - and just continuing on with Write with the Best. For science we have covered life science fairly completely this year - so think I would use a different science for the first 1/2 of the year. Maybe longer since we've already gone through the Apologia Astronomy book as well. (that is in RtR at the very beginning) So may hit an Answers in Genesis science series that he's interested in instead until we come to the Child's Geography in RtR. But I think that the idea is probably workable and may prepare him better for when he actually hits Res. to Ref....probably not until the second semester of next year.