R & S Placement question/Writing placement

[sted]

Hi Carrie or anyone else,

My daughter will be doing CTC next year and I'd like to do R&S Grammar with her. She's just finished Growing with Grammar 6. Any idea if she'd fit better into R&S 5 or 6? She'd a fairly strong writer and has done at least three years of formal grammar. She's 11. I've tried looking at the samples and am debating between these two levels.

Also, with writing she'd just halfway through Ignite your Writing book 2. Would she logically go into Write with the Best or would that be too much of the same. I'm not worried at all about her creativity and description, but rather I feel she needs a bit more work on form and the different structures.

Thanks,
Shannon

[Tree House Academy]

The only credential I have for advising you here is that I do hold a BA in English - focus in writing. If your dd excels in that area, you may want to consider doing the next level up in English. You can go to R&S and see the scope and sequence here: http://samples.rodandstaffbooks.com/1-19118/#6 Maybe that will help you place her as far as the English goes. I am not sure about the writing instruction. We are going to use Write the Best with CTC in the fall, but I have not used it yet and did not use Ignite Your Writing II. Hope someone else chimes in for the writing.

[my3sons]

...
Also, with writing she'd just halfway through Ignite your Writing book 2. Would she logically go into Write with the Best or would that be too much of the same. I'm not worried at all about her creativity and description, but rather I feel she needs a bit more work on form and the different structures.

Thanks,
Shannon

Hi Shannon! I'll let Carrie answer your question about R & S English, as she has an older ds than I do and is more familiar with the upper levels of R & S. I think Rebecca gave you some very good advice as well. I can answer the second part of your question. "Write with the Best" is very different from "Igniting your Writing I and II", and it would not be the same. We are 2/3 of the way through "Write with the Best", and it has turned my ds into not only a good creative writer, but has also taught the guidelines for a variety of writing types. I wondered if the writing samples shared from classic literature would be too difficult for him, but they have been wonderful. He has learned to try to imitate their style, and his vocabulary within his writing has grown leaps and bounds. So, I think "Write with the Best" would be totally different and enough to challenge your dd while also pique her creative side.

In Christ,
Julie

[Carrie]

Shannon,

The ladies have already done a great job of answering your questions, so I'll just pop in to concur. If you prefer to have more of a solid one-year overview of all grammar concepts with basic structured writing lessons included, then Rod and Staff 5 would be the choice. It is considered to be the level that is more foundational for upper level grammar.

If, however, your child has had quite a bit of grammar and writing instruction, then your daughter would instead need to move on to English 6 to have mainly new material. I was trying to remember how old your daughter is as that will also make a difference in my grammar recommendation. Typically, we would advise that 5th graders do Rod and Staff 4; 6th graders do either Rod and Staff 5 or the last half of 4; 7th graders do either Rod and Staff 5 or the first half of 6; and 8th graders do all of Rod and Staff 6 or the last half of 6.

I agree that Write with the Best will be a very different feel from Igniting Your Writing. While it does focus on the descriptive forms of writing, it gives great guidelines and literary examples for those forms of writing (which will be of use for many years whenever kiddos are assigned that particular type of written work). So, I would place her in Write with the Best along with CTC. Then, the following year in RTR, she'll get exposure to the other forms of writing through Medieval History-Based Writing Lessons.

We find that the variety in using different types of writing programs from year-to-year helps keep the instruction and assignments fresh, keeps the teacher from burning out, stays away from giving the impression that writing must be done formulistically, and exposes the student to many different types of writing and ways to approach written work (thus allowing students to find their own writing style). We pray you'll enjoy the variety too!

Hope that helps.

Blessings,
Carrie

[sted]

Thanks everyone for the help. I forgot to say she's 11 but will be going into grade 7 next year (turning 12 in February). I hope to get a better look at the R& S books at our provincial convention this year. I'm leaning towards putting her in level 6 but I'll have a look. Also, I think I will go ahead with Write with the Best. The ironic thing is that Write with the Best is the program that helped me "discover" HOD! I was researching it and someone mentioned on another board that they didn't know much about it but that they were planning on using HOD this year and it was the recommended program And voila, here I am.

Shannon