heartofdakota.com

We'll be starting HOD this fall for the first time after loving and delighting in Sonlight curriculum for most of our homeschool journey.

I have selected WH for my 10th grade daughter, WG for my 9th grade son, BHFHG for my 3rd grade son, and LHFHG for my 1st grade daughter.

My question now is, where should we begin with Rod & Staff? My high school students have had minimal grammar instruction over the years and neither of them can probably do much more than name the most common parts of speech (noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb). We've certainly never diagrammed any sentences! In fact, I have no idea how to do that (thank you, Public School - grrr) so I will need a lot of hand-holding from the teacher's manual.

I plan to look over both the 2nd and 3rd grade texts for my rising 3rd grader. We did part of MCT's Grammar Island this year and learned a lot about the parts of speech. He probably knows more about the parts of speech than his older siblings! In light of that, I might go with 3rd grade for him and just slow it down if necessary. I'll decide for sure when I attend my local homeschool convention in a couple weeks (sure wish y'all were going to be there - hint, hint) and can look over the books in person.

With my high schoolers though, I'm afraid I need some guidance. Where should I place them? I was thinking of possibly purchasing the Grade 6 text for both of them, but I also wondered if the 5th grade set would be even better? Or I might be able to get my hands on both and just use the 5th grade one to review a few basics of the program before starting the 6th grade one in earnest.

One other question: How do I use a level of text that is different from the one Carrie has scheduled in our guide?

Thank you for any assistance you can provide!

According to the R&S website, they recommend that students new to grammar should start in level 5. This level will provide all of the teaching that they need to move forward with grammar instruction. As for how far you should go, I have seen mixed review I would try and finish up through level 7 if you can. With your oldest, they would just complete one lesson per day instead of following the plans. With your 9th grader, you would do all of level 5 and 6 completing one lesson per day as well. Once this child gets to 11th grade, you can just do 2 lessons per week. This would spread level 7 over 2 years and have you complete level 7 by the end of high school. If you decide though that you wanted to complete level 7 and 8, then I would just have that child continue on with one lesson per day.

I strongly advise doing R&S 2 for grade 3. I just did 3 for 3 and regret it. She got most of it, but, I think it would have been best to hold off a year.

R&S is advanced, so R&S2 would be wonderful for a third grader My 8yo is about halfway through R&S2 and scored at a 4th grade level in grammar on her testing last week.

One thing you could do with your olders is have them go through one of the lower books over the summer... like R&S4. They should be able to go through it fairly quickly because the lessons are pretty short. And then like someone else said, you can start them both in level 5 and just do one lesson per day.

Awesome advice here already - I agree, and you have a good plan moving forward! Thanks ladies for being so helpful and so gracious with your time!

In Christ,
Julie