Elementary Writing: The Writers Workshop

It seems like Writer's Workshop and Six Traits Writing are two popular approaches to learning to write in schools.  But how is a school supposed to blend these writing approaches together? In fact, where are the materials that respond to the modern educational expectations of:

• blended learning so that much of the instruction or mini lessons is done electronically, not by the teachers
• personalized learning so that students at each level of DOK of the lesson know what the expectations are for them to progress (ie Marzano).
• While I've seen Lucy Caukins, it puts a lot responsibility and workload on the teacher. Too much.

So enter WritingCity from the VocabSpellingCity folk. They know how to make teachers lives easier. And to engage the students. So check out:

The elementary writing curriculum from WritingCity (nee WriteStepsWriting)!

ritingCity is the most teacher-friendly standards-based writing and grammar program for K-5 on the market. Period. We fuse best practices such as the 6 traits of writing, Writer’s Workshop, Multiple Intelligences, and Bloom’s Taxonomy.

This comprehensive program gives teachers and students everything they need to develop their craft with confidence.

The WritingCity Curriculum is provided via the online Teacher Platform that can be used with interactive whiteboards, visual projectors, computers, tablets, iPads, and document cameras.

WritingCity includes:

• daily lesson plans that provide Madeline Hunter-type lesson steps to successfully guide students in learning the writing process with standards-based skill development.
• Engagers  Interactive web-based writing activities   for every lesson created in SMART Notebook format.
• student visual aids, such as authentic student writing samples, graphic organizers, and text type specific 6 traits rubrics.
• unit introduction videos give educators confidence teaching new material.
• teacher support documents including pacing guides, standards correlation charts for every state, conferencing sheets, technology recommendations for producing and publishing writing, rubric conversion sheet for grading, writing themes, grammar guides, and many more.
• classroom demonstration videos teaching lesson concepts and introducing units.
• unlimited email support with coaches to support program implementation.
• automatic lesson updates ensure that teachers are prepared for next generation assessments.

Writing for Elementary Schools

LearningCity is here to help in many ways with literacy in elementary schools, especially writing!

There are a number of ways that teachers can use great programs to build writing skills. For instance, with VocabularySpellingCity, a teacher can have the students write a sentence for each word on a list or a paragraph that uses all the words on a list.  Two great ways to practice writing skills!

The Right Approach to Writing

WritingCity, powered by WriteSteps, is the perfect program to empower young developing writers. Our new K-5 writing and grammar program seamlessly aligns with state standards and supports highly-respected best practices. The complete WritingCity framework includes ready-to-use interactive lessons proven to increase student performance and scores. Teachers can easily implement our program to help students confidently craft their writing.

Teach Writing Effectively
The writing curriculum weaves together the best elements of successful teaching methods such as the Writer’s Workshop and the Six Traits Model to achieve superior writing instruction that spirals across all elementary grade levels.

Make the Most of Your Writing Block
Daily instructional videos break down lessons into quick 5-7 minute clips, shortening instructional time so that students get more practice writing, and teachers can conference with students.

Customize Student Learning
Students can log in at any time and work at their own pace, review material, and write and publish their work online for teacher and peer feedback. With engaging writing prompts, exemplary student writing samples, and an easy annotation platform, students have all the tools they need to excel.

Access On-Demand Professional Development
Personalize your professional development with our team of highly trained educators, or explore a wide selection of introductory and topic-specific tutorials. Our team of teachers is there to support you every step of the way.

Get Students on the Right Track with WritingCity

Another way to build writing skills is with a course from Time4Writing.  And I cite:

Time4Writing teaches writing courses for elementary, middle school and high school students. Time4Writing’s certified teachers provide eight-week tutorial courses for:

• Students who don’t get enough writing practice and feedback from their schools
• Students who want additional writing instruction to prepare for high stakes tests
• Homeschool families that like the external evaluation and guidance on writing
• Students who need extra writing practice to help sharpen their skills
• Students who lack confidence in their writing
• Students who enjoy writing and need constructive feedback to improve

While handwriting practice is quite different, VSC also helps create printable worksheets for handwriting practice. And I cite once more:

VocabularySpellingCity allows users to print out any word list as a handwriting worksheet. Each word appears on a separate line on handwriting paper in light writing for tracing, with plenty of space for handwriting practice.

