Homeschool on the Run!

I am using Writing With Ease with my children, Susan Wise Bauer’s writing program. Usually I wouldn’t use a material like this as such a teacher directed material is the antithesis of a Montessori material. Yet my children LOVE it. They ask for it. They miss it. I miss it.

Each day we do copy work. The children look at short sentences and copy them perfectly on to paper supplied in the workbook. The shorter sentence is perfect for Speed and the longer sentence is too easy for Chuckles.

Chuckles never learnt to print as she learned cursive at Montessori school. Consequently when she printed at the beginning of the year she wrote using a mixture of capitals and lower case. Her sentences lacked punctuation and her use of grammatically correct capitals was sporadic.

Each lessons highlights a grammar or punctuation point that is good revision for Chuckles and at the correct level for Speed.

There has been a huge improvement in Chuckles’ handwriting and Speed likes it because he can concentrate on the lettering without having to compose the words. He *can* print beautifully when he is motivated.

He even asked me yesterday if he could learn cursive!!!!

(I said no of course: reverse psychology and today he was positively begging so I gave in and said I’d show him the “r” but that’s it!)

For every copy work lesson there is a narration lesson which is supposed to happen on the next day.  In this exercise you read aloud an extract from a great piece of literature and then invite the children to answer some questions about the passage using full sentences. After that you invite them to tell you one thing they remember from the passage and they write that down on the prepared paper.

Neither of them balk at this because it is so manageable. By this time also they have fallen in love with the story and are dying to read the book also. They get so inspired. Their imaginations are piqued and they are ready to work.

This writing program has a teacher’s guide and a workbook. It could not be easier to present. The pages are all ready to go. There is a whole years worth of lessons per book and I believe there are two books on the market and another two she is just about to release.

Thank you Susan Wise Bauer! We are loving your work.

May 13th, 2009 | Category: Family | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL