A Little Nervous about Rod & Staff English

[countrylivin]

Hi Everyone~

My 12 year old and 10 year old are finishing up their grammar programs that they have used this past year, and I am really wanting to switch them to Rod and Staff, but I am a little concerned about how much time it is going to add to my teaching day. I have 8 kiddos and am teaching 4 guides. When I look at the samples online, it appears to be a little heavy on the mommy involvement side. What they are using for grammar right now doesn't require me at all. What has been everyones experience? I have Rod & Staff in my shopping cart ready to make the plunge, but I feel a little nervous....

Thanks for the help!

Amy

[StillJulie]

I still kick myself terribly for using First Language Lessons 3 with my third grader (in Bigger) this past school year. THAT is a curriculum that added WAY TOO MUCH time to our day. I will be so thankful to switch him over to Rod & Staff next year!!!

My oldest child has used R&S since third grade (currently about halfway through R&S 7). She reads through the lesson on her own each day. If she doesn't have any questions, we do the class practice orally/together. Depending on what's in the written work, we may do some of that orally as well. I do purchase the worksheets b/c I like their ease of use (consumable), as do my children. If the lesson has a worksheet (not all of them do), I usually assign it. If not, I assign some of the written work if there's more than I care to take the time to do orally (or for things like diagramming). I don't usually spend more than ten minutes (if that) with her on the days that she does English.

With my next oldest, I have been reading the lesson (R&S 4 this year, for fifth grade) to him (although I do have him read parts here and there... maybe some sample sentences, definitions, important info set off in boxes, etc.) and then doing the bulk of the text work orally, assigning worksheets when they exist, and occasionally some written text work. I typically spend 10-15 minutes on that with him. Next year I hope to have him take over a little more of the lesson reading, though we'll still work through some of the activities orally, like I do with my oldest.


As I remember, R&S 2 and 3 took about ten minutes of my time each day. (FLL 3 has been taking closer to 20-30 minutes typically)

[MomtoJGJE]

I'm currently using R&S 2 and 4.

With 2, I read the lesson and we do all the questions orally... it MIGHT take 10 minutes.

With 4, some days I read the lesson and some days she does, just depending on what's going on at the time. Then we do most, if not all of the lesson orally. I'll randomly have her do written work. Or if she seems to not be getting it I'll have her do some written (to solidify the lesson for her). I also will write out a diagram (lines only) for her to point to if we are short on time or if she gets it. On days where I read it and we do it all orally (those take the most time involved for me) it takes MAYBE 15 minutes. And that's on a day like yesterday when she couldn't remember pronouns and verb phrases to save her life

On days where she does some of the work on paper or days where she reads the lesson it obviously takes ME much less time, but more time for English overall.

[my3sons]

Take the plunge, Amy! There is not a better English program out there. Like the other ladies, we take HOD's recommendation of doing a good portion of R & S English orally or on the markerboard, reserving just one section to be written (usually a diagramming or writing section). We clip along. I am doing R & S English 4 and 6 right now with our dc. Next year, I'll be doing the other half of 4 and 7. My oldest ds reads it on his own, I come to skim and briefly go over the big points with him, ask the oral review questions helping him if he can't remember the answers, and then we orally/markerboard do the majority of the lesson, I have him number his paper with the section and numbers he is to do on his own later, we finish our part together, and he finishes his section assigned to be written independently. Works great! For my ds in 4, we read it together, and follow the same steps then as my oldest ds. We really do clip along with it. It is hands-down the best English curriculum I have ever used, with HOD's recommendations to do a good portion orally. There is a LOT of carryover of skills naturally into our ds's other writing for HOD. R & S English is different from other grammar programs because it teaches grammar for the purpose of improving writing as well. It works! HTH, but I'd not be too concerned about the time as long as you are using HOD's recommendations. Also, some of your dc can probably be combined, and the HOD guides schedule some of the English half-speed too. What levels are you thinking of doing? Remember R & S English 7 and 8 are spread across high school as they are high school credit worthy, so trying to finish R & S 6 by the end of grade 8 is a good goal to shoot for. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[countrylivin]

I just put my order in today! I'm excited to now be doing EVERYTHING in all of my HOD guides! Yippy for simplicity!

Thanks ladies for the help!

Amy

[my12kiddos]

WOW! Thanks ladies for sharing. I've struggled with what to use with grammar. We use R&S before. I used it just like the book says. Never thought of how you folks mentioned. I love R&S but my kids got burned out. So we did musical grammar. We tried everything. But after reading this. I just bought 3-7 again. We're trying it this way. Never thought of oral or using the worksheets.

[MelInKansas]

I guess I'm not doing what the rest of you are doing, because my DD reads and does the English on her own. She likes it that way. I do the "oral drills" with her of course (well at first I wasn't, boy that was LONG as written work ). It is something I do check over when she is done and try to discuss the concepts with her. I think it does take her longer than if I were doing it orally with her, and I will probably have to do it more orally with my 2nd born, but for now this is working for us. And yes, I love it! It is so thorough she has learned the concepts very well.

[StillJulie]

I guess I'm not doing what the rest of you are doing, because my DD reads and does the English on her own. She likes it that way. I do the "oral drills" with her of course (well at first I wasn't, boy that was LONG as written work ). It is something I do check over when she is done and try to discuss the concepts with her. I think it does take her longer than if I were doing it orally with her, and I will probably have to do it more orally with my 2nd born, but for now this is working for us. And yes, I love it! It is so thorough she has learned the concepts very well.

This method worked fine for my oldest for the earlier levels (3-5ish), but then I found that she'd occasionally do pretty much an entire lesson wrong, so that is why we'll do the oral drill together before I set her loose on any written. Sometimes I'll skim a lesson and figure there isn't anything too new/difficult, so I'll just assign some written work. Other times, we'll whip through the oral pretty quickly, and I'll take the extra few minutes to let her do most/all of the written drill orally too in order to help shorten the time for that subject. Her days tend to be pretty full, so when I can help her shorten the day with the English, I'll do it if I can spare the time.

[joyfulhomeschooler]

I agree with everything said on this thread, except for one. It takes us much longer most days than 15 minutes to get through a lesson, and yes, that is doing almost all of it orally. I noticed that when I started trying to rush it to make it take us 20 minutes my son started getting some of the independent problems or reviews wrong. That is my only issues with this grammar. It is very thorough and might well be the best grammar program out there... but for some kids the 15-20 min. time frame is just not doable. Just wanted to put that out there so that incase there are others like my kiddo, Mom won't be taken by surprise by the time allotment.

[my3sons]

Good idea to mention the time allotments, as they can vary from student to student! My ds doing R & S English 4 takes about 20 minutes (more if he is doing more of a writing based assignment, as he's my creative guy who LOVES to think and rethink and plan and replan his writing ). My ds doing R & S English 6 takes about 30 minutes on average, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. So, you can see there is a range of time depending on each student's individuality! HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[Motherjoy]

We were often skipping English with my oldest because it was so time intensive. Finally, I just handed the book to him and he started doing it on his own. He'd grade it himself and come to me with any problems that he had. It has worked and we are finally caught up. So, depending on the ages of your kids, you could try giving them more independence in this area.

Also, we do not do every exercise. We do lots verbally and only the amount of exercises needed to make sure he understands the concept.