VocabularySpellingCity provides a variety of options for printable handwriting worksheets. Specifically, users choose between print (manuscript), D’Nealian font, cursive, or sign language; arrows on or off; lower or upper case; large, medium, and small type size, and left or right alignment.

Printing in larger type is ideal for preschoolers and early Elementary students. If you have a free account, you can easily create alphabet handwriting worksheets and number worksheets by entering and saving lists consisting of letters and/or numbers. Once you save the list, simply select Handwriting Practice from the Games page to generate your custom worksheet. You can choose from the more traditional print (manuscript), or create D’Nealian handwriting worksheets. For older students, you can print cursive handwriting worksheets and decrease the type size for more age-appropriate handwriting paper.

To create handwriting worksheets, just find the word list you’d like use, and select Print a Game. Then select Handwriting. Choose from the different options, then select the Print link. Click here to see an example.

Four Traits Writing

I just read about an interesting twist on the popular Six Traits Writing.
It's called Four Traits Writing.  Basically, it addresses one of the really outdated parts of Six Traits which is a real weakness. Six traits doesn't have a framework to address the type of writing.  All writing is considered the same and measured against the same rubriques. But this makes no sense to the students.

The problem is that students today are writing far more than most previous generations. But they are doing it as chats and texts, not as formal long form essays.  Four traits writing addresses this and provides a framework so that the audience and media are considered. Really, this comes to purpose of writing. Below is the original mateirals from 4 traits writing which could definitely and should be updated. In terms of usage, I imagine this could be integrated in writing in either:

The Types of Writing
Blending Writers Workshop
Student Writing Practice

Four-Trait Writing© is an update of a traditional approach to the learning of the craft. Under pressure to correctly create an essay to fit the rigid standardized testing guidelines, students are not usually given the opportunity to broaden their writing horizons for today’s electronically connected world.

Four-Trait Writing provides students a framework both to write successfully for today’s high stakes test and to discover writing beyond the formal essay. Students have the chance to find their voice when writing for the internet, editorials, and even dialogue.

So, what are the Four Traits of successful writing? They are:

1. Content – Story and Logic

2. Style (Sentence Variety and Structure)

3. Mechanics (Spelling, Punctuation, Capitalization Rules)

4. Media & Voice (Persuasion; Objective Journalism; Internet Writing; Dialogue: Plays and Scripts)

• Content – Story and Logic covers the flow of a narrative and the organization of an expository essay.
• Style discusses sentence structure, variety, and fluency and the usage of colorful, descriptive words.
• Mechanics are the writing basics of capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Learning to use all of these properly and becoming adept at proofreading for errors in these areas, are an essential skill for the middle school writer.
• The Media and Voice in the modern world are different from that of the past. Today’s writer needs to have a separate voice for the different media available to them. In the same day, a single writer might have to shift between writing a blog article with paragraphs with bolded key works, to a formal structured essay for a school assignment, or to a chatty commentary article for a printed magazine with a headline.

Voice for Media (Persuasion) – Students are introduced to and practice writing to persuade to buy, to vote, to think in a similar fashion. Voice for Objective Journalism – Students discover the five W’s and the H (who, what, when, where, why, and how) of objective article writing for an online or hard copy publication. Voice for Internet Writing – In today’s world, students can create web pages and blog on the internet. This is quite different from any other writing they may have learned in the past as much of it is created in a more conversational tone with subheads and bullet points. Voice for Plays and Scripts – Many students enjoy using their imaginations and creative voice. Here, they have that chance as they write dialogue and stage directions.

WritingCity!

It's here, VocabularySpellingCity finally has a full sibling, writingcity. An elementary writing program.

