I needed this video so much! This is what I’ve been looking for. My son is entering 3rd grade but is not writing. His handwriting is beautiful and his vocabulary is exceptional. He also doesn’t want to misspell words when I could just tell him. He is a smart kid and on track besides that. I can’t imagine forcing him to do a journal everyday. We would be in tears every single day. I know I did one in 1st grade private school but with homeschool I don’t have to make him. I have felt so guilty until this video. Thank you thank you!
Thank you so much for this. My daughter will be entering 5th grade next year and she is similar to what you’ve described in your son. Everything you said really clicked with me and I just really appreciate your vulnerability and honesty. At this point in our homeschool journey, I do see the negatives of pushing writing too early. My daughter has always been a reluctant writer and I believe forcing writing at different stages had been bad for her. I went to a public school K-12 and I’ve had to let go of a lot of the ideologies I learned, particularly with writing and math. It has helped my kiddos thrive, so I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful and encouraged by your straightforward talk here as well! I like that Imitation In Writing, will for sure be looking into it.
Thank you for this. I’ve gotten grief from many because I never pushed my son to color or such. He’s five now and we are working on Kindergarten stuff. For years now, family would send coloring books but he never cared. I knew I’d do better if I waited until he was ready. Yesterday when it became his idea, he took off with it. For hours. I truly believe kids will learn better when they’re self motivated to learn, when the desire is there. Anyway, very appreciative of your openness and honesty.
Thank you for shating this!! I appreciate your honesty and talking on this topic! I think MANY can relate❤ Early on in our homeschooling, a wise and seasoned homeschooler said, "better late than early" when it comes to covering some subjects... After 17 years of home educating myself, I couldn't agree more! YOU are doing an amazing job navigating it all❤❤
Thanks you, Anna! Glad to hear this resonates with so many mamas. Every kid is different, but I think more often than not, waiting helps! That's definitely been my experience.
You're doing a great job!! I've had the same struggles with my eldest who is about to turn 15. We've made slow, very slow, progress over the years and it's been worth it to wait and not push too much. Once their brain can handle it better, it truly is so much easier! Keep up the good work 😊
Thanks so much, Christie!! This is super encouraging to hear 💜👏🏻💜 I appreciate you sharing!! What curriculum or methods have you used with your 15 year old??
I had him do mostly copywork in the beginning. We used A Reason for Handwriting for a while. We tried IEW and it helped a little, but he fought it a lot and I gave up. I put him in a homeschool academy for a year and he had to write for some of his classes and it was rough but he got through it. I think having expectations from someone other than me motivated him 😁. Now we're using Jump In and he's doing pretty well with it!
This video showed up at just the right time. My reluctant writer is almost 8. 3rd-5th grade in everything but writing and spelling. We moved to Spelling You See and it improved his confidence. He is writing his own comic books now 😊 Looking at Simply Classical Writing for next year. We are using Fix It Grammar level 1 this year
Thank you for sharing, Ashley! My 5th grader is similar to yours and my heart was breaking for her. We have had some success in Dianne Craft's Right Brain curriculum. It has boosted my 5th graders spelling and writing confidences. Katie from the Life of the Mundane has videos on the curriculum. It is by far one of her best recommendations!!
I needed to hear this! I’ve read the article you mentioned more than once. And I need to keep reading it to remind myself to remember that it’s ok to wait with more formal writing instruction. My daughter is finishing up grade three, but is still learning to read, thus why I haven’t made writing a priority. She can absolutely take her thoughts and get them down on paper, but it’s unorganized and choppy. This is where I feel like I’m failing. Because she doesn’t quite “get it” that writing should have a flow to it in order for it to make sense. So this year I’ve just tried to model what sounds good and guide her oral dictations as I write them down for her. I keep telling myself that if I just model how it should be done, and guide her, that little by little, and step-by-step, she will then take over and be able to do it on her own. I have to remember just like with reading, it’s a step-by-step process. It’ll take time to build upon it year after year.
