Spelling and Grammar for a nearly 10 yr old??

[DharmaDisciple]

who is VERY slow at writing, so a lot of writing takes her ages and I think hampers her enjoyment. I have Spelling Workout, but there is too much writing.

So what can I do for spelling? She is a great reader and her spelling is not too bad, but I would like her to keep up with this.

Also how can I teach her grammar? First Language Lessons is too young? She is in 5th Grade (I think. She will be 10 in March) She has learnt little grammar in school, so I don't know what she knows. We did pronouns the other week and she hadn't covered them in school. I would like something that is fun, just don't know if anything exists. Also something I could get here in the UK.

She comes out of school today and next week will be her first week back at homeschooling for 2 yrs, so I want it to be very fun, learning yet relaxed. I want her to be glad she is home

[theretohere]

Check out Growing with Grammar.

If her writing is really slow, I'd consider re mediating that or even seeing an OT- it's no fun to have something foundational mess up other things!

[MyLittleWonders]

You can look into the later levels of All About Spelling to see if they cover concepts you think need help (and you can do the program without the tiles; sometimes my boys will do their whole lesson on white boards). I've also hear Megawords is a good program, though I have not personally used it.

For grammar, First Language Lessons 3 or 4 might not be a bad place to start. Ds#1 is 3rd grade (he'll be 9 in July). We are currently in FLL 3 and learning pronouns and the use of an apostrophe-s/s-apostrophe for possession. Another option is Michael Clay Thompson's language arts program. Here is a "slide show" that explains the program. It is what we plan on using next year (potentially with FLL 4; otherwise on its own).

[mangopassion]

With my now 11 year old daughter, we started with level one (when she was 10) of All About Spelling just to make sure she had the basics down. We zoomed through it, though, and now she's on level two. Like MyLittleWonders' children, we do almost all of our lessons on the whiteboard. For some reason, kids who have trouble writing with pencil and paper have an easier time with a whiteboard sometimes.

We tried Growing with Grammar. It definitely does not have a lot of writing and the lessons are only about 10-15 minutes long, which is a huge plus! We decided to stop using it because my daughter needs a lot of repetition and this program doesn't offer enough of that.

We just received our Michael Clay Thompson books and I haven't had a chance to go through it all yet. But you can find reviews of it online if you're interested.

[AAK]

We just started Easy Grammar for my fourth grader. Writing is minimal. It seems to be a very effective way to learn grammar and there is a LOT of reinforcement of concepts. Just skip the first lesson (if you were to use grade four anyways, don't know about grade five) because they have the kid write all the prepositions. A list is provided, we skipped it though because I didn't see the point. I don't care if my dd knows all the prepositions by heart anyways.

For spelling, you said she wasn't a terrible speller, so maybe you don't really need a "program" but just organized groupings of words. If what you have works for you (in regards to lists), then I would explain whatever rules or tips taught to her. I would have her practice with word searches, letter tiles, even the magnetic tiles on the fridge. It will give her kinestetic feedback as well. I would even do the tests that way. Or, orally, like a spelling bee.

Amy

[elizawill]

for very basic grammar, you can play madlibs. that's a lot of fun. my dd also will diagram sentences, which sounds boring - but it is actually fun when you make up silly sentences and funny rules (circle nouns, underline adjectives, highlight the subject, underline the predicate twice, etc). we also love to play a homemade game called, "alphabet slide". i did not make it up, but i did blog about it explaining the rules: http://mytwomonkeys.webs.com/homesch...hived=1&page=2

scroll down to the post, "fun game to make".

for easy curriculum, i think "easy grammar" is perfect as well. we use spectrum workbooks currently, but my dd prefers those over other things we've tried. hth.

[LauraLoo]

I'm going with MCT next year for ds. We've been using FLL and Sequential Spelling (very short and easy to implement - amazing results!) with some Everyday Edits thrown in this year as a warm up - and actually we're probably ready for the MCT program now. DS is waayyy into spelling and grammar. He doesn't get that passion from me, for sure.

You could look at programs from ABeCeDarian for spelling (vocabulary and phonics
http://www.abcdrp.com/details.asp
We did this with ds as well.

[ohiomommy1122]

have you trie first lang lessons lvl 4 or 5?

[DharmaDisciple]

The reason why her handwiritng is so slow is that we homeschooled until she was 8 and we only did print. Then she went to school where she was forced to write in cursive only, so she had to make up her own style of cursive and how to loop the letters together- her method takes a lot longer than if she had learnt how to do cursive proper.We are doing HWT in hopes this helps.

For spelling, I am going to do Spelling Workout, but break up each section so she has a small amount to write.

For grammar I have ordered FLL but level 3, there seems to be a bit of oral work and I can minimise the writing if I need to.

As for MadLibs, we have some Junior ones and she loves them, she was doing some only yesterday.

I ight just switch to oral spellings if spelling workout doesn't work.
We will see how this goes.

[MyLittleWonders]

You might want to look into Handwriting Without Tears - the 4th grade book. It basically is a repeat of the 3rd grade cursive book, IIRC, but the lines are a bit smaller (more appropriate I would think for the age). It's a wonderful, no frills, cursive book that at least for my writing-phobic ds#1 has enabled him to develop a beautiful cursive with little strain on his hand.

[SandyBeachBums]

My son just turned 10 this month. He is doing First Language Lessons 3 with the workbook pages. It's going very, very well. It's very gentle. We don't do it everyday, so I'll probably stretch it a bit through summer and into next year. We are using Spelling Power for all our children. I love it.

It shows where to start from. He wasn't a good speller, so he started from the beginning. We do one list at this point. I think she gives an actual time limit. We just use regular paper. I use a colored marker to write any missed words next to them. The next day or so he writes them correctly. We test them again and start on a new list.

[AngelBee]

[DharmaDisciple]

Right I think I have made my mind up!!! For Grammar we will use FLL Level 3 unless I can find anything else that is more fun. I will minimise writing where I can.

For spelling we are going to do Sequential Spelling where she will orally give me the word and I will write it out for her, that way the list of 25 words won't take us long to do. I like the idea of SS so will see how this goes.

As for handwriting, HWT doesn't really seem to be making much of a difference, so I have ordered Getty Dubay book C which introduces cursive, to try her with this and ask her which style she prefers to do, I think Getty Dubay is less swirly, so might be easier.

We start official homeschool tomorrow so am very excited.

[SandyBeachBums]

Have fun and take it easy