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I am thinking about having my 10 year old son do Preparing next year. He has been doing IEW for 2 years now and I have liked how it teaches a child to write. Is the writing in Preparing enough or are there people who have added an IEW theme book to the curriculum? I'm not sure I'm convinced that written narration and dictation are enough. My boys tend to stick to the most basic of facts whenever they have written narrations. Why elaborate when you can write a basic fact? Can anyone convince me one way or the other?

Beth

I think the ability to write within your narrations is an important skill and leads to better writing. While a writing program like IEW has it's place, I think that to continue in a HOD education that working on the narration skills would be more important at the Preparing level as written narrations are the foundation of showing you have mastered the materials in HOD guides from here on out. The notebooking pages are paramount to HOD and while writing for English assignments are great and learning through a specific program is a benefit...if there is no carryover to their other work and assignments then I don't see that it is working past teaching the elements of writing in a particular format and style. This is the perfect age to take the tools that the writing program has given your children and work on it carrying over to written narration and writing assignments in other subjects.

I will share that we are using IEW's All Things Fun and Fascinating with my 10 yo dd while doing Preparing this year. It is our first year using IEW and our second year with HOD. The poetry lessons are the only thing we dropped in HOD. We did all the other writing in HOD. My dd is an extremely reluctant writer and has a hard time composing and getting down on paper what she wants to say. IEW has helped her a lot. Now that we are nearing the end of the school year she tries to use "ly" openers, who/which clauses and other techniques from IEW in her HOD written narrations. Looking ahead, we plan to start following the HOD path for writing and not continue with IEW next year in CTC. She will use IEW again in RTR as the plans dictate. To sum things up, I am glad we chose to go through IEW this year, but I am also seeing more clearly Carrie's plans for writing as the guides progress.

If you don't mind the added time to your day I think it is ok to add IEW to the program, but I wouldn't delete anything. HOD does take a more gentle approach to introducing writing. The writing in Preparing that goes along with the poetry is very different than IEW and requires a more creative approach. So they will learn different skills by doing that box. Rod and Staff also has a variety of writing lessons. Written narrations are not necessarily designed to teach writing. They are to see what the student has garnered from the readings. It is what you do instead of asking lots of comprehension questions. You don't grade written narrations and even when you proof read them you take one thing to work on at a time from the written narration checklist and the things you are checking are more proper grammar, comma usage, spelling.

In CTC and above a formal writing program is scheduled. You might find this thread helpful as to the approach HOD takes with writing viewtopic.php?p=44501#p44501
I can tell you that by following HOD writing sequence his writing has improved every year. The writing programs and Rod and Staff do teach skills that carry over to written narrations and vice versa. I am amazed at the writing he can now produce.

I personally used a different writing program at the beginning of this year before coming to HOD. I was actually using something all together different and it had a writing program written into it. When I switched to HOD, I was really worried that the writing wouldn't be enough. I am SO glad is switched and my dd is writing so much more and better than she was with the other writing program.

I have a friend who did IEW with her kids for a couple years and then found that every level was kind of the same thing only more. So she decided that her kids got the point of how to write using the method. After a few years, she was ready to move on to something new. I only mention this because you may feel the same. Since you have used it for 2 years already, you may already be feeling like you have gained a ton. Maybe taking a break for a year or two would introduce new ways of writing. I find that with HOD my day is full already and I am personally not interested in adding anything else. That isn't to say that others don't add or that you can't. But I find that HOD is very balanced and my kids are growing in leaps and bounds using their methods. For us, I was glad that we didn't do any other writing than the poetry writing, weekly written narration, and the R&S writing. It is has been a WONDERFUL blend.

As for encouraging your child to write more than the minimum, I do actually have to tell my dd to add some description when she writings. I tell her she must add an adjective or an adverb in each sentence. She is old enough and great with language that she can do that. Also - most poetry lessons encourage that anyway. I find is a very simple and organic way to encourage communication on paper for my kids. Even my son who has never been able to sequence well or spill out complete thoughts is growing because of all of the oral narrating that he does. So that oral narration will also help with organizing thoughts and processing information to communication a message.

Almost every time I've felt the "need" to supplement HOD, I've regretted it. All it's done is make our days more stressful, and I don't consider it worth it.

That said, I have tried All Things Fun and Fascinating in place of Write with the Best in Creation to Christ. It was okay. I didn't LOVE either writing program. I think we switched to Writing Strands mid-year, which ended up working pretty well for that child.

We always use IEW with HOD. There are several reason, the main on being that I teach IEW classes, so it just makes sense for us to use IEW instead of the other writing in HOD. It does not add any time to our day because we replace any of the writing assignments in HOD with IEW. i do still require the written narrations and notebook pages, we just choose to not use the HOD writing suggestions in the language arts boxes. I guess I'm trying to say that IEW takes the same amount of time as the other writing assignments. I like that IEW teaches all of the creative writing as well as essays and research. I really feel that it is very thorough and complete. My children are not missing anything. I do think that HOD writing choices in the LA boxes are excellent, but we simply prefer IEW. The IEW history theme books match very well with CTC, RTR, REV2REV, and MTMM. my children do not like to write, but they CAN, thanks to IEW!