Ashley, I just love how honest you are! We are so much alike. I can totally relate with having a child with dyslexia... I think 2 of mine have it and it has definitely been challenging for me and them.
The Fairy Tales Imitation series looks fascinating, I really like the author’s intro. Can’t wait to hear what you think after a few months. Thanks for this video!
I appreciate you sharing this with us! Your son and my son sound SO similar and I was not looking forward to the fight next year (he's in 2nd now). But I think it makes total sense, why not teach when it's more natural? That is something that can for sure be caught up on. Thank you so much again!!! Just what I needed to hear
We have such a similar experience I almost cried just to have another Mama who gets it! My struggle is how to get all of these parts done in a week without having our school days drag out (plus my child fatigues). Do you have any videos that talk about your schedule to get all of the things done in a week? My kiddo is going into 4th. Thank you for such a genuine and helpful video!
My daughter cannot write by herself and struggles with spelling too. This year I started her on level 1 of AAS and I’m definitely going to check out the narration book you mentioned at the end! Thank you for this video.
Great reminder! I started too early with writing for my daughter. After 2nd/3rd grade being so difficult I decided to go a more CM route of Dictation. It’s been a breath of fresh air and my daughter has been enjoying it more than the last two years by far! ❤
Wonderful! Good to hear that, Jerilyn! Interestingly my current 3rd grader/8 year old actually enjoys writing and is good at it. So he is one that I'm not going to pull back on. I forgot to mention that in the video. All kids are different!
It's so hard as homeschool mom to wait sometimes!!! lol I go back and forth about reading, for my almost 6 years old. But then, I know I just need to wait!!!
Thank you for sharing! I could relate very much to everything you said. My daughter is only a second grader. She likes to writes simple little books for her younger brothers (like a sentence or phrase per page). But my m.i.l who is a teacher, got me all freaked out about how much she should be writing and that in public school, they do creative writing beginning in k. My daughter started to get really frustrated and really does not like writing. I realized that's because she isn't confident in her spelling. So I put the breaks on and now we are doing a.a.s. I also got the early bird fall guide from black bird company. It's exactly what we needed for now.
Don't let your MIL freak you about how kids doing creative writing in school. I wish I could post a sample of something actually written by an average kindergartener on here so you could see it's nothing to stress over. Most of the kids are writing a single phonetic spelled sentence with a picture. Imagine something like, "I hav a dg namd ber," with an illustration of the kiddos dog. Sometimes they add on to this by doing one or two phonetically spelled sentences each day and then turn it into a little book. By the end of the year, the expectation is to be able to write 3 simple sentences using proper capitalization of the first letter and a punctuation mark - usually a period. In 1st grade they will expand on that and maybe write slightly longer sentences. They may also be given a word bank or have a word wall at school where they can refer to the bank or wall for proper spelling of some words. By the end of the year, they will probably be writing a full 5 or 6 basic sentences they can call a paragraph. In 2nd grade they will work on perfecting a simple paragraph, perhaps adding in some more complex or compound sentences bc by this time they're vocabulary and basic knowledge of how a short story goes will be slightly more advanced. By the end of 2nd grade they should have a decent grasp of writing a paragraph with a simple beginning, middle, and end. Depending on the level of each individual student you may have some students ready to write much more and others who are more comfortable with just a simple paragraph. If you'd like to start teaching your child to write, you can quickly get her writing a full paragraph by the end of this year if you work on it in a similar but more accelerated fashion. Start with simple sentences and teaching the basics of capitalizing the first letter and adding punctuation to the end. Work on having her write one sentence per day. Model this for her by writing your own sentence as an example. After a few weeks, you can move onto writing a little more, perhaps three sentences where one sentence represents a beginning, the next is the middle, and the third is the ending. Once comfortable doing that, your child can then journal write for a while or maybe keep a diary where she can write her thoughts, dreams or what have you. In the meantime, just keep working on helping her improve her spelling and get the hang of grammar. Once you get further along in the school year, try to start having her write 5 sentences in one go. Let her choose the topic or come up with one together. Make it something fun! If her spelling and grammar have improved by this time, she'll feel more confident putting her words on paper. Then in third grade you can start helping her perfect writing a paragraph. You can even teach her the basics as far as how to create a topic and concluding sentence to her paragraph. You can also teach her about indenting. In 4th you can expand on that further by teaching her to expand her writing in multiple paragraphs by having her write for example, an informative piece on her favorite animal. In it she can pick three things she wants to teach the reader about the animal like - appearance, habitat, behavior. After some research she can fill in some facts under each header as sort of an outline before writing her multi-paragraph piece. Let her take it slowly, writing only one paragraph daily. Anyway, don't let your MIL stress you out over writing. Your kiddo will be fine and will learn to write. Writing is honestly so easy to implement. Just take it step by step and all will be well. Good luck!
