Help Placement question

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LHayes723
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:14 pm

Help Placement question

Post by LHayes723 » Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:57 pm

Hello,
Question. My son has had a hard time with learning to read. We have used the Reading Lesson. He is 8 yrs old (I have considered this year his 2nd grade year) and will be 9 this summer. I just recently had a friend from church who is a retired teacher begin helping me with his reading. It is helping slowly. Ok so all that to say he is supposed to start Bigger this fall, he is halfway through Beyond, but we haven't been doing much of the light grammar because I have been spending more time with writing and reading because he is very behind in these areas. So I am looking ahead and wondering do I have him repeat Beyond at 9 yrs old. Or go on to Bigger but use Beyond guide for his Grammar rather than starting Rod and Staff. Would love any advice. Thanks.

StephanieU
Posts: 1652
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 7:10 pm

Re: Help Placement question

Post by StephanieU » Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:30 pm

Your son sounds a lot like my 9yo. We didn't do grammar in Beyond and then just started Rod and Staff 2 in Bigger. It wasn't a problem not doing grammar in Beyond since so much of grammar is review. I wouldn't worry about the grammar in Beyond!
Mom to
DD15 US1 (completed LHFHG-WH)
DS13 MtMM (completed LHFHG-Rev2Rev plus some of LHTH)
DD12 Rev2Rev (completed LHTH-RtR)
DS7 Beyond (completed LHTH-LHFHG)

my3sons
Posts: 10698
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:08 pm
Location: South Dakota

Re: Help Placement question

Post by my3sons » Tue Feb 05, 2019 1:06 pm

LHayes723 wrote:Hello,
Question. My son has had a hard time with learning to read. We have used the Reading Lesson. He is 8 yrs old (I have considered this year his 2nd grade year) and will be 9 this summer. I just recently had a friend from church who is a retired teacher begin helping me with his reading. It is helping slowly. Ok so all that to say he is supposed to start Bigger this fall, he is halfway through Beyond, but we haven't been doing much of the light grammar because I have been spending more time with writing and reading because he is very behind in these areas. So I am looking ahead and wondering do I have him repeat Beyond at 9 yrs old. Or go on to Bigger but use Beyond guide for his Grammar rather than starting Rod and Staff. Would love any advice. Thanks.
It sounds like you are making some steady progress with your child in reading, and that is good to hear! You might want to consider adding some markerboard practice of words, which is noted here in a previous thread on TRL...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1306&p=10209

Children often complete 1-3 years of phonics instruction. Reading Made Easy might be a good phonics program if your son is needing another year of phonics' instruction after TRL, though you would more than likely omit the first portion of RME. Or, if you give TRL a few more months and are feeling TRL just is not seeming to be a good fit for your son, you could make the switch to RME then. RME can be used with or without the 4 activity books. Carrie compares TRL and RME here...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2503

As far as your question about grammar, we have children start HOD at many different ages in many different guides. Children who start HOD in Bigger Hearts... begin with grammar in R & S English 2 or 3, depending on what skills they bring into the guide as far as previous grammar instruction. However, Carrie wrote the once a week grammar lessons in Beyond to help with this transition. If you are using Beyond, it is a good idea to do the grammar lessons, as they better prepare students for the grammar assigned in Bigger Hearts. Carrie's grammar lessons in Beyond require little prep and provide a good introduction to grammar, without taking much time and without needing to be done daily. Grammar lessons also provide a somewhat needed break from the challenge phonics instruction poses. For these reasons, it would be a good idea to either do the Day 5 grammar lessons 2 times a week, which would help your son complete them all by the end of Beyond, or just begin where you are now and complete the Day 5 grammar lessons from now to the end of the guide. This will only serve to aid in the transition to grammar in Bigger Hearts, which will be daily and harder. As Carrie often says, skipping boxes means skipping skills, and that only makes the next guide (with the next level of skills) harder. :wink:

We would not recommend repeating Beyond Little Hearts another year. Each guide is meant to be completed one time, and then students should move on to the next guide. As long as your son is completing all of Beyond's assigned work in the daily plans, he will have the necessary skills to move on to Bigger, so keep pressing onward and doing a good job encouraging him each day! You are seeing real progress already with his reading, and that is exciting! :) I will mention that it is especially important that he is working toward copying more of the poem each week. Copywork can start with 1 good quality line of poetry in Beyond, but it should then gradually be increased. Ideally, children should be able to copy the entire poem within a week by the last portion of Beyond. So, working up to 2 lines, then 3 lines, and then 4 lines of copywork a day is a good goal. Hope this helps! Keep up the good work you are doing homeschooling your son in Beyond!

In Christ,
Julie
Enjoyed LHTH to USII
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie

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