Review: The Write Foundation Sentence to Paragraph Writing AND Essay Writing

The Write Foundation
Level 1~Sentence to Paragraph (Lessons 1-15)
Level 3~Essay Writing (Lessons 1-15)
The Write FoundationAges:  11-13 /  14-17
Price: $100 30 lessons OR Lessons 1-15 or 15-30 $65 each.  Student worksheets: One set are included in the curriculum, but additional sets are $25 for year or $15 per 15 lessons.
I say:  Good!

Writing IS my most challenging subject to teach for various reasons, and the subjectivity of grading and knowing just how to break the process down has been a daunting task for me.  I've really struggled in knowing HOW to take both my writers where they need to go.  When I got the information I was reviewing The Write Foundation, it's as if God smiled upon me.  I was so excited, and began researching the curriculum to decide which level to chose to best suit my writers.  I have two VARIED writers.  One who takes to it like a fish to water and the other like a fish OUT OF the water~I made a call to Rebecca Celsor who spent time hearing all about my writers and offered me encouragement as well as her personal insights and guidance over choosing the proper levels.  This is why you see two complete levels.  It was her opinion that my children would both be best served by the different levels.  I give Mrs. Celsor a HUGE thumbs up for taking her time (over an hour!) and effort to assure that we got just what we needed in the first place.  It was her sincere desire that we find what would really and truly WORK for us~she certainly didn't have to offer two sets of her curriculum for this reviewer to work through! I do believe that this is a peak into the kind of honest and caring customer service her clients will receive.  She was a wealth of information and insights~SHE KNOWS her stuff!  For me, it was invaluable! Short days our call, I got an email from her husband (This is a homeschool family who have used these materials that Mrs. Celsor created and has taught for quite a few years at home with her own children and in their local homeschool co-op setting) who gave me the shipping information with tracking information.  When my sealed nicely cardboard box arrived, my materials were beautiful having received Sentence Level 1 and Essay Level 3 levels complete with additional student worksheet sets! They also arrived in a timely manner from the receipt of that email.

In short order I began looking them over. Now, you have to realize that I am a little challenged where teaching writing is concerned.  While I've learned to write some, I certainly have no idea how to adequately teach it~AND so this blessing having arrived was mine to read and study so I could offer it up to my children.

I began studying and even made a trip to Office Depot to purchase the needed supplies.  Included is a supply list which includes:
Three ring binder (one for each student)
Highlighters (yellow, blue, orange, pink, green,...multiple colors)
Page dividers

Suggested in the curriculum: Mind Benders (Critical Thinking Co) puzzle logic building skills workbooks~I ordered this via our local curriculum store.
Notebook paper
Computer with word processing program (essential to have student type papers for MLA format)
I purchased page protectors and ring tabs to protect our pages. NOT on the list, but useful for us~who wants pages coming out?? LOL!! (I KNOW my kids and me..we definitely use these!)

I was ready to go! I felt really confident...but then as I began reading, a little anxiety hit because I was unable to totally follow the directions that I needed to share with my children and also what I needed to know as I presented the materials.  I began to research further and even went to the website where a sample lesson is available to note that it didn't help me.  I made a call and spoke at length to Mrs. Celsor's daughter this time who walked me through the processes and took notes of my input and observations.  I found this contact very helpful~so it was then that I went forward and began teaching each level.

As I've worked through the materials, on occasion I found myself researching  definitions for items like "participles" and some of the types of poetry so that I could not just have them do the exercises, but because I DIDN'T KNOW or even understand, I had to find this information first in another source.  Another area of difficulty is that this curriculum is really designed for a co-op  setting with a once a week teaching structure where children go home to do daily lessons.  Well, daily lessons works great for us, and in all actuality, we really did do it daily, it's just that I had to really figure out how to meter it out in order to meet our needs.  Maybe it's me, but I had a little trouble, but the lessons themselves are simple and very incremental. There are copies of teacher presentations sheets which are essentially what the student will need to do so you can show them by examples for a few and then let them try to master the concept. I REALLY like the simplistic incremental aspect of these materials! I needed something that would take us by each little step.  There are check sheets for the writing and a "NO LIST" which I love! These check sheets really put some easily identifiable self regulation  into my kid's own hands and will best prepare them for their university careers!