@@bethanyhomeschool Thank you so much! That makes a lot more sense. She does has pretty good grasp on how a paragraph should go (beginning,middle end). Capitalization and punctuation, she's pretty good with it too. Spelling is still a struggle though. And that definitely is her frustration with writing more in depth paragraphs. She is starting to write small paragraphs though and not just short sentences, so that is progress. Thank you so much for the break down of what the expectation for each grade is. That was very helpful.
Thank you for sharing your honesty! As well as sharing about waiting for writing instruction. I've been kind of wondering about doing that myself with my 10 year old. We're still doing a lot of phonics instruction & spelling. Feel like adding a writing component will be too much for her. I do plan on using IEW someday for writing instruction when we get to that point. Just not there yet. Thank you again Ashley for your honesty.
This could not have come at a better time! I have a similar situation in learning styles/strengths with my oldest and youngest. Thank you for this reassurance!
We are there with you on writing not being an easy subject for us to be diligent in. So right now we just have been doing copy work and those are things I’ve latched onto as well. We haven’t ventured into creative writing yet. Thanks for sharing your journey! It’s helpful to know we aren’t the only ones in that boat.
I feel like I'm in a very similar place. My son will be 8 and in 3rd grade in the fall. We haven't been consistent on writing instruction and I feel the need to include some this year. We've done a few books of the Building Writers from Handwriting without Tears, but we are getting bored with those, and it doesn't give a lot of instruction of HOW to write so he's basically writing the same way every single time. We have grammar/language arts for this coming year (Grammar Galaxy) but I feel like we need a little more writing. I was thinking about Night Zookeeper, but being on the computer I'm not sure how it would work since he doesn't know how to type yet. I was looking at Structure and Style, and it looks good, but I feel like it's a bit much for 3rd grade. I really just want something simple that teaches how to write a good sentence and then goes into writing a few sentences or a paragraph. Getting him to write anything is kind of a struggle. I know I need to do more oral narration and dictation, but, like you, I need something that tells me what to do next...not just come up with it on my own. I don't expect him to write a paper; I just want him comfortable with writing and be able to get his thoughts across. When he talks he will take forever to say something and that kinda translates in his writing, but then he doesn't want to write that much, haha! I'm going to look into the Fairy Tales you showed. I know you mentioned doing it with your 3rd grader and then decided to use it for your 5th grade...did you also use it for your 3rd grader or what did/do you use? (Sorry this was long lol)
My son turns 8 this month and he’s so resistant to learning reading and doing any writing. I have not felt the rush to teach it until til now but I think I’m going to continue waiting and focusing on other things. The pressure I feel now to push him, actually comes from my mother, and it’s not my own beliefs about education.
AAS recommends not starting writing until after level 3. CM says age 10. We found this perfect for my oldest who did ZERO writing until 5th grade and them started IEW. Narration, cooywork, AAS to 3. I also pace style and structure every 2 weeks. With my youngest I have abandoned AAS so not sure what my spelling marker is going to be!
Are the imitation books in order by levels? Im also freaking out about my son not writing enough. I may try the phonetic zoo from IEW for spelling. Thank you for the video
Yes! We use Touch Type Read Spell. It's been the best one for both boys so far. It doesn't get too difficult too quickly, and they can go at their own pace.
