Quick! Need resources for homeschooling for literacy for second grader.

[georgiegirl]

Long story short, I think we are going to end up dual enrolling DS2 so that I’m homeschooling him for literacy and he’s going to school online for math. He will also get extension online and attend specials online. Can anyone share resources for homeschooling for literacy? DS loves to read. Although he’s in first grade, his reading level is about 1.5 years ahead (early third grade level). He’s a voracious reader. His writing isn’t that great, but I guess that’s what happens when school stops 3/4 of the way through kindergarten. [emoji2368] I’d love some sort of curriculum that allows him to explore his interests...like he gets to pick the topic or book and then the concepts/standards are applied to whatever reading material we pick. I think we will have still access to school subscriptions for various online services/apps, like Epic and Scholastic News.

Thanks!


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[KpbS]

I would take him to the library or let him request fiction and nonfiction books he is interested in reading. Let him go at his own pace. For ELA, I like the Voyages curricula. https://store.loyolapress.com/voyages-in-english-2018-grade-2-student-edition

You can have him also do writing prompts from Lakeshore Learning.
https://www.lakeshorelearning.com/assets/media/images/free_resources/teachers_corner/printables/februaryWritingPrompts12.pdf

These are my recommendations!

[ang79]

I work for a home school academy and as I've been learning about all the various curriculum my company offers, I have used reviews from Cathy Duffy. She is well known in the home school world and offers thorough reviews of many different publishers and curriculum:https://cathyduffyreviews.com/

Many of the parents I work with use the Write Source Writing and Grammar curriculum, which focuses on the steps of good writing and the 6 traits of effective writing and is easily adaptable to different levels. It teaches some grammar and usage through the writing process, but I usually recommend additional grammar practice work, as well as a separate literature course. Some of our curriculum kits also use the series by Thoughtful Learning for writing and incorporate this with specific story books for literature study.

[bisous]

I don't have specific resources for you but I did ask my mom who is a retired 1st grade teacher what she would do. She mentioned some programs that she likes a lot but they're very much suited to a public school classroom. She mentioned "Daily Five" which is five activities to do daily that help improve literacy (and I think I'm going to try to implement some of them!). She said to do writing every day. I asked her what elements are included in a good writing program. She does focus somewhat on handwriting. And spelling. She likes the "sound spelling cards" from HM. (We have these for DD and I think they're great but they're from her stash!) She writes every single day with her students.

Her recommendation is to get a curriculum that has all the elements. She famously disregards the schedule--i.e. skips the stories she doesn't care for, spends 3 days on topics the kids are struggling on, spends less time on skills already mastered, etc.--but it is nice to have all the elements at your disposal to be able to adapt as needed.

She also pointed out that 2nd grade is a polishing year for 1st grade. So, if DS3 doesn't improve as much as you might hope during homeschool, don't worry too much as he'll be able to go over everything again in 2nd!

I hope this helps! Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions. I hope your DS finds language arts much more enjoyable!

[georgiegirl]

Thanks for the recommendations. I think I mostly need a writing curriculum since that’s the one area I’m concerned about. I feel like handwriting (and writing) has been ignored during distance learning since everything is online. Fortunately he reads for hours every day (fiction), and he loves learning about new things (non-fiction.)


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[Melaine]

I really like Daily Six Traits for a simple writing curriculum. https://www.evan-moor.com/daily-6-trait-writing-grade-1-teachers-edition-print

[Green_Tea]

Don’t do Lucy Caulkins.
Teach spelling and handwriting separate from writing - they are different skills.
Often kids who appear really advanced at reading in K-1 miss out on being explicitly taught a lot of phonics skills, which greatly impacts them down the road. Kids who don’t learn phonics explicitly are less likely to be strong spellers.

[AustenFan]

Literacy can mean a lot of different things to different people, but if you're talking specifically about getting your DC writing original thoughts fluently, I actually have some pretty strong opinions on that. Homeschool guru and English professor Susan Wise Bauer has a great talk that is worth the $4 (https://welltrainedmind.com/p/a-plan-for-teaching-writing-grades-k-12-mp3/?v=7516fd43adaa) about how asking kids to write is actually asking a whole bunch of things at once. When kids are in K-2, they're starting to learn to read, to form letters, to spell, to learn grammatical rules, all at the same time. When you come in and ask them to write a journal page about their favorite vacation or whatever, it's asking way too much at once, and most kids will balk and produce pretty worthless writing. She breaks down the writing process into two main steps of putting inarticulate thoughts into words and putting words onto paper, and her Writing With Ease curriculum separates those two steps out so that kids can learn to do each step really effectively before asking them to do it all at once. So to get ideas into words, you read a short section of classic literature aloud and then ask them to narrate the story back (tell the main details). You repeat their thoughts with proper grammar and syntax and write it down for them. (So they dictate to you, relieving the pressure of spelling, letter formation, punctuation, etc.) To practice getting words onto paper, you have them copy a well-written sentence from great literature one day (practicing their handwriting, notice grammatical details and spelling) and then dictate it to them the next day (so they have it in their head the right way and have to get it down on paper). Slowly, over time, you build up to them being able to put those steps together in a logical and pleasing way.

