6th grader is taking all day

[jkhamell]

Hi,

I need some help here. My 6th grader is very frusturated with REv. to Rev. It is taking her all day to finish her assignments 6 + hours. She is not able to follow the schedule and stay focused. She often gets lost in her reading time - reading ahead - forgetting what she has read. She says "This is so boring". Yet, she loves the story time titles and DITHOR titles. It all just seems to be taking her a long time. Any suggestions?

It is taking my 8th grader a while too - but not as frusturated. I do wonder about the extensions. Should she be reading all the history readings, Story time, and the extenstions?

Thanks for your input.

Kim

[LynnH]

Your 6th grader is on the very young end of the age range for Rev to Rev. The extensions are only for 14-15 year olds. My 13 year old isn't even doing the extensions and it is plenty. Also it is optional for her to read the storytime selections. They can either be read by the student or read by you. Maybe if you read them to her that would help. I still read the storytime selections to my ds. Rev to Rev is a very full and challenging guide. It sounds like she needs some help reading the directions in the boxes. Is this her first HOD guide? My ds takes about 5 1/2 hours on most days, but he does a different math so that might add a little time.

[jkhamell]

Lynn,

Thanks for confirming for me that she is young for this guide. I was feeling that too - really just the maturity necessary to manage all those little boxes - espeically with this being her first guide. So,I am thinking I will delete a few boxes for her while she learns to navigate the guide and successfully finish her work.

Her 13 year old 8th grade sister will continue with the full course - but I may leave out the extensions. Would that still work for 8th grade? She is taking Debate at co-op right now and an additional literature analysis class that require outside research and reading during the week. (we had signed up for these before we decided on HOD for the year) So I'm thinking my 13 year old 8th grader would be fine without extentions continuing course as written this semester while taking the additional classes at co-op.

Back to my 6th grader. She really likes the Storytime selections - so I think I would leave those in and as independent making sure she only reads the amount assigned. I would continue with Read about History Independently. I think we will do the rotating box Semi - independently. Continue with independent history and research. I may drop state study for now. She is doing another science program at co-op. I could drop the inventor study. I was thinking of doing this until she is successful and timely and then add back in the independent portion of rotating box. Perhaps state study at half pace. What do you think? I tried to make the number of boxes per day match RtoR which may be more at her maturity level for Time management.

Thanks for your thoughts.
Kim

[LynnH]

I think you could leave off the extensions for your 13 year old. It sounds like she is getting plenty and I feel Rev to Rev is a very full guide without the extensions.

As for your 6th grade I think dropping the state study is a good place to start since that is considered optional. I would be hesitant to drop the inventor study just because that is where the second written narration comes in. I find that for some reason it is more challenging for my ds to do the narration for the science boxes than for history so I figure he has to think in a different way. However if she is struggling at all with the history written narration then you could consider not having her do the written science narration for now which is the thing that seems to take the most time or you could drop the inventor study all together for awhile as you mentioned.

Another option would be to take the guide at half speed for her. I haven't done that so I am not sure how that looks, but many people have so if you posted a thread asking how to do that then they could advise you. I think some do the right side of the guide one day and the left the next and some do math and Language arts every day as scheduled and then split the other boxes, but again I am not positive. This would be a way to slowly get her used to the amount of work. You could stay half speed for as long as you felt it was necessary.

[Carrie]

Kim,

Lynn did a good job of helping you talk through some possible options. Often talking with others helps so much in figuring out a plan for moving forward.

One thing I will share is that typically we would almost never advise for a 6th grader who is new to HOD to begin in Rev2Rev. Age 11 is the very youngest age at which Rev2Rev should ever be used (and this would typically only be for a child who has come up through HOD's previous guides). This is because it takes an incredibly strong reader, writer, thinker, and independent worker to thrive in Rev2Rev as a 6th grader. The guide is also assuming that the child has a strong founding in CM style skills and that the child has honed these skills with a parent's help in previous years.

With this in mind, and the things that you have shared about your 6th grader thus far in the thread, I would lean toward placing your 6th grader in CTC instead. This is guide in which the child is gaining some independence, yet has many of the helps needed in the guide for him/her. The assignments and readings are shorter and the directions are less lengthy. It has the stepping stones toward success in a RTR and Rev2Rev that your child will need to succeed along the way.

While you could drop things from Rev2Rev to make it easier, or pull the guide back to a slower speed, I fear that in the long run your child will always then be unprepared for the level of rigor in each of the guides which come later. You will then be in a continual pattern of dropping, adjusting, and rewriting the plans, which will take away all of the beauty of the open-and-go feature our guides are intended to provide.

Keeping yor 6th grader in Rev2Rev will mean that she would be in grade 7 doing MTMM and then in grade 8 doing our first high school guide. Some kiddos who have come up through HOD may be able to do this, but most kiddos would find doing a high school guide in grade 8 to be overwhelming!

The good news is that if you make the adjustment now, your child will be better prepared for each guide along the path. I am not saying that changing guides will make your child's school day suddenly easy or have her completely loving her day immediately, but you will know that she is better placed and will be better able to help her without having to continually downsize.

