heartofdakota.com

After much research and prayer, I'm 99.9% certain I will switch at least my older girls over to HOD next year. I have already slowly been purchasing all my materials used that I'm going to use this upcoming year, and so I really must use that this year. I'm adding in DITHOR this year (level 4/5) for my 6th and 7th graders.

If I could use HOD this year, they place into Res to Ref. I know I might be jumping the gun, and I will revisit placement before actually placing them in HOD, but I'm loosely planning on putting them in Rev to Rev for their 7th and 8th grade years.

My question is to make sure they're doing the skills in this upcoming year when we're not using HOD (though I'm so tempted to just jump in - I want to!). I am using half of R&S 6 for oldest dd this year and DITHOR 4/5 for both of them. According to the chart, we need to make sure to do:

1. Copywork - Not too much of this going on anymore - what can we copy and how much should I prepare for?
2. Dictation - Which we do - but how much do they need to be prepared for?
3. Write several paragraphs with ease - They can do this now
4. 10-14 sentence narration with little difficulty - We do this with the readers they read. They are summarizers for sure and don't include the flavor of the author. How can I encourage this?
5. Proofreading for mistakes in grammar, usage, capitalization, and punctuation in own writing - We are working on this, and it seems rather straightforward. Reading aloud seems to help them see their mistakes.
6. Can apply grammar knowledge to improve writing - Using R&S, taking care of this.

jjn3beans wrote:After much research and prayer, I'm 99.9% certain I will switch at least my older girls over to HOD next year. I have already slowly been purchasing all my materials used that I'm going to use this upcoming year, and so I really must use that this year. I'm adding in DITHOR this year (level 4/5) for my 6th and 7th graders.

If I could use HOD this year, they place into Res to Ref. I know I might be jumping the gun, and I will revisit placement before actually placing them in HOD, but I'm loosely planning on putting them in Rev to Rev for their 7th and 8th grade years.

My question is to make sure they're doing the skills in this upcoming year when we're not using HOD (though I'm so tempted to just jump in - I want to!). I am using half of R&S 6 for oldest dd this year and DITHOR 4/5 for both of them. According to the chart, we need to make sure to do:

1. Copywork - Not too much of this going on anymore - what can we copy and how much should I prepare for?
2. Dictation - Which we do - but how much do they need to be prepared for?
3. Write several paragraphs with ease - They can do this now
4. 10-14 sentence narration with little difficulty - We do this with the readers they read. They are summarizers for sure and don't include the flavor of the author. How can I encourage this?
5. Proofreading for mistakes in grammar, usage, capitalization, and punctuation in own writing - We are working on this, and it seems rather straightforward. Reading aloud seems to help them see their mistakes.
6. Can apply grammar knowledge to improve writing - Using R&S, taking care of this.

HI Julie! I'm excited for you to begin HOD, and I think you will love it! If I understand your plan right, you are wishing dc could do RTR now, as that is where they place, and then you are thinking to do RevtoRev over 2 years. I may have misunderstood this, and if I did, please let me know! In general, an HOD guide is done for just 1 year. If dc are not quite able to do the work at the onset and need to grow into a guide for a bit, a guide may be used over 1 1/2 years or so. So, I am thinking for 7th grade it would be good to do RevtoRev and for 8th grade it would be good to do MTMM. This will prepare them beautifully for 9th Grade WG. I like your idea of revisiting the placement chart though too - much can happen in a year.

To best prepare for RevtoRev, well, you know I'm going to say doing RTR now would be the best. Payment plans are available, package pricing helps tremendously, as does HOD's substitution policy - you can call HOD to discuss any of this! However, if for reasons that are insurmountable, the switch cannot be made now, I'd suggest just purchasing the RTR guide from HOD. This has helps for virtually everything you mentioned in your list! Copywork - you can use RTR's classical poetry for copywork and have the girls make their own poetry notebook. Dictation - there are many levels of dictation in RTR, and as it takes about 5-10 minutes daily, it can easily be added to anything you are currently doing. In RTR, students orally narrate in a variety of subjects (science, storytime, history, etc.). By having the guide, you can parallel their daily narration assignments after the skills taught in the guide. There are great teacher/student oral narration tips in the Appendix. Likewise, for written narrations, there are specific guidelines in the daily plans, there are detailed tips for teachers and students in the Appendix, as well as editing steps to work through in the Appendix. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks Julie! I meant I would use my current curriculum for another year, then place a then 7th and 8th grader in Rev to Rev and use that for a year. Maybe if I work more on independence this upcoming year with them would be the best thing to do to prepare them. I was hoping to keep them together, just because my oldest is mildly dyslexic, and their skills are nearly matching. They're only 17 months apart. I'm really just jumping the gun here, but I'm trying to work things out to make sure they are ready for high school when it comes around, which seems to be approaching faster than I'd like!

Anyway, I'm really tempted to just get the RtR guide, but I would probably just want to use it instead of what I have! Thank you for your response. I did buy a Beyond guide for my upcoming 3rd grader who is reading at a beginning 2nd grade level, so at least I get to get my feet wet a little and not have to wait a year. I never looked into HOD too much, as what we had was working, but I feel like it's time for a change. I am praying our girls will grow closer to Christ through this.