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After a few weeks of trying different thingsearly in the school year, I finally put both my boys in R&S English. It has been a good fit for my oldest son (4th grade) using the level 4 book, but my youngest son just doesn't seem to "get" diagramming. He is a very typical wiggly boy and seems to be about a semester "behind" other 3rd graders. Do I just keep plugging away with English 3 and hope it will eventually make sense? Or should I put him in English 2? I have both. Parts of level 2 seem easy, but other parts look more challenging. What would you all suggest?
Thank you.

Allison

I know for me that going a grade behind in R&S was suggested. I have my 4th grader in 3. It's working alot better for us this way. I think there is a post on here somewhere stating that you only need to finish R&S 6 by the end of 8th grade.
HTH I'm pretty new but I'm sure others with more experience will chime in.
Blessings,
Jenni

I did English 2 for 3rd grade and was very pleased with it. I agree that the diagramming makes English 3 more difficult than the average grammar program for that age. I taught 3rd. grade in ps for 7 years prior to homeschooling. Through those years we used several different grammar programs, and none of them did diagramming. They also were not nearly as rigorous as R & S. R & S is known to be quite aggressive. I've heard it tossed around that if dc complete English 6 by the end of the eighth grade, that is certainly sufficient enough. You could always begin in the middle of English 2 otherwise, if that seems a better placement. We've been happy with the path we're on so far. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

I'm doing R&S 2 for English now for 3rd grade with my son. It's not difficult, but I think he's learning and I'm pleased with how it's going.

Kathleen

I'm doing R&S 2 with a 3rd grader as well - I think in general R&S English is about a year ahead of other programs.

I am also using R&S 2 with my 3rd grade dd...and we are actually using level 3 with my ds 10. He had not done diagraming, and I did not want him to miss it. We're skipping some lessons that are easy, and only doing half in others, so he should be to level 4 after Christmas. I am glad we started there, even though he could have moved into level 4...I think it has helped us avoid any confusion he may have had with the diagraming otherwise. I have also hear R&S is more advanced...it is very thorough and I'm so happy with my dc's progress.

Thank you everyone! I feel much better now. I'm going to go back to R&S 2. I seem to remember Carrie saying that R&S was advanced and to use a grade level behind, but I wasn't certain.

Allison

Allison,

The ladies on the board are SO right in their advice! We did Rod and Staff 2 with my third grader last year (along with Bigger Hearts) and found it to be a perfect fit! Rod and Staff is VERY advanced. We are recommending that parents make plans to be able to complete Rod and Staff 6 by the end of their child's 8th grade year, in order to give kiddos the time to mature enough to handle the higher-level grammar application in the levels 5 and 6 of Rod and Staff.

Blessings,
Carrie