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I need an estimate of time spent on DITHOR at each level. A breakdown of teaching time and independent student time would be so helpful .

I also need to understand the time breakdown for R&S English at each level. Are you using the Oral Review that is contained in the teacher's guide?

What are the skills taught in Write With the Best which is scheduled in CTC??

Thanks so much! Still puzzling through our path......

I won't be much help, but I can tell what our experience has been so far.

DITHOR takes us 20-30 minutes. That includes doing everything. I don't know about the specific breakdown though.

We're doing R & S English 2 and it takes us 10-15 min. The oral review isn't until level 3, so no experience with that. The time just seems to fly by. I love it and so does my ds (and he's a Math and Science guy). What's the best thing about it though? My ds is really retaining. The previous 2 year, our Grammar was always tied to our spelling (SWR) and my ds seemed to retain nothing and it showed on the year end test too for the State. I'm super confident that he'll do so much better this year, and R & S is gentle the way HOD suggests doing it.

Hi Katrina,

Welcome! I honestly can't speak to DITHOR since I haven't used it yet. We'll be starting it in the fall. I know others will chime in though. Also Carrie and Julie might also pop in to help you when they have time.

R&S: We are using R&S 4 with Preparing right now. I use the TM and I do the oral review with him, then have him read the lesson from the student book and have him do a little of the work on a dry erase board. This takes 20 minutes most days. If he struggles with the oral review questions I usually have him do some writing with whatever principal he's not remembering.

I'm also not using Write with the Best so can't help you there. I'm sure you probably have looked at the 1st week of CtC but if not be sure to do that. That will tell you how the LA and writing are scheduled each week. It will remain the same as far as scheduling with just appropriate skill advances.

I know that didn't help much. I know users of CtC and DITHOR will chime in soon.

Blessings!

Well, I am using CtC with my daughter. I wanted to give you what I could about Write with the Best, as we LOVE it!

Firstly, the manual is divided into "units". There are 9 units. Each unit contains 10 days of instruction. The units are titled as follows: Writing a Descriptive Paragraph-describing an object, Writing a Descritpive Paragraph-describing a place, Writing a Descriptive Paragraph-describing a character, Writing a Dialogue, Writing a Short Story, Writing a Fable, Writing a Friendly Letter, Writing Poetry-rhyming verse, Writing Poetry-a ballad or narrative poem. Each unit uses a great peice from literature as an example or foundation for that unit. For example, unit 1 uses an excerpt from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. There is a wonderful appendix in the back called the How to Write Guide. Also, the introduction is full of helps as well.

Jill Dixon says in the introduction that the main goal of the program is to teach students to write descriptively, to produce successful writers who know how to write effectively, know how to proofread their work, and who know how to analyze great literature.

Unit one opens with reading the excerpt by Jules Verne. In Day 2 you learn/review four parts of speech and discuss characteristics that make writing "great". In Day 3 you work through the Jules Verne passage marking the adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and nouns found therein. In Day 4 you use a thesaurus to replace a list of words given in the lesson with 3 substitute words. In Day 5 you choose a paragraph in a book of your choice that is describing an object. Then the student writes down all of the descriptive words they can find. Then there is a discussion and dictation using that paragraph. In Day 6 you discuss and learn the requirements for writing a proper paragraph. Day 7 starts the student in the process of learning how to write a paragraph, very step by step over the course of Days 7-10 of the unit. So this gives you a little picture of how it begins!!

It teaches writing from the ground up, beginning with the paragraph--one thing I love about the program!!

We are not very far through the program yet, as we have been doing CtC at half speed for awhile. But it looks like WWTB gets progressively more challenging as you work through it.

Hope this helps a little, and gives you a little picture of things!!