World Geography placement?

[mommydama]

Hi,
I'm new here, but we have used Heart of Dakota curriculum. We are using Missions to Modern Marvels currently. I am trying to decide what to do next year. I will have a somewhat advanced 13 year old who is ready for high school level work (and has done some this year in math and science while completing Missions to Modern Marvels) and a 12 year old (6th grader this year) who has dyslexia and struggles a bit. The 12 year old is also doing Modern history this year, but not HOD. I would like to have them work together some next year, but am concerned that the 12 year old will not be able to keep up. Creation to Christ seems too simple for her, however, and I also am trying to avoid doing a totally separate curriculum. What do you think?

Thanks for any help you can give!
Dama

[LynnH]

Has your 13 year old done everything in MTMM as written with no problems? If they have then you could move them on to the World Geography guide. It is a big jump in the amount of work. Much more reading, writing and takes longer to do. On average 6 1/2 hours a day if you do it 4 days a week. I would not put your 12 year old in there. It is very challenging for high school age dc with learning issues. In fact many with dc with dyslexia choose to do the lower level guides for high school. If you look at the placement chart, ignoring the history time period, where does the 12 year old place? In what way does CTC seem to simple? It is a pretty full guide with very challenging reading. If you are going to read everything to this dc then you would pay more attention to the writing and the higher level thinking skills and see where they place. I wouldn't go higher than RTR. I understand your wanting to not do 2 curriculum, but with one advanced and one with learning challenges if you try to combine them I think you will end up either frustrating the 12 year old or boring the 13 year old. If you combining is what you truly want to do then there are threads on bumping up the guides to be more challenging or even high school level. You could go with RTR and do this. It would just mean adding some things for the 13 year old.

[mommydama]

Good information! Thank you!

My 12 year old daughter has completed the DITHOR guide for 6/7/8 once already. Don't really want to do that one again. We read aloud a lot or do audio books while she follows along in a print version to help her with reading comprehension. I would love to do CTC as we never did that one, but the amount of tweaking feels like it might make it not worth it. We already do our own math and science programs. I would need to replace the literature and writing components as well. I am also afraid I can't make it challenging enough to qualify as high school credit for my 13 year old.

Thanks for the input!

Dama