heartofdakota.com

Posted: **Tue May 25, 2010 4:06 pm**

Hello Everyone,

My name is Christina and I'm a homeschool Mama to seven lovely children ranging in age from 16 to 5 months. We have been homeschooling for 10+ years. I've been lurking here for awhile now. I love CM and have been looking for some time for a program that puts things all together in a format that makes sense to me. I think HOD is it!!

Anyways, we are planning on using Beyond and CtC this year to start with.

My question is about CtC.....I can't find anything that tells me whether spelling is covered in the TM or not.

My 4th and 8th graders will be using it. My 8th grader has pretty good spelling, but my 4th grader will need more work on hers. I'm just trying to plan ahead to see if I'll need to purchase anything extra.

We are so excited to begin!!! I think this coming school year will be a blessing.

Thank you,
Christina

Posted: **Tue May 25, 2010 4:13 pm**

HOD uses dictation for spelling. I'm not sure what levels are covered in the CTC guide so you may have to add something else for the 8th grader, but I'm sure someone more familiar with it will chime in!

Welcome and you will love HOD!

Posted: **Tue May 25, 2010 6:02 pm**

I'm not sure because I don't have the CTC guide in front of me, but I believe the levels for dictation are 3, 4, and 5. My son in 6th grade was using level 5 and it was a bit challenging for him, a good speller. If your older child(ren) is good at spelling maybe you could purchase the next guide, RTR, to use just for the higher levels of dictation? Hopefully someone else will chime in with more suggestions soon.

Posted: **Tue May 25, 2010 6:45 pm**

Hi Christina, and welcome to the HOD Board!

We have a bunch in common. We both love CM. We both like how HOD weaves CM into everything so beautifully. We've both been teaching awhile (15 years for me between ps and homeschooling). And, I did CTC and Beyond last year (plus LHTH for my little guy). You are going to love your year with HOD!

O.k. back to the question though.

The ladies are right. CTC has Levels 3, 4, and 5 of dictation in the Appendix. RTR has levels 4, 5, and 6. You may want to get your CTC manual and start your oldest on Level 5 to get an idea of how it will go. Or, if your oldest has had quite a bit of experience with dictation and needs the next level up in RTR, you can just get that. Here are some links with dictation samples from each guide, in case that may be beneficial:
Dictation Samples:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1221
CTC Level 5 Dictation Sample:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5068&p=37153#p37153

I think you are going to enjoy HOD so much! I am looking forward to getting to know you here. This board has the best ladies on it - so helpful and so encouraging. You should fit right in!

In Christ,
Julie

Posted: **Wed May 26, 2010 11:28 am**

Thought I'd take a break from putting in the garden to say "thank you" for the thoughtful responses to my question. I've always been too timid to try dictation only for spelling while berating myself for it at the same time. Julie, the links you provided have given me an extra boost of courage to try this. It looks like Carrie provides a lot of "hand holding" in the guides which is just what I needed. There are a couple of my girls that I've tried basically every kind of spelling program on, and they still have issues with spelling. I'm guessing that this is just what they need as it requires them to be very purposeful.

The other plus is that I also have an excuse to purchase the RTR guide as well. Gotta love that.

I look forward to getting to know the other wonderful ladies on this board as well.

Blessings,
Christina

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