I was wondering about the fix it grammar as a CM inspired homeschooler. Seeing things incorrectly, doesn’t that go against reading and writing for CM? I do use fix it wjth my 12yo and will try with my 9yo next year.
That's a great question! I still use copywork with correct grammar and writing. And I don't make a huge focus on Fix It Grammar. I like it as a tool to use to go along with our other language arts things. They do one or two lessons a week, sometimes we skip it for a week or two. I don't put a lot of pressure on it. :) I'm also not a CM purist. I follow a lot of the principles, but not all!
Oh I'm so sorry 😣 Those all sound like pretty normal interruptions! Have you tried the timer method? Set a timer for 20 minutes (or 15, or 30, depends on the kid and their age!) and tell the kids you are going to work on this one thing for that long. You need their full attention until the timer goes off. When it's done, you stop and move to the next thing. This really helps with writing because rarely do they "want" to do it. When they know there's an end, it helps! Also, if your kids are little, don't fret too much! They'll get there! Start with 20 minutes of formal lessons and focus on play time :)
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I needed this video so much! This is what I’ve been looking for. My son is entering 3rd grade but is not writing. His handwriting is beautiful and his vocabulary is exceptional. He also doesn’t want to misspell words when I could just tell him. He is a smart kid and on track besides that. I can’t imagine forcing him to do a journal everyday. We would be in tears every single day. I know I did one in 1st grade private school but with homeschool I don’t have to make him. I have felt so guilty until this video. Thank you thank you!
Thank you so much for this. My daughter will be entering 5th grade next year and she is similar to what you’ve described in your son. Everything you said really clicked with me and I just really appreciate your vulnerability and honesty. At this point in our homeschool journey, I do see the negatives of pushing writing too early. My daughter has always been a reluctant writer and I believe forcing writing at different stages had been bad for her. I went to a public school K-12 and I’ve had to let go of a lot of the ideologies I learned, particularly with writing and math. It has helped my kiddos thrive, so I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful and encouraged by your straightforward talk here as well! I like that Imitation In Writing, will for sure be looking into it.
Thank you for this. I’ve gotten grief from many because I never pushed my son to color or such. He’s five now and we are working on Kindergarten stuff. For years now, family would send coloring books but he never cared. I knew I’d do better if I waited until he was ready. Yesterday when it became his idea, he took off with it. For hours. I truly believe kids will learn better when they’re self motivated to learn, when the desire is there. Anyway, very appreciative of your openness and honesty.
Thank you for shating this!! I appreciate your honesty and talking on this topic! I think MANY can relate❤
Early on in our homeschooling, a wise and seasoned homeschooler said, "better late than early" when it comes to covering some subjects... After 17 years of home educating myself, I couldn't agree more! YOU are doing an amazing job navigating it all❤❤
Thanks you, Anna! Glad to hear this resonates with so many mamas. Every kid is different, but I think more often than not, waiting helps! That's definitely been my experience.
Better late than early, I really like that, thank you!
Moms who homeschool rule! ✨ keep up the great work from one home school mom to another 😊
Super helpful and encouraging! I was glad to hear a good review of Matt whitling’s curriculum.
You're doing a great job!! I've had the same struggles with my eldest who is about to turn 15. We've made slow, very slow, progress over the years and it's been worth it to wait and not push too much. Once their brain can handle it better, it truly is so much easier! Keep up the good work 😊
Thanks so much, Christie!! This is super encouraging to hear 💜👏🏻💜 I appreciate you sharing!! What curriculum or methods have you used with your 15 year old??
I had him do mostly copywork in the beginning. We used A Reason for Handwriting for a while. We tried IEW and it helped a little, but he fought it a lot and I gave up. I put him in a homeschool academy for a year and he had to write for some of his classes and it was rough but he got through it. I think having expectations from someone other than me motivated him 😁. Now we're using Jump In and he's doing pretty well with it!
This video showed up at just the right time. My reluctant writer is almost 8. 3rd-5th grade in everything but writing and spelling. We moved to Spelling You See and it improved his confidence. He is writing his own comic books now 😊 Looking at Simply Classical Writing for next year. We are using Fix It Grammar level 1 this year
Yes to using curriculum to hold myself accountable and make sure we are consistent!
