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After doing CTC, what would you all say is the differences between that and RTR are, skill wise? Where are the jumps? Content? Fullness/time? Reading difficulty? Thinking skills?

CTC was a jump from Preparing and luckily we're doing well with CTC. Other than time issues, dd is understanding things well, we love the books, the skills seem to be on target. So just curious about what differences to expect when we do RTR?

We have done the jump from CTC to RTR twice now. We have not found that it was a hard jump at all. They really do develop the skills in CTC for RTR. We really did not notice a jump. By the time they were done with CTC they were ready. I think you are going to find your child is perfectly ready as well. RTR has more to it I would say. There is the art appreciation and the devotional study and the story time gives the option to be independent. There is also some variation with the research box area. If your child did well with CTC then RTR will be the perfect fir for them. I honestly can't imagine how there would be any issue as long as CTC was a good fit for them. The more you go with CTC the more you will see that one guide really will prepare them for the next and I think that is really easier to see as you get to the upper guides.

You will love RTR!

I didn't think the jump from CTC to RTR was near as big of a jump as from Preparing to CTC. The things that were a bit of jump for my ds were the amount of reading required. In the first half of the year the history reading can be 20+ pages, this was tough for my ds, but he is a slow reader and struggles some with narrating after that many pages, but he did get better with time. The content of the reading may be actually a little easier than CTC. The other jump for him was in the writing program. The IEW lessons seem to take longer and are tougher for him, but his writing is improving so it is worth it. Really everything else flows as just a slight step in skills from CTC so like water2wine said it really is just a natural progression of skills. 2 narrations are required a week instead of 1. One is now required in Science, but it starts back at the beginning as far as only 5 sentences and more guidance. It is a very full program. It takes my ds about 1/2 more a day to do RTR than CTC, and I think that is mostly due to the increased reading and having IEW 3x's a week. He is loving RTR though and probably is making more connections than with any other guide.

The transition was pretty seamless for us. The differences I can think of off the top of my head are slightly longer written narrations, and the weekly research is written rather than oral. But it is done as a short postcard to someone which I think is a brilliant idea.

I do agree that IEW is tougher than the writing program in CTC.

birchbark wrote:The transition was pretty seamless for us. The differences I can think of off the top of my head are slightly longer written narrations, and the weekly research is written rather than oral. But it is done as a short postcard to someone which I think is a brilliant idea.

I do agree that IEW is tougher than the writing program in CTC.

In what way? We're not doing too good in WWTB, so I need to see where we may flounder.