While I had some difficulty within the curriculum, first I KNOW that I can call upon the developer to help me~THIS IN INVALUABLE! AND that it's really thorough in it's sequential presentations of the process of writing.  I intend to continue The Write Foundation with my son who IS the reluctant writer and who will need this kind of curriculum to teach the basics.

Here's some insights from the website:

Many writing curricula focus on the different types of writing, such as creative writing, story writing, poetry writing, persuasive writing, argumentative writing, informative writing, descriptive writing, book writing, fiction writing, novel writing, but the basic foundation of writing is assumed. The Write Foundation begins with the writing process, how a student formulates a topic, then a thesis, then supporting points, and by incremental teaching drills in the basics. In most grammatical subjects, we have found that failure is almost totally because the basics have not been learned. 

The Write Foundation writing curriculum is a result of 8 years of successfully teaching homeschooled students in a one-day-per-week co-op setting. It has been adapted for a homeschool and used by numerous homeschooling parents to give their own children the tools of how to quickly organize and write an  essay with excellence.

Join the discussion or ask questions with the NEW yahoo group!

If you are like me and have kids who need the basics of writing whatever the level in a sequential and incremental way, you will not be disappointed, and the customer care is absolutely GREAT!

Check out what the CREW says...

LIKE to win prizes? I have a contest to win a FITNESS BALL as part of the Progresso Healthier You Prize Pack~ENDS 11:59 TONIGHT!!
I received The Write Foundation's Level 1 Sentence to Paragraph Writing (Lessons 1-15) and Level 3 Essay Writing (Lessons 1-15) as part of the Old Schoolhouse Crew for review purposes.  My opinions are my own, and I received no monetary compensation.

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Teaching the Young Child to Write~Creatively!

When my children were younger, one method I used to bud the creativity in them in their writing is an idea that my friend, Julie gave me.  She had written a guide to writing with the emphasis on enlisting a love for writing within the child's heart first by journal writing each day and systematically teaching editing and the grammar rules as the child journals.  The secret "arsenal" was to have the child write in the journal each day of school, but only weekly to "conference" with the child about his writing.  This was not a critical feast of condemning the child's efforts, but one where the parent/teacher reads with interest and support, validation picking only ONE error to focus upon.  Just ONE! Now this was hard for me initially, but in seeing this method work, the child is not discouraged by hearing how so much is wrong, but that their flow of creative ideas is wonderful, GREAT, and accepted!

When our children were encouraged to write in the manner, they wrote creative stories and accounts of things that they thought without the struggles of the "mechanics" if you will allow me to call it that~the FREE-FLOW of IDEAS is what's most important in the developing thinker and writer . . .

Even the youngest child who has learned to form his letters and write simple sentences through copy work can journal each day.  If your child isn't able to write many sentences independently, then assign ONE each day . . . My son wrote, "I love a cat; I have a cat; My cat is Tiger." You can get the idea that it was a incremental process that TOOK TIME!

Just as  it takes time for a child to learn to read, it will take time for your little to write and write well!

For the very young child, you can "scribe" for him until he is able to write his sentence independently.  Use a journal.  Let your child pick out his own style and color~his preference! I love the Dollar Tree for having these so affordable and often they are so unique! My son's had a frog on it in the shape of a frog!!  Scribe and then have him copy~but don't overwhelm.

Please see the bigger picture that your child is growing and WILL get it!

Our family is proof of this! I have posted our current writing methods/processes
Strategy I


Planning Past the EvalsStrategy 3
Playing Our Way to Writing! and you can see we are well beyond my scribing and the one sentence journal method.

Play some games to encourage language development!

