Now a Word from my Inner Geek

When I was visiting our friends this week, I fell in love with a teaching resource. This happens so rarely that I can count the occasions on one hand, I think. I use educational resources, but usually with some pain, like wearing a shoe that almost fits but not quite. The ones that really really don't fit, and they add up fast, I put in the box or give away. What I really love about homeschooling is primary resources -- living books and cultural things. -- art, music, drama. And friends, and imaginary play, and conversations, and nature, and the truths and seasons and practices of our Faith (not in that particular order, of course). Those are the essential things, and the rest is the "tools" -- what gets you there, so to speak.

So many educational resources, I find, seem to hinder rather than help on that journey. Charlotte Mason speaks of too much teaching and little learning. I have to step out of my own way all too often, actually, and could stand to do it even more. But so many teaching resources, particularly in my family, have to be kept firmly in their place. If allowed, they start making learning painful and overly busy, like Martha in the Gospel story.

Anyway, the resource was Spell to Write and Read along with its companion, the WISE Guide to Spelling. How prosaic that sounds, of course. You were expecting something very thrilling, and instead you get spelling. But let me try to explain a bit.

I can't describe the books (which come as a "Core" package) thoroughly enough to do them justice, since I don't have them yet, but they are the kind of resources that put you "behind the scenes", so to speak. The program gives you the big, integrated picture AND the nitty gritty details, the "scope" and the "sequence". It isn't just teacher-speak, a pragmatic "how to", though it has lots of practical bits of advice. It has theory, but applied and explained. They are wonderful books. You can use them for years, and they are non-consumable. Unfortunately, I only have four kids who still need any kind of help with spelling/word analysis, but on the bright side, if I had bought the program for my older set, it would have been largely unnecessary (they were natural spellers and readers) and I would have bought the OLD version, which would have had to be replaced anyway, probably.

I admit that I am a language geek -- my other romances with teacher's resources have been with the progym (in general -- specifically, I like Classical Writing: Aesop), Latin (Henle), and analytic grammar (Whole Book of Diagrams) --plus Charlotte Mason's books and my Ignatian Implementation manual, both of which put the main educational emphasis on the use and understanding of language-- so that is probably part of it. I've had WRiting Road to Reading for years and have gotten a fair bit of mileage out of it. I have heard about SWR/WISE, which is based on the WRTR method, many times through my homeschooling years but was put off by the price and figured it was unnecessary since I was able to use WRTR pretty well, apparently unlike most of the people who bought SWR.

But after looking through the program for several days and taking piles of notes in spare moments, I decided it was worth the price (though OUCH -- I still would much prefer collecting10-15 wonderful living books to buying one curriculum, no matter how great I think it is).

So I bought the manuals, and I just can't wait till they come so I can dive in. Even if I never actually sat down and used them directly with the kids, I think they would be worth it to me just for the boost they would give my own personal understanding of why and how we teach the basics of spelling, writing and reading. I bought them mostly for ME. If they work out nicely with the kids, that is just a side benefit.

OK! I'll stop now!

Review of CHC's Middle School Planner

Lesson Plan Guide: Middle School Years
5th-8th Grades
Catholic Heritage Curricula
308 pages
copyright 2005 CHC

Catholic Heritage Curricula's purpose is to provide thoroughly Catholic resources that are flexible and easy to use in the homeschool. Their aim is to steer the middle ground between chaos and burnout, and this objective is well achieved in this lesson planning manual.

This lesson plan manual, in a sturdy spiral binding, is a Catholic Heritage Curricula exclusive. The books recommended are either CHC exclusives or distributed by the company so that if you use the guide as written, you can do all your shopping at one place. The manual is meant to be used with the blank lesson planner also provided by CHC. One nice feature of the book is that copying privileges are allowed within a single family. The student resources are intended to be photocopied for the student to use independently, for example. This offsets the price of the book, and makes it possible to use the resources again and again through the years.

The appearance of the pages is clean and attractive. Charts make excellent use of shading and fonts to aid the eye, and the resource lists have nice pictorial elements; the quotes are set aside in sidebars.

The book is divided into four sections: one on how to use the manual, another containing an overview and brief course layouts for each grade, a third section containing student syllabi, and a final section devoted to teacher resources. All the sections are interspersed with quotes from saints or Popes on learning, and advice and counsel from other homeschool moms, to provide opportunities for reflection.