Thank you for sharing, Ashley! My 5th grader is similar to yours and my heart was breaking for her. We have had some success in Dianne Craft's Right Brain curriculum. It has boosted my 5th graders spelling and writing confidences. Katie from the Life of the Mundane has videos on the curriculum. It is by far one of her best recommendations!!
That is awesome!
I needed to hear this! I’ve read the article you mentioned more than once. And I need to keep reading it to remind myself to remember that it’s ok to wait with more formal writing instruction. My daughter is finishing up grade three, but is still learning to read, thus why I haven’t made writing a priority. She can absolutely take her thoughts and get them down on paper, but it’s unorganized and choppy. This is where I feel like I’m failing. Because she doesn’t quite “get it” that writing should have a flow to it in order for it to make sense. So this year I’ve just tried to model what sounds good and guide her oral dictations as I write them down for her. I keep telling myself that if I just model how it should be done, and guide her, that little by little, and step-by-step, she will then take over and be able to do it on her own. I have to remember just like with reading, it’s a step-by-step process. It’ll take time to build upon it year after year.
I've never heard that IEW works great for kids with dyslexia - keen to check that out for my kiddos! Thankyou for that recommendation!!!
Glad it was helpful!
This is the video I needed. Thank you!!!!!
Ashley, I just love how honest you are! We are so much alike. I can totally relate with having a child with dyslexia... I think 2 of mine have it and it has definitely been challenging for me and them.
Good to hear from you, Sarah! Thank you for sharing that as well. You should check out the RAR podcast I shared. It was very helpful and encouraging.
The Fairy Tales Imitation series looks fascinating, I really like the author’s intro. Can’t wait to hear what you think after a few months. Thanks for this video!
I appreciate you sharing this with us! Your son and my son sound SO similar and I was not looking forward to the fight next year (he's in 2nd now). But I think it makes total sense, why not teach when it's more natural? That is something that can for sure be caught up on. Thank you so much again!!! Just what I needed to hear
We have such a similar experience I almost cried just to have another Mama who gets it! My struggle
is how to get all of these parts done in a week without having our school days drag out (plus my child fatigues). Do you have any videos that talk about your schedule to get all of the things done in a week? My kiddo is going into 4th. Thank you for such a genuine and helpful video!
Yes!! I have one specifically for 4th grade!! I hope it helps: th-cam.com/video/WkJ7b_4uRL0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=0gOHqLXvKblGbBEL
My daughter cannot write by herself and struggles with spelling too. This year I started her on level 1 of AAS and I’m definitely going to check out the narration book you mentioned at the end! Thank you for this video.
You got this!
Great reminder! I started too early with writing for my daughter. After 2nd/3rd grade being so difficult I decided to go a more CM route of Dictation. It’s been a breath of fresh air and my daughter has been enjoying it more than the last two years by far! ❤
Wonderful! Good to hear that, Jerilyn! Interestingly my current 3rd grader/8 year old actually enjoys writing and is good at it. So he is one that I'm not going to pull back on. I forgot to mention that in the video. All kids are different!
@@JoyfulNoiseLearning I couldn’t agree more! They all have different strengths. ❤️
It's so hard as homeschool mom to wait sometimes!!! lol I go back and forth about reading, for my almost 6 years old. But then, I know I just need to wait!!!
Thank you for sharing! I could relate very much to everything you said. My daughter is only a second grader. She likes to writes simple little books for her younger brothers (like a sentence or phrase per page). But my m.i.l who is a teacher, got me all freaked out about how much she should be writing and that in public school, they do creative writing beginning in k. My daughter started to get really frustrated and really does not like writing. I realized that's because she isn't confident in her spelling. So I put the breaks on and now we are doing a.a.s.
I also got the early bird fall guide from black bird company. It's exactly what we needed for now.
We also do copywork which counts has her handwriting practice.