Here's the idea. VSC has pioneered a fun low cost easy to use approach to using education. The foundational concept is to implement best practices in a way that takes advantage of technology to simplify the lives of teachers, the management of the schools, and most importantly, the education of the kids.

After years of searching, VSC found WriteStepsWriting which is a great writing program which will form the bones of WritingCity.

What is WriteStepsWriting? It is a writing workshop approach to teaching writing with easy to use daily lessons plans for all of elementary school.  The daily mini lessons can be delivered by the teacher or played with the videos. The WritingCity videos work especially well when teachers are using literacy centers and one center is focused on writing where the students have the daily mini lesson before doing their work.

WritingCity is also popular and effective because of the examplar text. Only really student examples are used and they are presented as is so students are not intimidated by professional examples which don't resemble anything they are ready to produce. The friendly examples of other students' writing which gets lavishly praised and analysed encourages students to go ahead and give it a try!

On another note, VSC also has a half sister site which is Science4Us. It will become a full sibling once it gets rebranded and extended for 3rd-5th.  Much of the interesting science work is discussed on the US Science Education website such as here, studying with bicycles.

Writing Programs

i have looked at what the needs of todays writers are. I'm talking about the K12 students who are both getting lots and lots of writing practice thru tweeting and texting but are not learning to clearly structure anything more than sentence fragments.

The biggest tool out there is turnitin which schools use to detect cheating.
There's also massive essay grading programs used for most of the standardized tests.
There are not so many good grammar checkers or pratice tools.

VocabularySpellingCity has a nifty pair of writing practice programs for sentence writing practice and paragraph practice writing.  There is also a great set of short (ie 8 week writing classes) provided by Time4Writing which is used mostly by parents to help with their kids' writing. Often for homeschoolers learning to write.

Time4Writing is an online writing curriculum designed with homeschoolers in mind. In fact, the creation of Time4Writing was the direct result of feedback from users of the Time4Learning Online Homeschool Curriculum who wanted more targeted, individualized writing instruction.  The outcome of that feedback was an elementary writing curriculum, middle school writing curriculum, and high school writing curriculum that covers the key writing skills students need to know by graduation. In addition, the variety of lesson types is designed to keep young writers engaged and motivated to succeed.

Science SBIR 2012

Science educators have proposed interactive hands-on engagement to enhance science instruction for over 30 years. During the early 90s, hands-on science kits and teacher professional development institutes and programs were implemented across the nation (Roychoudhury & Kahle, 1999; Stohr-Hunt, 1996; Supovitz, Mayers, & Kahle, 2000; Supovitz & Turner, 2000).

However, the use of kits, specifically the refurbishment of consumable items, represented additional costs to school districts. During the hands-on kit based era, the refurbishment process often revealed that few of the items were ever used from the science kits. This observation indicated the limited use of science kits to enhance science instruction. Further, teachers reported that the significant amount of time necessary to set up material centers, distribute manipulatives to students and control the safe handling of certain items served as barriers to science instruction.

Research found that a science kit curriculum requires more professional development investments by school districts than they are able to provide (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). The typical professional development structures for science teachers in the U.S. are problematic and have a limited impact on teacher practice and student learning (Randi & Zeichner, 2004; Weiss, Banilower, McMahon, & Smith, 2001).

Writing and Vocabulary

Is it impossible to be a good writer with a poor understanding of vocabulary? I think so. I think it's also nearly impossible to be a good writer without a certain proficiency in spelling. Why?

Becuase when someone writes, they should be thinking about what they are trying to say and how they are trying to say it.  It's hard to imagine someone without basic spelling skills having the spelling automaticity required to write well.

Or, the cognitive load of trying to spell each word can prevent someone from thinking about what they are trying to write. But if their spelling is automatic, they can think about their writing.

Schools and students develop spelling and writing automaticity largely through practice.  Here's some great resources for practicing for each grade level.  For second grade spelling, third grade spelling, fourth grade spelling, and fifth grade spelling. 

