While your student is enrolled in the Creative Writing class at KEYS, he or she will need to continue in regular language arts study in your school program at home. If you have been utilizing a systematic language arts curriculum in the past, and you are pleased with it, I would encourage you to continue with that. However, you will want to modify or eliminate the writing and composition components of the program, so as not to overtax your child while enrolled in this writing class.
Although the students will be doing a certain amount of required "reading for pleasure," we will not be engaged in a significant amount of literary analysis. Additionally, though we will be reviewing certain grammatical elements as I see the students making errors in their writing, a systematic study of grammar, spelling, and vocabulary is beyond the scope of this course. You will want to be sure that whatever program you are utilizing at home covers these.
Following are some suggestions for what might be a nice complement to what we're doing in class, if you are not sure how to modify your program or have not really been utilizing a systematic language arts curriculum.
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One good "cover it all" approach would be to choose the Learning Language Arts Through Literature program. LLATL incorporates the study of grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and literature all in one workbook. I would suggest beginning with the tan book if your child needs a good review of basic grammar and language arts. If this is technically "below his grade level," explain that he needs the "easier" material since he is also taking the Creative Writing class at KEYS, and then have him complete as many lessons' worth of material each day as he has time. Studying in this manner, he should work to complete both the tan and green books in one year.
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If you prefer the "component approach" to language arts study, be sure to choose materials to cover grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and literature.
For literature and vocabulary study, you might consider utilizing the Total Language Plus materials with novels appropriate to your child's age or interests. These are yellow study guides specifically created for use with particular novels. If you are utilizing Sonlight materials for history, there is likely sufficient literary analysis already incorporated with your child's reading program to suffice during this course. Whichever path you take to incorporate literature and vocabulary study, please be sure to allow your child to complete the reading requirements for my class by reading purely for pleasure. The books read for the reading log should be approved by me and should be something that the child is not studying in any way.
If you do not already have another program in use, for spelling study I might suggest that you begin to use Spelling Power. This program is quite easy and effective with a child who is not experiencing some sort of learning block in spelling. It allows students to study only the words they do not yet know how to spell, and diagnostic tests guarantee that they begin at the appropriate level for their current spelling abilities. It can be quite intimidating to begin, however, so feel free to see me for a quick "hands-on" lesson about getting started without reading the entire manual, as the author suggests. My family does Spelling Power three days a week, on the days we are not at KEYS. The student should not be studying more than five words at a time for spelling.
Any time your child misspells a word in his or her writing, it should be added to a running "spelling log" so that it can be incorporated into your spelling study at home. I will make note of the spelling errors on the students' compositions so that each can keep such a spelling log for your use.
Similarly, anytime your child comes across an unfamiliar word while reading, it should be added to a running "vocabulary log" so that it can be incorporated into your vocabulary study. If your home vocabulary program is lacking, you might consider one of the many reference books designed to expand and enhance vocabulary. My family uses Write Well, Speak Well and The Words You Should Know, handled just like Spelling Power (but only once per week) so that my children only study the words they don't already know. Again, no more than five unfamiliar words should be studied in any given week.
If you are committed to a systematic study of grammar for your child, traditional grammar textbooks from Rod & Staff or A Beka are good. The pink book of the Building Christian English Skills series by Rod & Staff, called Progressing with Courage, is a thorough program of study that will give the student a good grasp of most of the grammatical rules of the English language. I will warn you that these programs are time-consuming, however, and might be too much to pursue while also enrolled in the Creative Writing class at KEYS. Additionally, if you are planning to have your child take the high school level Writing and Grammar courses at KEYS, they will provide all the systematic grammar instruction your child will need.
Feel free to contact Mrs. Sitterding for clarification, or with any questions or concerns, at the following email address: ParksidePedagogy@gmail.com