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We're on week 8 now.

I'm finding that the labels for individual study or teacher interaction are not necessarily appropriate for my student, but I am accustomed to personalizing the curriculum, so that is not a problem.

Oral narrations have been pretty easy to jump into, but written narrations have been difficult. Some days I have dd dictate a narration to me and I type it on my laptop. This is working well for us because we can read it together and edit it before printing it. Other times I have her do it by herself. I try to vary it a bit so she doesn't get discouraged.

Dd loves the historical fiction books she's been reading.

Ancient Worlds is definitely a vocabulary-building book. Dd loves the classic paintings.

I'm trying to use Drawn into the Heart of Reading, but we're struggling a bit with that. She loves to read, but writing anything down is not fun for her. We are working on that!

This was our first year trying Rod and Staff grammar and it was not a good fit for us.

One thing that is working very well for us is having dd do her independent Bible study first. I write the instructions in her binder and she reads in her room. This gives me a chance to plan the rest of the day.

We do geography together, with the two younger children. I supplement with some library books so we have more pictures in color.

All in all, this is the best homeschooling year yet.

Mom of Three,

I'm going to move this over to the Main Board. The folder you posted in is for testimonials from those families who have completed CTC. I love to hear your updates, and more moms will see your posts on the Main Board. At HOD, all new posts begin on the Main Board.

I'm so glad that you are enjoying CTC overall. One thing I'll mention is that you will definitely want to move fairly quickly toward doing the boxes as coded in the guide, making sure that you are moving your student toward doing the "I" boxes independently. This is because each guide builds on the skills taught in the previous guide, so if your child is not doing the "I" boxes in CTC then it will become more and more difficult for her to do what we are asking her to do independently in future guides. This will mean that you will be much more involved than we plan and that the incremental steps of moving your child toward more independence will be lost.

If you're finding that you must be quite involved in every area, you may want to possibly consider dropping back a guide in order to enable your child to do what we are asking of her on her own.

We also intend for the child to have the guide as her planner at this point. So, we are thinking that she is carrying the guide around with her, reading her directions for her "I" boxes on her own and completing them independently. For the "S" boxes, we are also thinking that she is carrying the guide around and following those directions mainly on her own, just checking in with you for extra help as needed. The only boxes we're thinking you as the teacher will need the guide to do is the geography, Genesis Finding Our Roots, and the storytime. Plus, checking over your child's work to be sure it is completed. Otherwise, the guide should be in your student's possession much of the day.

As far as Rod and Staff goes, you can use any language arts program you choose with HOD, so you can use what you desire. If you do choose to give Rod and Staff another try, we encourage parents to go over the lessons mainly orally with the child, having the child say the answers to many exercises aloud. Then, we have parents assign only one part for the student to do on paper. In this way, 2/3 of the lesson is done orally or on a whiteboard and 1/3, or less, is written. This keeps the lessons short and sweet, yet we have found retention to be high. Rod and Staff goes far beyond grammar; including writing instruction, dictionary skills, poetry study, spelling rules, and a host of language arts skills. This makes it difficult to replace well.

For DITHR, you may wish to consider backing up one level to ease your child into the program. I'm not sure what level you're using, but each level builds in difficulty, indpendence, application, and amount of writing. We have freshman who use DITHR 6/7/8 for high school credit, so there's no need to rush to the upper levels of DITHR. Instead, we want you to enjoy your reading journey through DITHR without battling overmuch with writing.

I'm so glad that you are enjoying your year. You'll be the best judge as to how close your daughter is doing the program as written, but I did want to mention that the closer you follow the guide this year, the easier the years to come will flow. If you feel you are quite a ways away from doing the guide as designed, you may wish to consider a move to Preparing Hearts. Preparing Hearts provides a much gentler approach to many of the areas you mentioned that your child needs some extra help. It will gradually grow her in the skill areas needed to successful in CTC. Beginning written narration skills are handled more in alignment to what you are currently modifying to do. The amount of writing is definitely less too. You could always return anything that is unused to HOD to defray the cost of a switch if you chose to go that route. In looking ahead, I just want your daughter to be successful in the long run. You will know best.

Blessings,
Carrie