A CM-style education takes some time to get used to and has many new skills. It requires a different type of slower, more thoughtful reading which means that there is an adjustment period when switching from fact-filled, full-color picture style texts to more living readings (where the words paint the pictures instead of the photographs doing that job). The connections among events and people that come with a higher level of reading material can take time to develop. This is likely what is mostly missing from your 6th grader's reading experience in Rev2Rev. If she is not seeing the connections between people and events all over the world as she reads, often in frustration this can result in something being called "boring". This is a complaint that is a catch-all for so many issues, such as frustration, being overwhelmed, feeling something is too difficult to understand, not being colorful enough, requiring too much work to read, not having enough knowledge to make the connections come alive, not being able to discern what the text is saying, or simply hoping the assignment will then be adjusted or removed etc.

I'd love to hear what you think. If you get a chance to pop back and share that would great!

Blessings,
Carrie

[jkhamell]

Hi there,

Thanks for your thoughts Carrie. I do think you are right, that having her in the same guide as my 8th grader is too much responsibility for independent learning. I have always taught them together and she seemed to place fine here on the charts. However I'm less sure now.

Here is what is going well: Storytime titles independently. She loves these and is able to have insightful discussions. Enjoys poetry - but needs me to check in to help with discussions. Grammar 5 and dictation level 6. Writing program is OK. We are completing Singapore 5A and continue to enjoy this program. She is a good creative writer - but summary writing comes very slow to her. DITHOR is great. She is reading more than ever this year and I credit that to the storytime titles. Well suited to her reading level and interest.

Here is what is not going well: Finishing each independent box. Often forgets to do something. Not looking to questions about art, poetry, or documents independently. Struggles with independent written narrations of History. She is not well organized - I have been re -reading section with her. Doing key ideas and helping her with the writing. It really seems like a time managment issue. The work is not too hard.

I just don't like to see her spending so much time on the history side of the page. Today we were 3 hours into our day and she was still not done. I don't think it should be taking this long.

I can truly see how the guides prepare for independence. My 9 year old 4th grader is doing great in Preparing. She has even taken over some semi - independent boxes coming to me for help on the days she needs it. It is truly a perfect fit. I love how the written narration independent skills are being built. I've seen her apply grammar lessons to independent writing etc. And I love Beyond for my young 7 year old first grader.

For my 6th grader I'm missing her having time to read for enjoyment, play the piano and violin. My concern with going all the way back to CTC is that we spent all of last year in that time period. I wrote the curriculum myself (former teacher here) I think she would balk. I thought about Resurection to Reformation. We have never done this time period and she fits here very well. There are less boxes. I just want her to have success.

How would you approach a switch with her? Have her look at the guide samples on line? Look at the book lists? Thanks for your further thoughts.

Kim

[jkhamell]

One more thought to add to yesterdays post.

I approached 6th grader about move and she thought it might be good. She reviewed guide samples on line and the materials for Reserection to Reformation. I know Carrie that you thought all the way to CTC and I certainly understand why - now that I see how the program progresses - but we really delved into that time period last year. So, I thought maybe I could take the history of RtoR at half speed for the first bit. Obviously we will continue our math and LA and bible at full speed. How do people manage a guide half speed?

Finally, this move means I will be managing 5 guides by next school year. I see lots of 4 guide managers and that is basically what I'm doing now. Just need a little encouragement to commit to 5. For our family it works best to be placed at our own levels. When we used curriculum designed to do history together someone was always left out.

All in all I'm almost ready to move. Just want to know what I may have overlooked. It doesn't help we had a great day today just as we are. But there was no writing today.

Thanks for help,
Kim

[my3sons]

With HOD, you have several placement options to consider, which is a blessing in the end, but which takes a little figuring out at the start sometimes! CTC is probably the ideal placement. Only you can know if repeating the ancients would be that big of a deal. Honestly, I've not seen anything do the ancients like CTC does. The book choices, follow-up activities, and student notebooking pages really make it unique. The Storytime titles are awesome! Real page turners. I'd think on that a bit before discounting it, as a solid placement when doing 5 guides is pretty key.

Another option would be to have dd join 9 yo dd in PHFHG, and have her do the extensions. Would it be easy for her? Maybe. But would it be a good overall placement for the family? Could be. Then, these two could move up together the following year to CTC, so there would be a year off before returning to the ancients. I think she would love the books - the extensions are wonderful, and they are for 11- 12 yo dc! You already have your LA/math and could continue with that.

Otherwise, if this seems too far to go back and she would balk at this, I'd say the absolute #1 thing to consider when doing multiple guides, especially 5 guides, is making 100% certain dc are ready for the independence required of them in a guide. This makes or breaks the success of multiple guides because if a student cannot do the level of reading, writing, multi-step directions, and independence required of the "I" and "S" boxes, all of those boxes become "T" boxes for the parent to do with the student. This makes the day go long, which is what you are finding already right now with dd in RevtoRev, which brings me to the last option... RTR half-speed. I would not recommend doing RTR over a full 2 years though. It starts to feel long to be in that same guide at the upper guides. You could have dd do RTR and RevtoRev over 3 years, and that may work well provided she can truly - fairly quickly - grow into the rigor of the guide and have success with the "I" and "S" parts.

What are your thoughts about these options? We will all try to help! As you know firsthand, HOD is awesome! It's worth this time to figure things out, and I really applaud you for realizing dd needs a change in placement. Hope something here helps, and we'll all check back to see your thoughts!

In Christ,
Julie