In second grade, and I quote:  Second grade spelling word lists include Dolch and Fry sight word lists and word structure lists (compound words). Second grade students can build sight word fluency and phonics mastery through the use of VocabularySpellingCity’s interactive online games. Second grade games feature both audio and visual elements, an effective learning tool for all maturing readers and writers, specifically English Language Learners (ELLs).

And quoting from the 5th grade materials:

Fifth grade teachers can find hundreds of free vocabulary and spelling word lists on VocabularySpellingCity‘s website. Word lists can be paired with engaging, interactive games to practice fifth grade English language arts concepts. In addition to online learning games, VocabularySpellingCity offers printable worksheets on topics including hyperbole, personification, and metaphors to help make planning fifth grade vocabulary lessons easy.

Fifth grade-level word lists support reading and literacy programs like Journeys and Wonders. Teachers can use lists to supplement fifth grade language arts lesson plans. VocabularySpellingCity can also administer and assess spelling tests and vocabulary tests. Fifth grade teachers can create their own lists to accommodate more advanced spelling patterns that include affixes and multisyllabic words, as well as remedial word lists that include high frequency words and commonly misspelled words.

Maybe the traditional spelling practice really is the way to learn these words and the whole CCSS thing of just read read read is not going to develop the skills needed for writing. No duh!

Writing Requires Strong Vocabulary & Language Arts

Most writers are real technicians fo the langauge. Their mastery of mechanics and vocabulary are an important part of their trade.

Many of them are really fascinated by words and word games.  I'm not saying that if you have a big vocabulary, you'll beocme a writer. I am saying that if you build skills, like vocabulary, you might write better using the exact right word at the right time.

Here's  collection of literacy related learning games for grade one, two, three, four, five, and kindergarten. Share them with your parents and other teachers.

Kindergarten - http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/kindergartenlearninggames

1st Grade - http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/1stgradelearninggames1

2nd Grade - http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/2ndgradelearninggames

3rd Grade - http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/3rdgradelearninggames

4th Grade - http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/4thgradelearninggames

5th Grade - http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/5thgradelearninggames

If you don't know about webmixes, you should, they're great ways to build webpages, and collect resources.

Science4Us Mission

The U.S. weakness in science starts in the primary grades (NAEP, 2009). The mission of Science4Us (S4U) is to revive science education via an original, powerful, and complete online curriculum focusing initially on providing a strong K-2 curriculum. S4U believes that the best possibility of broadly achieving the desired level of student and teacher engagement in science within today’s environment is through an online, digital approach with embedded professional development. There are four key reasons that S4U is positioned to succeed in this mission:

1. The imminence of standardized science assessments and goals creates a need for new curriculum.
2. Today’s students are technologically savvy learners ready to engage in digital learning.
3. The school infrastructure (human & technical) is ready and able to rely on an online curriculum.
4. The S4U team has deep in-house expertise and tried-and-true experience in:

• School science best practices and classroom realities
• Digital education production and game development
• Marketing techniques powerful enough to make a nationwide impact

The goal of Science4Us is to improve STEM education with an easy-to-use investigative online low cost, standards-based, innovative, research-based, curriculum suited to today’s educational system.

As background, the Science4Us model is a based on the 5E Instructional Model.

Elementary Science Program

There's such a huge need for Americans to get solid technical educations and there's such a wasteland and lack of study in today's elementary schools. Sheez!

Enter one nice solution. Have you seen Science4Us? CHECK IT OUT!

The mission of Science4Us is to provide a solid foundation of fundamental science concepts for students in their formative years, on which a deep understanding and interest in science can be built. Science4Us realizes that the teachers are integral to the mission. Teachers can struggle to provide the foundation early elementary students need. Science4Us makes it easy.

The Science4Us curriculum includes pedagogical and content training for teachers, embedded and on-demand, that does not require a large time commitment. Science4Us provides all of the support that teachers need to  lead exemplary science lessons, using the 5E Instructional learning Model for Elementary Science.

