Using Rosetta Stone with younger children

[Mere]

I just took a leap about bought RS for dd (8.5) and ds (6.5). I got the homeschooling version, and there appear to be several different instructional modes, e.g., full course academic year, reading and writing emphasis, listening and speaking emphasis, etc. After reading the very brief descriptions I was thinking that the listening and speaking mode might be the best for my dcs; at their age, spending a lot of time on grammar, reading and writing seems counterintuitive. However, I can't help but wonder if they'll miss something important?

Has anyone done this program - in any language - with their younger dcs?

[moominmamma]

My 7yo is doing the full regular course and it's working well for her. She's been a fluent reader for some time and is a good writer so academically she might be more similar to a 10 or 11-year-old and maybe that's helping it be a good fit. But the "writing" is on the computer using the keyboard, so it isn't taxing her graphomotor skills or anything.

You can start in whatever mode (listening & speaking emphasis?) you think is best and change later. If you do, I believe the program will just prompt you to go back and gap-fill in the earlier lessons.

My 11-year-old has been doing RS French for a couple of years in fits and starts. My 7-year-old is doing Japanese. What language are your kids learning?

Miranda

[Mama Rana]

I'm not sure how much help I'll be. I somehow ended up not getting the HS version. The rep I spoke to didn't seem to think there was a huge difference, and I thought I still told him to send me the HS version, but... eh, whatever.
Anyway, so I appear to have the regular version, Castilian Spanish. My DS is 6.5. We haven't done much with it. I guess we have it set up for speaking an listening, though I know it does have sections on grammar, but we haven't gotten that far. DS is NOT finding the immersion format intuitive. He was really getting frustrated with it. There are also issues with the voice recognition where I know he's saying the word pretty good, but the comp insists he didn't get it right. I've heard this is more of an issue with children's voices. You can turn that off, but that's the part DS finds most fascinating [and frustrating].

I think I'm going to have to sit with him next time and help him figure out the English translations. He really wants to know that. Maybe once he figures out how the whole thing works he'll be happier with it. He is motivated to learn Spanish because he wants to be able to speak in "code".

[midnightwriter]

My 8 year old has been using French for about six weeks now, on and off. I'm very impressed by how quickly she picked it up and how her vocab acquisition was so effortless. Mind you, she is only done 4 core lessons, and nothing in the last week or so.

We have it set on listening and speaking. There are settings for the mike to be set up as least sensitive, I find it helps with the frustration level. The computer picks her pronunciation up 90% of the time.

[Mere]

This is all very helpful - thanks! moominmama, do you have your 7yo dd doing the worksheets and written exercises from the supplemental CD? Do the lessons go into great detail about verb conjugations and what not?

I think I will definitely do the speaking and listening track with 6yo ds, as he is just learning to read and write in English. I'm still unsure about dd (8.5) though. She's a good reader in English, but I don't want to introduce too much and make it not fun.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by Mere

This is all very helpful - thanks! moominmama, do you have your 7yo dd doing the worksheets and written exercises from the supplemental CD? Do the lessons go into great detail about verb conjugations and what not?

That supplemental material isn't available for Japanese ... or at least it wasn't yet available when we bought the program in January.

Miranda

[pigpokey]

We are at the 50% mark on Level 1 Spanish LA. My kids started at 5 and 6 and are currently 5 and 7 years old. We are set on full course academic year (they read). If they do 2 check boxes per day, five days a week, not counting the longer core lessons which counts as one days' work by itself, that is on track for one level in a little under a year.

We do NOT do the writing lessons, because they cannot spell English let alone Spanish. We just skip them (there are only a few per unit) and I will have them do the Level 1 writing lessons maybe at the end of this year, maybe in a subsequent year depending on their development.

I did not even look at the supplemental materials because we started right before a temporary move and I think the box and disks are all in storage. I am seeing that I need to supplement now though and once we get settled again I will probably want to add them.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by pigpokey

We do NOT do the writing lessons, because they cannot spell English let alone Spanish.

Not questioning your choice, but just thought I'd point out that Spanish spelling is SO much easier than English, being entirely phonetic.

Miranda

[pigpokey]

Originally Posted by moominmamma

Not questioning your choice, but just thought I'd point out that Spanish spelling is SO much easier than English, being entirely phonetic.

Miranda

One of the literally first spelling words is periodico. We'll do it later. I still have a seven year old who drops vowells in English, e.g., would be likely to spell parents "parnts".

[Mere]

PigPokey, we have the Spanish LA version too, and my kids are the same age as yours...maybe I should try the full year course. As long as they don't present the material as "here is a list of verb conjugations to memorize" maybe it would be alright.

[pigpokey]

Originally Posted by Mere

PigPokey, we have the Spanish LA version too, and my kids are the same age as yours...maybe I should try the full year course. As long as they don't present the material as "here is a list of verb conjugations to memorize" maybe it would be alright.

No, they do not do it that way. And it has not been frustrating for my kids.

[Mere]

Okay, we're starting it tomorrow so we'll see how it goes! Thank you all for your feedback!

[*jeanine*]

We're doing the Japanese here. My 9 yo is doing the full course, and my 5 yo is doing just the speaking and listening section, with a lot of review.

[*jeanine*]

Originally Posted by midnightwriter

We have it set on listening and speaking. There are settings for the mike to be set up as least sensitive, I find it helps with the frustration level. The computer picks her pronunciation up 90% of the time.

We've had to set it on less sensitive for my 5 yo, too. I also noticed she sometimes speaks too soon, before the light turns green. When she does that it doesn't recognize it.

[EviesMom]

Good to know about the mic settings. I feel like I am forever telling DD not to eat the microphone bc she puts it right on her lips when she speaks.

My DD is doing Mandarin, and we have finished 2 core lessons. I was figuring about 1/2 course per year considering that she's only 6 and there are so many other things she does. We are doing the regular course, not the listening and speaking specifically.

[OkiMom]

Ok, take this with a grain of salt because 1) my kids are a lot younger and 2) we live in Japan so its easy for us to "practice" on native speakers when we want. Some of our closest friends here are Japanese. We are planning on buying the home school edition beginning of the year mostly for me (we have lived here for 3 1/2 years almost I can say 4 words so I need help ) but allowing our oldest who will be 4 to do some of the lessons with me.
I asked my husband's Major what he recommends since they homeschool their children and his wife is Japanese. He told me that written Japanese is extremely hard for children, especially young ones, to understand and they wouldn't even start that in school until I think he said 6ish so to start with the oral for the young children who want to start out (like my daughter who wants to know how to say "your dog is cute" to tell the lady she sees walking her dog all the time) then add in written. Kanji is hard to grasp, some of my friends who are Japanese have problems at times and they are born/raised in the language so it can be confusing for younger children. Ive been studying it since I got out here and there are still only a few I recognize without really having to think about it.

[*jeanine*]

We have our Japanese set to Romanji (?) rather than Kanji. If I understand it correctly, Romanji has a character for each sound, rather than a character for each word. It's still not *easy*, but easier, I think, than Kanji.

[midnightwriter]

Originally Posted by *jeanine*

We have our Japanese set to Romanji (?) rather than Kanji. If I understand it correctly, Romanji has a character for each sound, rather than a character for each word. It's still not *easy*, but easier, I think, than Kanji.

Romanji has a character for each syllable. My understanding is that Japanese children start by learning Romanji, and only then Kanji. Way easier than Kanji, as there's a finate number of them.