Games for the Young Child:

1. Sentence starters are great. Make up your own (as simple as your child needs it to be . . .)
2. Finish the story: writing game.  Have your children around the table. Start with one line, something like: "There once was . . ." OR "Once upon a time, there was . . ." OR "Hello said the little kitten to . . ." Of course change the kitten to whichever animal your child adores. Is it his dog or a bunny or turtle? ;-)) Make it fun! And then each child and yourself will take a turn adding a word! Allow yourself to write them as you go around, OR pass a sheet of paper for older children. For a fun, fast passed game, do sentences.  Pass this with the olders and they will giggle, get silly and soo creative!
3. Give your child a picture.  Have him tell you what he sees.  You can write it down on his appropriate age level lined paper every other line so now it becomes copy-work, which will reinforce not only what the thought and what was said, but also strengthen those fine motor skills in the mechanics of physcal writing as well as demonstrate just how sentence properly are put together (grammar.)

I hope you will find these methods incouraging and helpful.  Remember like reading, the ability to write is one that takes incramental practice over years to develop.

The biggest goal at a young age is to foster the thinking, creative mind! 

Writing for successful writers!

Writing Strategy #4 Playing Our Way to Writing!

It's been a long haul over the years.  While we are in high school, I realize that some of you are in different places in the journey of homeschooling.  I hope my honest discussion of this struggle will be a comfort for you if you are struggling or insecure, and for those just starting out, I hope you find encouragement and some ideas you can use as well. 

The age of your child certainly will dictate some of what you will and won't try.  But this one idea is certain, keep trying! Another is to keep it as much fun as possible.  My boy will tell you that I am not fun! But in my humble defense, I have tried to keep it fun~but remember this is an area of weakness and none of us likes hitting on a "soft spot" of which this Mama has done for all these years now...so I really don't expect him to think I am fun or to thank me right now~BUT I am looking ahead...to days when he will...when he can function and do well at life~literate and educated! It would be sooo easy to take the tact of saying, "awww, he's not 'college material' and "well, he is so hands on~we just didn't push"...or even, "shop activities were his thing, we just let the other stuff slide..."  Please hear me on this: I am sure I will have hit a nerve in my opinion I am giving, but my reasons are thus: We MUST educate our children! The education we give has to be encompassing to a place that it brinks to the top of their abilities.  This is a tall order I know...but I encourage you to consider your child's life without the ability to effectively communicate on paper the written words he may need to convey as an adult in a writing society...Yes, history does document the excellence of writing in our society~just read our founders and those who were educated throughout the centuries! OK...so I've said it~let's educate our strugglers and all our littles to excellence! NOW on to some fun ideas:

1. Play some games~what have you got? Scrabble, Boggle, Wheel of Fortune, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Trivial Pursuit? We even like Monopoly and Uno for strategy as well as card games...but the word and knowledge based games are so useful...Chess...checkers...play play play!

2. For basic skills in phonics, I devised a simple game for my hands on learner...he was in kindergarten at the time and learning vowel sounds and blends...I made flash cards out of file cards and putting them in a random pattern on the floor, he hopped while making the sounds.  He liked it and it helped him learn them.

3. Writing games~story starters is a fun way...take out a sheet of notebook paper or for your young child, you be the scribe so the emphasis is on the ideas not all the skills associated with writing all at once...begin the story with a made up statement that needs an ending: "There was a kitty who..." and let your child finish...Then you can go onward to expand the story.  Once you have a short nice story, you can have your child use this story as copy work.  A method for this is to scribe your child's thoughts on his age level appropriate writing paper every other line...the second line is for his copywork right below yours.  Remember to model beautiful writing for him, printed properly in a style that fits with good sound instruction.  You must model what you desire in your learner ;-))  This is so true in all of our lives with our children!  So with this said, you can also have him illustrate the story as well.  This gives great extensions to your child's story and creative efforts!