 Here is an overview of their curriculum by grade:

• Kindergarten Science Program
• 1st Grade Science Curriculum
• 2nd Grade Science Curriculum
• Third, Fourth, and Fifth Grade Science

Inspire your students with Science4Us, an early elementary science curriculum that builds solid foundation skills.

Free Science Educational Widgets. Students are taught physical science, life science, earth/space science and inquiry skills with over 350 online, animated activities as well as tons of offline material. Science4Us also includes hands-on projects, investigations and cross-curricular math and language arts activities that maximize the learning process and help students gain further understanding. We have compiled these early elementary science resources for you to use at home or in the classroom.

Science Songs

These educational songs are found throughout our K-2 curriculum. Through fun, catchy lyrics, science concepts are presented in a way that young learners will enjoy and remember. You can find more Science4Us videos on ourYouTube channel.

View Science Songs >>

Animated Lessons

Science4Us covers four “books” of science – Physical Science, Life Science, Earth/Space Science and Inquiry. The comprehensive curriculum includes 28 modules with over 350 online, animated activities.

Elementary Science Lessons >>

Hands-On Projects

Students will enjoy learning fundamental science principles through engaging, hands-on experiments. These fun projects for elementary students use easily attainable, everyday household items such as balloons, magnets and eggs. (Warning: Some experiments may get a little messy!)

Elementary Science Fair Projects >>

Best Educational Games for Back to School

Many schools and teachers post a list of recommended websites for learning games for their students.  Here's a curated list of educational and engaging learning games for schools to post on their website and send out to teachers.  Obviously, it can be adjusted by the teacher's or school's focus and their types of students.

Spelling Games

http://www.spellingcity.com/spelling-games-vocabulary-games.html 

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/spelling-games.html

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/spelling/

Phonics Games

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/phonics/

http://www.familylearning.org.uk/phonics_games.html

Syllables and Segmenting Games

http://www.spellingcity.com/syllables-segmenting.html

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/syllables/

Analogies

http://www.spellingcity.com/analogies.html

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/analogies/

Writing Lessons and Activities

http://www.time4writing.com/writing-essays/

http://www.time4writing.com/writing-paragraphs/

http://www.time4writing.com/sentence-writing/

Typing/Keyboarding Games

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games.html

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games/typing-course.html

http://www.time4writing.com/writing-essays/

Vocabulary Games

http://www.spellingcity.com/spelling-games-vocabulary-games.html

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/vocabulary_games.html

http://www.spellingcity.com/Games/matchit.html

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/english-language-games/

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/context-and-definitions/

Brain Training Games

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/miscellaneous_games.html

Bookmarking Sites

Symbaloo's Visual Bookmarking has some great webmixes!

http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/wordgames2

Flashcards

At first glance, flash cards are very retro. I mean, like who still needs to memorize anything?  And why use paper for it.  But, in fact, flashcards are currently used by most students since there's still, and probably always will be, loads of memorization as part of education.  One big issue, is learning math facts.  These need to be done by heard and math fact flash cards are a perennial.

There are also online Flashcards, for spelling, vocabulary, and more,that allow users to study words in context, learn definitions, parts of speech and more. Use this VocabularySpellingCity activity as your own personal flashcard maker. Creating flashcards for kids using their word lists gives them a fun, interactive way to study for tests.

Online Flashcards Instructions: Click on each flashcard or tap the spacebar to view the reverse side of the card. To customize your flashcards, click on the Customize link at the bottom of the card. Choose which information (word, definition, sentence, part of speech, synonyms, or antonyms) you wish to display on the front side of the flashcards, and which information you wish to display on the flip side. Flashcards can be shown in alphabetical order, the order in which you entered the words, or in random order. 

Printable Flashcard Instructions: The flashcards can be printed in a variety of sizes ranging from Jumbo flash cards (one to a page) to mini (fourteen flashcards per page).  

