Secular language arts curriculum for grades 1 and 3?

[morgainesmama]

I use a laid back, integrated approach to language arts, overlapping reading, grammar, writing, and spelling into whatever unit we're working on.

This approach is not working for my 3rd grader. Writing assignments almost always end in tears. He hates it. And he always wants to "get it over with" right away, which doesn't work in our integrated approach.

I'm looking for a pre-written language arts curriculum for a 3rd grader that integrates (ideally) reading, writing, and grammar, but that he can easily see what his day's work is, and that I can send lessons to his dad's house.

For ease, I'm considering using it with my 1st grader also.

Thoughts?

[MyLittleWonders]

I'm not sure what's out there that is integrated and secular (seems a hard combination to find), but something that may work would be using Writing With Ease for writing (and potentially reading practice, depending on how well he is reading as he could read the narration sections out loud), and then either something like First Language Lessons 3 (more teacher/parent intensive) or Growing With Grammar (more student led/taught) for the grammar component. Then for daily reading, depending on how well he is reading, you could just assign books that need to be read each day or so many chapters out of a current reading book to be read.

All three of those curriculum have 1st grade components - WWE 1, FLL 1 or GWG 1. We are currently using FLL and WWE with our older two. Ds#1 is finishing FLL 3 the first half of this school year and I'm debating moving him to GWG 4 so he's more independent in at least one subject. Just some ideas.

[elizawill]

i don't know about a secular all-inclusive program, but we also use and love writing with ease. for my 3rd grader, i also add in writing strands - but with my first grader, he just uses WWE. hth.

ETA: oh, for grammar, my daughter uses daily grams. for spelling, we use all about spelling. i don't have a program for my son yet, but he's still learning to read, so i'll wait on that. for reading, my daughter's science and history texts are written at her level, so that works well...plus, she has a book basket that is filled with great literature.

[sahmoffour]

We use McRuffy LA here and love it! (For gr. 1 & 3) It incorporates all areas of language arts, and gives you a lesson by lesson teachers guide to hold your hand along the way which I love. A few of the readers have a bit of religion in them, but you can opt for the secular version instead (which I did.) I highly recommend it!

[tammyw]

This is an area I am working on for my 7 year old as well. I'll be following this thread closely for some good ideas!

[tammyw]

After this post, I started researching and feel almost more confused than before. Some of the recommendations I've boiled it down to:

- Writing with Ease: lots of people here seem to recommend. Is it boring? What else do you use in combination with this to complete the Language Arts Curriculum?

- Michael Clay Thompson: Also recommended a lot here, but I find their web site a serious challenge. Is this more fun/creative than Writing with Ease?

- Writing Tales: Saw mention of this a couple times also.

Can anyone compare the above (and/or recommend something completely different?) I want to make sure that whatever we choose is fun and holds her interest, and not something completely boring and "busy" work.

[MissRubyandKen]

Another vote for Writing With Ease. We'll also be doing Daily grams and incorporating a bit of Simply Grammar if it goes well, but not necessarily. My kids love Writing With Ease. For reading now that my kids are 3rd and 5th they both will have assigned chapter books picked from our home library, they are to read a chapter a day for school. WWE does have some really good literature picks. If you wanted to you could have your 3rd grader read some of those books for literature, or you could read aloud to both children a chapter a day. Daily Grams is a quick daily lesson in grammar. I think it will be effective. I'm supplementing with the Simply Grammar book because I think it is more thorough and requires a bit more thinking. For Spelling we're using Sequential Spelling. I feel these combined are good for LA at these grades. Oh yeah, and we're using Roots and Fruits vocabulary which covers English forms of Greek and Latin roots and prefixes. I thought it would be helpful/ interesting because we are also starting Latin this year.

[babycarrier]

I'm just putting in an order today for Writing with Ease to round out our LA. Mine are 3rd and kindy. We don't do all every day but we have used Explode the Code from book 1, introduced Sequential Spelling last spring and First Language Lessons mid year last year.
I think any of the three we use could be really boring but we have a lot of fun with them. Explode the Code is mostly straight forward for homework on nights I work and he is home with dad - not his favorite but I think it reinforces things for him. The little guy actually really enjoys his book 1 - never intended for him to start using it just had it on the shelf and he pulls it out pretty frequently.
I like FLL because it is scripted. In 120 lessons, I've used that script about 3 times - I found her wording direct and less confusing than my trying to describe state of being vs. linking verbs for instance. Also, we don't use every lesson. There is frequent repetition of ideas and where the younger guy might need that starting out coming to that in 2nd grade, we already had many of the first 100 lessons down from just reading together and talking about words often - and Mad Libs
Still trying to feel my way around Sequential Spelling. I find it super repetitive but I think that is just because over the summer he picked up lots of new vocab and spelling and we need to catch up to where we should be for this year. We use our easel with a dry erase board and now he writes them on a small dry erase board.
It has taken me much reading and browsing to come to materials that are a good match - stressful at times thinking what is out there and what is the difference with all of the materials.
For reading, he picks out chapter books that I don't assign time on and won't use for schoolwork. I do choose a book for schoolwork or readers in our subjects as I want his own reading time to be just for pleasure.