Don't let your MIL freak you about how kids doing creative writing in school. I wish I could post a sample of something actually written by an average kindergartener on here so you could see it's nothing to stress over. Most of the kids are writing a single phonetic spelled sentence with a picture. Imagine something like, "I hav a dg namd ber," with an illustration of the kiddos dog. Sometimes they add on to this by doing one or two phonetically spelled sentences each day and then turn it into a little book. By the end of the year, the expectation is to be able to write 3 simple sentences using proper capitalization of the first letter and a punctuation mark - usually a period. In 1st grade they will expand on that and maybe write slightly longer sentences. They may also be given a word bank or have a word wall at school where they can refer to the bank or wall for proper spelling of some words. By the end of the year, they will probably be writing a full 5 or 6 basic sentences they can call a paragraph. In 2nd grade they will work on perfecting a simple paragraph, perhaps adding in some more complex or compound sentences bc by this time they're vocabulary and basic knowledge of how a short story goes will be slightly more advanced. By the end of 2nd grade they should have a decent grasp of writing a paragraph with a simple beginning, middle, and end. Depending on the level of each individual student you may have some students ready to write much more and others who are more comfortable with just a simple paragraph. If you'd like to start teaching your child to write, you can quickly get her writing a full paragraph by the end of this year if you work on it in a similar but more accelerated fashion. Start with simple sentences and teaching the basics of capitalizing the first letter and adding punctuation to the end. Work on having her write one sentence per day. Model this for her by writing your own sentence as an example. After a few weeks, you can move onto writing a little more, perhaps three sentences where one sentence represents a beginning, the next is the middle, and the third is the ending. Once comfortable doing that, your child can then journal write for a while or maybe keep a diary where she can write her thoughts, dreams or what have you. In the meantime, just keep working on helping her improve her spelling and get the hang of grammar. Once you get further along in the school year, try to start having her write 5 sentences in one go. Let her choose the topic or come up with one together. Make it something fun! If her spelling and grammar have improved by this time, she'll feel more confident putting her words on paper. Then in third grade you can start helping her perfect writing a paragraph. You can even teach her the basics as far as how to create a topic and concluding sentence to her paragraph. You can also teach her about indenting. In 4th you can expand on that further by teaching her to expand her writing in multiple paragraphs by having her write for example, an informative piece on her favorite animal. In it she can pick three things she wants to teach the reader about the animal like - appearance, habitat, behavior. After some research she can fill in some facts under each header as sort of an outline before writing her multi-paragraph piece. Let her take it slowly, writing only one paragraph daily. Anyway, don't let your MIL stress you out over writing. Your kiddo will be fine and will learn to write. Writing is honestly so easy to implement. Just take it step by step and all will be well. Good luck!
@@bethanyhomeschool Thank you so much! That makes a lot more sense.
She does has pretty good grasp on how a paragraph should go (beginning,middle end). Capitalization and punctuation, she's pretty good with it too. Spelling is still a struggle though. And that definitely is her frustration with writing more in depth paragraphs. She is starting to write small paragraphs though and not just short sentences, so that is progress. Thank you so much for the break down of what the expectation for each grade is. That was very helpful.
Thank you for sharing your honesty! As well as sharing about waiting for writing instruction. I've been kind of wondering about doing that myself with my 10 year old. We're still doing a lot of phonics instruction & spelling. Feel like adding a writing component will be too much for her. I do plan on using IEW someday for writing instruction when we get to that point. Just not there yet.
Thank you again Ashley for your honesty.
You are so welcome!
Great resources! That quote at the very beginning really resonated with me. ❤️
It's so good, huh?! Thanks for watching!
Thanks for all of the great curriculum suggestions! I’ll look into them!
This could not have come at a better time! I have a similar situation in learning styles/strengths with my oldest and youngest. Thank you for this reassurance!
No problem! Glad I could help :)
We are there with you on writing not being an easy subject for us to be diligent in. So right now we just have been doing copy work and those are things I’ve latched onto as well. We haven’t ventured into creative writing yet. Thanks for sharing your journey! It’s helpful to know we aren’t the only ones in that boat.