Help Google Pick the Best Latin Games

Sometimes, I agree with Google. I just googled “Typing Games for Kids” and number one is a page with 20 different typing gameson the Kids Learning Games website. It is a great collection of keyboarding games. I only regret that when I learned to type, it was with boring exercises on a typewriter.

But, I don’t agree with Google’s choice of the best Latin learning games. I think the best set of Latin games are on Vocabulary.co.il’s site but Google has them listed on the third page. Here’s where you can help! First, try these games and see if you think they’re fun and effective. If so, you should help Google rate them higher.  To help move these games up in the search engines, and to help your friends find them, you should share the page to your Facebook page or tweet about it. You could also link to the page from your website or blog. This all helps Google decide to move the site up in the engine. It’s yourcivilis officium (civic duty) to lend Google a hand. BTW, do you know any Latin? I’ll bet that you might surprise yourself. You might find that you know more than you thought! For example, I bet you already know that status quo is Latin for the current state of affairs. And I’ll give you this thought pro bono (without charge). You’ll soon see that Latin roots are sine quanon (indispensable). Especially if you want to graduate magna cum laude (with high honors).

UnScramble, the Word Games

On VocabSpellingCity.com, there are two different unscramble word games.

In Word Unscramble, The object  is to rearrange the letters to form each of your spelling or vocabulary words. To form the words, you may click on each letter in order or click and drag the letters into the box below. To move a letter, click on it and drag it into its new position before releasing the mouse button. Click theHint button to hear the word read aloud. Unscramble is available as an online activity or as a printable worksheet. 

You may also play Unscramble with your own list or use any of the thousands of existing lists on our site.

In sentence unscramble, the object  is to place the words in the correct order to form a complete sentence. You may click the words in order or click and drag them into the box. To rearrange the words within the box, simply click on the word you wish to move and drag and drop it into its new position. Click the Hint button to hear the sentence read aloud. Sentence Unscramble is available as an online activity or as a printable worksheet.

E-mail us at info@spellingcity.com to let us know how you use this activity and we will send you a VocabularySpellingCity mouse pad!

Below are some lists for you to choose from to play the Sentence Unscramble game. You may also play Sentence Unscramble with your own list or use any of the thousands of existing lists on our site.

Lastly, there is a great unscramble word game on Vocabulary.co.il!

Languages, So many good ones.

How should I help non English speakers find out about the great games?


Vocabulary of the World
Scroll to see more!

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Construcción de Vocabulario

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Impara il lessico inglese

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Apprendre le vocabulaire Anglais

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Λειλγιο ΕκμaOηoης Αγγλικwν

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Lernen SieEnglisch-Vokabular

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Naucz się Angielskich Słówek

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Изучайте Английские Слова

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İngilizce Kelime Dağarcığını Öğrenin

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Вивчайте англійські слова

Playing with Words

No, I don't mean that you should use words that you don't understand, I'm talking about online word games.  My favorite site for word play is a Vocabulary one. And I quote:

Playing with Words

Having fun with words begins at an early age and continues through the years. From Shakespeare’s quibbles to Twain’s colloquialisms, word play is an important part of language development at any age. Whether doing a crossword puzzle or playing hangman, kids love increasing their vocabulary through fun word play games online.
Word play games are an excellent way to practice spelling, increase vocabulary and keep the mind sharp. 


Actually, you should be careful what words you play with!!!!  Many writing games are fun but my favorites are Scrabble, You've Been Sentenced, Words with Friends, and Hang Mouse.

An Eclectic Approach to Homeschooling

Abeka remains extremely popular but is often now used in conjunction with other materials and curricula.

Most families discover that their children's educational needs cannot be met by a single curriculum, and that blending several homeschool programs and approaches can increase effectiveness. This electic homeschool approach provides an optimal outcome. Time4Learning's experience shows that there is no single, best homeschool material. Rather than feeling torn between homeschool resources, parents should create diversity through different materials and activities. 