I'm on my fourth time through the curriculum, and I can attest that taking the time to do things right at the front end produces really sophisticated and enthusiastic writers by middle school/junior high. Of course, in those early grades, my kids were not writing long journal entries on daily prompts, so it seemed like they were "behind" compared to their public schooled friends who were "writing" every day. But when you compared their written work, my kids wrote neatly and followed proper punctuation, grammar, and spelling, while the neighbor boys' work was almost illegible and full of errors. (I use our neighbor boys for comparison because at the time we were living in faculty housing at a university, so these were all professor's kids with similar IQ and family commitment to education.) By sixth grade, my son was writing expository essays and creative writing stories that were so far beyond what his friends were writing because he had such strong fundamentals. So...that is different feedback than others have given, but if you're interested, I'd recommend Writing With Ease (https://amzn.to/36RUybK) above any other writing curriculum I've seen. (If you use the workbooks--at this point in the year with a first grader, I'd actually just start with level 2 (https://amzn.to/36VbP3E)-- they actually have the book selection and copywork/dictation sentences picked out. Pretty much without fail, my kids' interest would be piqued by the selection from the book of the week, and we ended up reading all of them for pleasure reading or read alouds!)

I noticed you're in Iowa--I am, too, now. If you happen to be near the Iowa City area, I would even be happy to lend you a copy of our Writing With Skill books to take a look.

And my other advice, even if this method to teaching writing sounds too different from the public school method, is to read and listen to quality books and audiobooks! So much grammar and syntax and vocabulary comes in naturally as they're exposed to it in an engaging book. We never do reading comprehension worksheets because I think they are dull, dull, dull, but we talk about the books we're reading all the time, so I naturally have a good sense of what my kids understood. It's great that your DS loves to read! When my kids are emerging chapter book readers, I find a great audiobook to let them listen to as they read along in their own book. In first grade, my #4 was obsessed with the original 19 Boxcar Children books (after that they were ghost written and the quality plummets), and they're all on hoopla in audiobook form. She spent hundreds of hours reading and re-reading Boxcar Children books as she listened along. I have a list of a ton of great books (https://www.homeschoolingfornormalpeople.com/blog/seventy-of-our-familys-favorite-chapter-books) and great audiobooks (https://www.homeschoolingfornormalpeople.com/blog/audiobooks) on my homeschool blog, so I won't take the time to post them again. But quality books (Charlotte's Web rather than Captain Underpants) will do a lot of that teaching for you, just by osmosis.

Good luck!:)

[georgiegirl]

Thank you Austen Fan. That makes total sense about writing. At this point I’m just trying to get DS2 to practice handwriting. I have a friend from high school who homeschools her kids and she recommends just copying at this age.

[KpbS]

Thank you Austen Fan. That makes total sense about writing. At this point I’m just trying to get DS2 to practice handwriting. I have a friend from high school who homeschools her kids and she recommends just copying at this age.

Ok, I guess I misunderstood your question?

For Handwriting in second grade I’ve used Zaner Bloser. They have manuscript curricula and cursive. Not sure where he is skill wise or if he has been taught cursive handwriting. Kinder and 1st grade I liked Handwriting Without Tears. They have a 2nd grade program as well if you prefer.

https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/041023/Zaner-Bloser-Handwriting-Grade-2C-Student-Edition-2020-edition.html?trackcode=googleBase&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&adpos=&scid=scplp041023&sc_intid=041023&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5f700pLc7gIVjPbjBx2ZWwwLEAQYByAB EgKe3fD_BwE
And manuscript:

https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/041054/Zaner-Bloser-Handwriting-Grade-2M-Student-Edition-2020-edition.html?

HWOT

https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/023420/Cursive-Kickoff-Student-Workbook.html?

https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/007752/Printing-Power-Plus-Workbook-Set.html?

For writing prompts that are fun and easy, I still like the Lakeshore Learning thematic ones I linked above. They are great to get kids thinking and writing. Some days I give mine a target number of sentences other days they would write an entire page or more just because they enjoyed the prompt idea.

[AustenFan]

Okay, if it's just handwriting you're worried about at this point, I agree that just copying a sentence from a book he's reading or a poem you're memorizing together or whatever he finds interesting is great! I always emphasize quality over quantity--one well-written sentence is worth more than a sloppy paragraph. I also like letting the kids use dry erase markers on a lap whiteboard or Frixion erasable pens on paper because they're smoother than a pencil and they don't have to worry so much about maintaining perfect pressure the whole time. Also, some of mine have hated writing, but when I let them use a purple pen, suddenly it's super fun.😉