Yes! I'm happy to hear I'm not alone as well. Thanks for watching, Zoey! 💓
I LOVE this video and posted at the EXACT time I needed it. Thank you!
Aww! Good to hear! You are so welcome! 💓
I feel like I'm in a very similar place. My son will be 8 and in 3rd grade in the fall. We haven't been consistent on writing instruction and I feel the need to include some this year. We've done a few books of the Building Writers from Handwriting without Tears, but we are getting bored with those, and it doesn't give a lot of instruction of HOW to write so he's basically writing the same way every single time. We have grammar/language arts for this coming year (Grammar Galaxy) but I feel like we need a little more writing. I was thinking about Night Zookeeper, but being on the computer I'm not sure how it would work since he doesn't know how to type yet. I was looking at Structure and Style, and it looks good, but I feel like it's a bit much for 3rd grade. I really just want something simple that teaches how to write a good sentence and then goes into writing a few sentences or a paragraph. Getting him to write anything is kind of a struggle. I know I need to do more oral narration and dictation, but, like you, I need something that tells me what to do next...not just come up with it on my own. I don't expect him to write a paper; I just want him comfortable with writing and be able to get his thoughts across. When he talks he will take forever to say something and that kinda translates in his writing, but then he doesn't want to write that much, haha! I'm going to look into the Fairy Tales you showed. I know you mentioned doing it with your 3rd grader and then decided to use it for your 5th grade...did you also use it for your 3rd grader or what did/do you use? (Sorry this was long lol)
My son turns 8 this month and he’s so resistant to learning reading and doing any writing. I have not felt the rush to teach it until til now but I think I’m going to continue waiting and focusing on other things. The pressure I feel now to push him, actually comes from my mother, and it’s not my own beliefs about education.
AAS recommends not starting writing until after level 3. CM says age 10. We found this perfect for my oldest who did ZERO writing until 5th grade and them started IEW. Narration, cooywork, AAS to 3. I also pace style and structure every 2 weeks. With my youngest I have abandoned AAS so not sure what my spelling marker is going to be!
This is so good!! I wish I would have done this with my two oldest for sure. I’m doing it more with my youngest now 👏🏻👏🏻
Are the imitation books in order by levels? Im also freaking out about my son not writing enough. I may try the phonetic zoo from IEW for spelling. Thank you for the video
I totally relate for both my son, and for myself as mom. I’d love to know - have you used any typing program?
Yes! We use Touch Type Read Spell. It's been the best one for both boys so far. It doesn't get too difficult too quickly, and they can go at their own pace.
I was wondering about the fix it grammar as a CM inspired homeschooler. Seeing things incorrectly, doesn’t that go against reading and writing for CM? I do use fix it wjth my 12yo and will try with my 9yo next year.
That's a great question! I still use copywork with correct grammar and writing. And I don't make a huge focus on Fix It Grammar. I like it as a tool to use to go along with our other language arts things. They do one or two lessons a week, sometimes we skip it for a week or two. I don't put a lot of pressure on it. :) I'm also not a CM purist. I follow a lot of the principles, but not all!
Have you compared phonetic zoo vs AAS?
Is there a grade/age range for the Imitation in Writing books?
Yes, it's 1st-5th Grade, starting with Aesop's Fables. :)
Thank you for this❤
You're welcome 😊
Thanks for sharing Ashley.
Struggles… getting so many interruptions… 13 weeks old mouthy puppy, rambunctious 3yo, and kids just not wanting to do any type of formal learning. 😖
Oh I'm so sorry 😣 Those all sound like pretty normal interruptions! Have you tried the timer method? Set a timer for 20 minutes (or 15, or 30, depends on the kid and their age!) and tell the kids you are going to work on this one thing for that long. You need their full attention until the timer goes off. When it's done, you stop and move to the next thing. This really helps with writing because rarely do they "want" to do it. When they know there's an end, it helps! Also, if your kids are little, don't fret too much! They'll get there! Start with 20 minutes of formal lessons and focus on play time :)