8th grade English to prepare for R&S 7

[Bibliophile]

Hello!
I have been DEVOURING these forums, bookmarking threads on the Geography curriculum, as well as threads on English and Writing, and the approach HOD takes. Much to our dismay, we have never been able to use HOD in its entirety. We love DITHOR and have been using it for several years now, and we use many of the same resources as HOD, but have never used the guides. However, that will all change next year with my oldest, as we intend to use the Geography Guide with her in High School!! I think I'm more excited than she is LOL! Here is my question. She excels in English and we have used Rod and Staff 2-6th with her. Last year, in 7th grade, we found exactly what Carrie has talked about many times, the 7th grade book gets very complex, and it was hard for us to follow along. Her grades on the first two tests were C's (she was an A student in 6th grade), so, after reading Carrie's thoughts here, I decided to shelve it for the year and find something else. We used some of Easy Grammar Plus (did not finish the book), and I'm wondering what we should do this year.

Should I:
A. Finish Easy Grammar Plus? Truthfully, we didn't get very far in it so it wouldn't be a stretch to use it next year.
B. Go back and re-do Rod and Staff 6? When we did it, I felt we rushed through much of it because it was a lot to cram into one year. I don't mind reviewing and having my daughter re-do it if it would be beneficial to her in 9th grade.
or
C. Something else I haven't thought of.... Is there another option that gives her good prep/review for R&S 7 without repeating 6?

What would you recommend to students for their 8th grade year of English, if they've completed R&S 6 and we want to use 7 in High School?

Thanks!
Dorinda

[chillin'inandover]

Dorinda,
Welcome to HOD and your journey using the guides starting with high school.
I am a little confused about your question but I will just comment that Rod&Staff 7&8 is planned to be done in high school. 7 is done 1/2 in 9th & 1/2 in 10th. # 8 is planned to be done 1/2 in 11 th and final 1/2 in 12th. Carrie has stated that R&S is vigorous, solid instruction. If your child did 7 in 7th that is probably why it was too hard. Not sure but in other levels my ds is in RTR, but R&S is scheduled 2x/wk. My ds has plenty of instruction for writing as written in guides. My confusion is if you are using high school guide for 8th grade child.
With my older dd I only used DITHOR too.
Tammy

[Bibliophile]

Ah, sorry, all the "Next years, this years," get confusing, don't they?

No, we are not using HOD for her 8th grade year, 2013/2014. We will use the HOD Geography guide for her 9th grade year, 2014/2015. I know Carrie has scheduled R&S 7 for 9th and 10th. We used R&S 6 when my daughter was in 6th, 2011/2012. So, what should I do this year, 2013/2014 for Grammar?

Clear as mud?
Dorinda

[mom23]

I'm not there, yet, but FWIW, I'd be inclined to try going on to level 7 right now, just take it very slowly. That will give you some extra wiggle room, so you wouldn't even have to get through half the book this year, if it's too hard. That would keep her progressing in the same program, and not confuse the issue with another program that may or may not prepare her better for the next level.

[4Hispraise]

I'm not there, yet, but FWIW, I'd be inclined to try going on to level 7 right now, just take it very slowly. That will give you some extra wiggle room, so you wouldn't even have to get through half the book this year, if it's too hard. That would keep her progressing in the same program, and not confuse the issue with another program that may or may not prepare her better for the next level.

I think this is great advice! Take R&S 7 slowly, perhaps doing grammar daily, but only half the lesson. I would complete the oral review questions from the teacher's guide daily. For us, we did the classroom lesson one day and the written practice & review the next day. First, we did grammar every day until I knew that he was getting it - breaking the lessons up over two days, as described above. Then, after several months (mainly to make sure that my ds wasn't overwhelmed & was progressing) we completed lessons when they were scheduled in the guide (Rev2Rev). We switched to R&S 7 for 8th grade from Easy Grammar without too much trouble. BUT the main problem isn't that my ds did not know what a noun is...it is the way everything is presented in R&S is so different it was an adjustment.

Oh, and HOD recommends completing most of the grammar orally. We do sentence diagramming on the whiteboard & I have him write some of the answers to written practice in his notebook. I have been really impressed with the progress he has made!

[Bibliophile]

Thanks ladies! I think that's what I'll do. We'll just ease slowly through 7, no worries, no stress, nice and gentle. There are so many components to this level, Grammar is really just a piece of the overall puzzle.

Thanks for helping me work it out!
Dorinda