The first section contains an introduction, an "At a Glance" chart, a list of FAQ, and suggestions on how to begin using the manual. The At a Glance is a scope and sequence chart of all the curriculum recommended for all subjects during the four years of middle school. The FAQ addresses questions such as: Is the course of study too light? what if my child won't listen to me? what if my child is ahead or behind in some subjects?

The second section goes through the four grades one by one. For each grade there is a list of the curriculum used for the courses; a sample filled-out week from the Lesson Plan Book; and brief details about the weekly flow of the different lessons. In religion for sixth grade, for example, Monday and Tuesday are suggested for reading the Faith and Life book and doing the activity page; Wedesday through Friday are devoted to Bible History, and it is recommended that the students answer questions in a notebook. Optional enrichment for this subject: A Year with God.

The third section is the longest in the book. It contains six student courses: one each for fifth and sixth grade, and two each for seventh and eighth. The courses are "hands on" history or geography, with the exception of a seventh grade study on the Virtues. The spine texts used are thoroughly Catholic. For example, fifth and sixth grades use "All Ye Lands" and "From Sea to Shining Sea". Eighth grade history is based on ??Catholic Catechism History and 2000 Years of Church History.

The hands-on courses are planned in a fashion somewhat between a textbook course and a unit study. The student is usually asked to read a section from a spine text like "All Ye Lands", then given a variety of activities to choose from: reading historical fiction, doing a craft, a creative writing, looking at a video or online field trip, discussing something or doing extra research. The courses progress appropriately in difficulty from fifth to eighth grade, with more complex writing projects required at the older ages. A "Five Question" paper format is taught and developed and practiced during the upper level courses. The courses are put together so that they can be photocopied and given to the student so that he can work independently.

The final section of the book is titled "Teacher Resources" and contains three resources: A composition handbook for the homeschool mom; a "science in a nutshell" scope and sequence list of the different areas of science compiled by Holly Pierlot; and a World History Timeline with all the dates included that might be of interest to the homeschooler in putting together a family timeline.

Though day to day suggested layouts are provided in most of the courses, and the student syllabi come complete and ready to use,a complete overall "ready to go" daily layout is not provided. The manual is meant to be used with the CHC lesson planner, and this is where the daily and weekly details are entered. For example, the recommended weekly plan for 6th grade religion is given. But the teacher or student would have to actually put the specific page numbers and details into the right place in the Lesson Planner. This is different from the CHC lesson plans in the earlier grades where each week is laid out ahead of time. The intention is probably to help the parent and child to take over the planning reins a bit more in preparation for the high school years. Including four grades in the manual instead of just one is an advantage because it gives a general "flow" to the middle school years and lets the homeschooler pick and choose courses according to the child's ability level.

Teach Your Child to Read

I'm going to start an occasional habit of mentioning some of the resources we are using or hoping to use around here, and posting personal reviews. I write some formal ones occasionally for this site, but the ones on here can be more targeted to how they are working for us and how we use them or plan to use them.

First is my all time stand-by primary resource, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. If I could have only one curriculum book (as opposed to living, real books) to use during the early years, it would be this one. I do not think it's perfect. The stories are silly, though cute and harmless, and the distar orthography is a bit strange, and off-putting to some adults. However, the way it teaches blending the letter sounds is unparalleled. And the orthography, which uses visual tricks to show digraphs like "th" or "ea", is helpful for visual learners in particular, I think. The orthography normalizes into standard written script by lesson 73 or around there, and that is usually where we drop the book. Much of the rest of it is about reading upper case letters and learning the names of the letters, and this is usually something that's difficult to KEEP your child from learning; my four year old already has the upper case letters down and I haven't ever sat down to "teach" him.

Another advantage for me with the 100 Easy Lessons method is that it is simple. You need a chair to sit down on with the child, and maybe a pencil and paper, and the book itself. Simplicity and direct give and take are advantages for me, and my children generally learn fastest that way.

There are scripted words for the teacher or parent to read and say to the children. I don't use the scripting given anymore. I am on my fifth emergent reader (my oldest learned to read in school). With each child I've used the book less formally, and with Aidan, I am using some additional Montessori-type methods. Why am I doing this? For one thing, he needs more repetition in order to remember. We drop the book when he is getting stuck, and pick it up again later. For another thing, I the mom would like to get to try out some other approaches -- it gets boring to use the same thing 5 times over 12 years! For another thing, he particularly needs a multi-sensory approach. There is more to say about that but it is for another post.

When the child is through lesson 70 or so, we usually move on to some basal readers so that the children can reinforce the phonics learning and gain some fluency. More about that some other time.