[PGTlatte]

Originally Posted by morgainesmama

I'm looking for a pre-written language arts curriculum for a 3rd grader that integrates (ideally) reading, writing, and grammar, but that he can easily see what his day's work is, and that I can send lessons to his dad's house.

It's not a single curriculum, but I'm using Evan-Moor Language Fundamentals - I print the pages from the e-book - in combination with some workbooks from Remedia Publications (they are simple and move very gradually), and a Flash Forward Reading book from Barnes and Noble. I am probably also going to order the Evan Moor Vocabulary Fundamentals e-book. For spelling I use both Spelling Workout and Click'n Spell, but am not using those right now - instead I am using the "sight words in a flash" lists of frequently used words that I ordered from Rainbow Resource for .25 each and I make lists from that.

[dotnetdiva]

Here's what we've been using as our secular Language Arts stuff. I admit that it looks like we're overdoing it on the LA stuff, but my daughter writes all day and loves it.

• Writing With Ease
• Write Source
• First Language Lessons
• Growing With Grammar
• All About Spelling
• Explode the Code (we use for phonics/spelling/writing review)
• Wordly Wise 3000 K and 1 program (not sure we'll use this for Grade 2+, but we'll definitely use some vocab program)

In a year or two, we plan to use Michael Clay Thompson. It seems like it "integrates" it all, in an interesting and "fun?" approach. It's made for Grade 3 and up though, so I haven't experience in it yet.

[dotnetdiva]

Oh hey Kristi, I only now looked at who made the original post. Angela and Satori here!

[khenn]

Check out www.bravewriter.com . There is a wealth of information on her website if you poke around enough.

I teach language arts at our co op. My classes range from 4th graders up to 7th graders. Bravewriter incorporates copywork and dictation which aid in spelling. For grammar, she recommends only doing it 3 times in the course of a student's 12 years of school. My son was 5th grade last year and we did Winston Grammar for the first time. I'll revisit grammar in 8th grade. Until then, he will continue to learn from quality books and doing the work I lay out for him with the dictation.

The Bravewriter approach to writing is a lifestyle one. It focuses on teaching writers...not writing. The point of writing is not to formulate perfect sentences within perfect paragraphs -- it's to convey a message. As a writer, I want to get what is in my head into the reader's head. For that reason, I need to throw up my thoughts on paper and worry about formating it later.

This is what I have my writing students do. They freewrite one week, they revise the next, and they edit the last week. It takes a month to go through the writing process. They do other writing in the meantime so there is little downtime.

They get to write about what they are interested in as that makes it more tolerable. I have learned a great deal about sports and video games as a result of teaching these kids. I, of course, do not understand the things they do which is perfect. In the revision stage, I ask questions because as a reader, I'm confused. I get them to think more, focus on their audience, and write more effectively.

I have never used a spelling program for my soon to be 11 year old and like I said, have done only one year of grammar. His spelling is fine. His writing is amazing -- it really took off in 5th grade last year.

I do have FLL for my 3rd grader as she loves that type of format and I haven't ventured into language arts with her other than that. In 4th grade, she'll start writing classes at the co op with me so we'll wait until then to worry about much composition.

Kellie

[AAK]

Something new to consider:

This year I will be ordering this for my second grader (but the second grade version). It includes everything: http://www.criticalthinking.com/getP...ode=p&id=01003

However, when my dd was in 3rd grade, I was scambling for language arts (hated what I started with) and so I just bought a spectrum workbook for her. http://www.amazon.com/Spectrum-Langu...2139891&sr=8-1

While it isn't exciting, my dd liked that she could sit down and "get it done" quickly. It introduced grammar, sentence structure, etc. The last section had them write in several different styles and discussed the writing process. My dd also liked that the exercises weren't writing intensive. I didn't just go straight through the book. We would do a bit from each section and then come back around and do the next bit of each section. That way, the writing was sprinkled throughout the year rather than just at the end.

This just covers the grammar and writing components of Language Arts. I wouldn't want to use it forever, but it did fit the bill for third grade (for us). I like to keep reading disconnected from the rest of lang. arts. Reading can be an adventure, and I want the kids to think of it that way. However, grammar is usually tedious so I don't want my kids to link the two together.

Amy

[tammyw]

I sent an email to Michael Clay requesting a bit more information and feedback, but in the meantime, I purchased one month subscription to Brave Writer's The Arrow. I'll report back after we've had a chance to try it out. We chose Caddie Woodlawn, a book we've been wanting to read anyway, so I'm excited to see how it goes. She said it incorporates everything we'd need at this point for language arts, so we'll see! I am excited!