4. Journaling is another great way to write everyday that will bring composing together with mechanics.  Funny that we began trying to journal long before he was ready...I got short snippet sentences like: "I love a cat." I have a cat." My cat is good."  But eventually through praise and then requiring a number of sentences I KNEW he could write, and numbers of words I knew he could use, I encouraged him and REQUIRED longer sentences: My instructions: Write five sentences five words each.  Each sentence is about something different.  These were after quite a while of continuing to teach sentence writing and scribing his ideas and him doing copywork.    It's a process, and I used loads of praise and reward for his hard work! In fact, today I STILL tell him ALL the wonderful things he has done in excellence FIRST before I EVER share any corrections that need to be made...I know that he has worked sooo hard...soooo diligent...and I want him to KNOW that I know and value his efforts!!! Convey this to your learner too! Don't we all go a little further when we feel loved and valued for our efforts??! 

5. Silly Songs~does your child like music? Make up silly sentence songs to tunes you know or tunes you can make up~Have fun! MAKE it fun! The hard part will come later when it's essay writing time and the steps are in place so that an essay will form.  This is where we are today...and why I have posted my incramental instructions that I am giving each day to get an essay a week...

Remember that writing is truly a process.  One thing I learned in college is that editing is what will make a writer's work excel, but the one thing I learned about writing from life is that a true writer or a natural writer will just write, because "writer's write!" I have a natural writer who writes up a storm and then I have a reluctant writer, but both are becoming capable writers~effective and prepared...it's a process of becoming~even with such  as skill as writing!

Play on towards writing~teaching your child toward excellence and being educated!

Writing Strategy #3 Pushing On...

Sometimes we just have to keep going! I have tried all kinds of things with our learner.  Trial and error is expected when we know each child is different so a different method may or may not work.  Each child has a unique learning style.  You can study these styles so you know how your child does and does not learn.  My son is now able to tell me his learning preference.  I do want to say that learning preferences does not mean we give into them though...my daughter who has trouble following audio needs more practice taking dictation and notes on lectures.  My son who has trouble with his writing needs to write more.  Just because there is an area of difficulty it does not mean we give into the weakness! We must press on~push on to victory to reach our child's potential. 

Once I have set goals for my child, I have discussed them with him.  They really are HIS goals, not mine! If he is not engaged and willing, no goals or process will make him learn. 

Here is an example of a goal I have set for my son for this year.  It has various levels, but overall this is the goal:
Boy Thing One can write a five paragraph essay with minimal help to the completion on Friday using all the steps of essay writing.  He will understand proper punctuation, grammar and spelling, along with capitalization and format. 

NOW this is a tall order!

Yeah, you're right!

It goes like this:
After I assign either a topic or a reading assignment for a topic:
Ex. John Smith

Monday

Write five facts answering each question.  Do research by looking him up online and in the encyclopedias.  You may use the library too.

Who is Johh Smith?
What did John Smith do?
Why do we need to know about John Smith?

Tuesday

 Organize the facts under each question in order of most important to least important.

Wednesday

Write an introduction paragraph. Use a topic sentence which tells what your essay is about. Give the three main points presented in the three paragraphs~who he was, what he did and why we need to know about him.  Turn the facts into sentences and write three paragraphs using them.  Keep them in the order of the sentences. Call this papaer Draft I. When you are done, go to another task.  When finished, come back and read each sentence backward starting at the bottom of the page. FIND any errors and correct them all.  Bring your preEssay to me for me to go over it with you.

Thursday

Add the closing paragraph to your essay.  ReState all your main ideas about John Smith.  This becomes Draft 2. Go over your paper gain.  Find all he mistakes and corect them.  Bring the paper to me for my editing. This becomes Draft 3.

Friday

Final paper day.  After I have edited with you, go back and rewrite the entire essay!
This becomes your final draft and upon which I will grade.

I always staple in order the progression with the final paper on top.  I brag about everything good on the appearance, structure, layout, format, sentences, meanings, orgainzation, penmanship..EVERYTHING! Liberal praise, limited correction.

A child going into a crying jag or melt down is in overload.  Relieve overload by allowing your child to set in a chair or put the heads down.  Pushing on isn't productive unless he is ready!  Learning is active and engaged...
Here's just what I am doing to teach the process~What are you doing?

Writing Strategy~Planning Past the Evaluations

Once my child was evaluated for placement, it wasn't placement that concerned me, but skill sets.  What does he know and not know.  When I am aware of his weaknesses, I can work with him to improve those areas.  Planning becomes key when looking at where we want to go.  But what would planning look like for your child? Each child is going to be uniquely different, but you can decide as a homeschooler what skills you need for him to learn and when to learn them. 

When my boy was younger, about 2nd grade, I wanted him to creatively write in a journal each day.  I tried all kinds of things to get his creative juices flowing including offering a tape player for him to speak his thoughts into and letting that be his "writing." I did this so his thinking would develop independent of the motor skills of writing.

I also used copy work.  I didn't use the nice copywork sheets that are available with a saying or Scripture on the top in nice script for him to copy, but I used regular three-lined second grade paper and wrote every other line and had him copy my letters directly underneath mine.  This took up more paper and may have been more costly, but really in comparrison to purchasing copywork pages that are not lined appropriately for the young child, but more like college or wide rule notebook paper and their cost, it most likely came out the same...also there were added benefits with using this method.  It was a 'real world' practice of what I would later require of him...I didn't want to change the methods with paper type for a child already struggling! Cost wasn't as much a factor as what may help us!  Also I had him copy the Bible and other works of literature passages for practice in seeing great sentences and content.  I was making the way for a path that I hoped one day would be well trodden!

Each lesson of writing accompanied some other lesson such as history or Bible or science we were doing.  This gave great meaning for all the work, and I was very proud of his efforts and showcased them in page protectors in a three ring binder! I allowed him his place in the process of learning and to grow!

We played word games, although I don't think he ever realized this was a strategy on my part...we played Wheel of Fortune on cd game...he loved to solve the puzzle...Writing became a part of all the other things that were fun for him.  I had to find ways to keep exposing him to using his small fine muscles and to enlist that brainy memory of writing~the art of the written word. 

It could be said, I have worked him silly! In fact, if you ask him, he says that I have done just that...but we are seeing progress...and it was incramental.  It was a step at a time...

Once I figured out what he knew and didn't know, I was prepared to find unique and interesting ways (to him) to take him to a higher level...planning was key.

Write some goals.
Write steps to getting to the goals!
Write some rewards or incentives for your learner!
Evaluate what is and is not working.

Getting the evaluation can be invaluable to figuring out how to help a child who is struggling.  Accurate information such as the self test in the previous post or professional accessments can tell just what a parent is navigating through for their child.

Once this is all done and plans are made, then it's time to do them...and if you find something not working, it's time for....
CHANGE!

We will discuss what to do when something isn't working...how to make that...CHANGE!

The 3 R's are some of the most important academic work we will do as homeschoolers with our children.  Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic are essential foundations to all the other disciplines.

It's my personal challenge to bring a child with learning issues to a place of competency in the area of language.  Raising a child with language learning deficits where speaking wasn't the only challenge, reading and writing have been huge as well.  I read and used all sorts of materials to make progress; there's been professional testing and interventions too! We turned every stone possible to understand our child and the challenges.  It's not been easy, and often the desire to throw up my hands in defeat have consumed me.  The challenge is not mine alone, as he must recognize it and battle to become all he can become!  He must become successful to compete in this world.  My child has made tremendous strides in the past year plus! He is writing essays, while not where I would like to see him, he is putting down ideas on paper and learning the fine points of grammar and organization.  Because of the difficulties, he is easily frustrated and becomes resistant.  I want to share some of the strategy I have developed for him with the help of a dear teacher friend of mine who is in special education.  She has been a wonderful sideline supporter of me and my children, an ear and friend~a sister/coolest aunt ever in our hearts! Thanks, my friend for loving us!

What are you doing to help your child? Do you have challenges that are puzzling? I'd love to hear.
blessings,