Time4Learning Works Well with A Beka®'s Online Learning Curriculum

All children learn differently and most respond very well to online delivery of homeschool materials. In addition, some children need to see a topic or concept presented in more than one way before what's being taught "clicks" for them. Time4Learning's engaging, interactive style complements the Abeka online workbook-based program and vice versa.

Time4Learning offers interactive, self-paced instruction in math, language arts, reading, social studies and science. Many families report that using Time4Learning in conjunction with A Beka has enhanced their child's academic success. Time4Learning's online educational software can be used as either a core or supplemental curriculum.

Teaching Writing

• Teaching Writing 

 is an ongoing process, which Time4Learning facilitates in a number of ways.

Most people agree that writing skills are increasingly important and often not adequately taught.

When writing is taught in schools, writing instruction often takes a backseat to phonics, handwriting skills, and reading comprehension.

Many homeschool parents find that teaching writing may be more challenging than other subjects where there is an answer key. Children can challenge their parent's feedback.

Effective writing is a vital life-skill that is important in almost every subject in school as well in the work world.  Additionally, standardized tests increasingly contain a writing component - - in some cases this includes a requirement to write an essay on a timed test. 

• • 
    

• • The T4L  Writing Software 

Helps Teach Writing starting with carefully constructed assignments to stimulate students' desire to communicate, to integrated prereading graphic organizers, easy-to-use word processor with simple revising tools to the grading guides (writing rubriques) provided to parents and teachers in the teaching guides and answer keys,

Building 

• Vocabulary 

 words is key to reading, to writing, to verbal expression, and in many ways, vocabulary is key to building analytical and critical thinking. A person's vocabulary skills can be measured in terms of building receptive vocabulary (ie understanding) words and their expressive vocabulary words. People can build their expressive vocabulary in two ways that can get measured: the written vocabulary words or their spoken vocabulary words. Building vocabulary skills improves reading comprehension and reading fluency. Without building a large vocabulary, students cannot read successful. 

Learning English Language

Learning English can feel overwhelming to anyone. Children start out learning English at a very young age by first imitating adults and later in school. Starting to build a strong vocabulary is one way children develop their English skills as they grow. Vocabulary can be developed through books, reading, andwriting. When children read literature, those books help children to develop strong vocabulary skills and, in turn, their English skills also grow. Here is a fabulous list of pages which are great resources for learning English: 

Analogy Games  Antonym Games  Compound Word Games  Context Games Contraction Games  English Language Games  Foreign Language Games  Hig Pig Rhyming Games - These are a paticular favorite of mine for learning about words and vocabulary since I grew up playing them! Homophone Games  Idioms Games Oxymoron Games  Parts of Speech Games  Prefix Games _ I played these and would like to see them redone! Root Word Games Spelling Games  Suffix Games Syllable Games  Synonym Games  Word Play Games

  Games can be a wonderful resource for building vocabulary for English language learners. Using vocabulary games can strengthen skills already in place or develop new skills yet to be learned. ESL students can use vocabulary games to help strengthen their English skills as well. By playing fun online games to help with word association, students who use English as a second language can more easily remember difficult language rules. Many teachers find games to be a strong classroom tool for foreign language students. Students can often get bored with books and worksheets. Using online games and interactive tools can keep students focused and learning for extended periods.

Homeschool Curriculum

Curriculum needs to be easy to use and provide guidance for both instructor and instructee. If not, why not just start with a list of learning goals and create your own lesson plans.  In many ways, this is the way to do curriculum especially if you can get the student to take responsibility for the creation of the curriculum.

But, for normal kids, look no further than T4L's homeschooling curriculum.

Homeschool Curriculum - Many Choices...Many Challenges

One of the challenges of homeschool education is selecting curriculum that meets the needs of each child. Many families find that what fits one child, may not fit another, or that what worked well one semester, may feel stale and stop working the next. Or in some cases, what works for one child in one subject, does not work for the same child in another subject. Well, nobody said it was going to be easy.

What most families discover is that their family's educational needs cannot be met by a single curriculum... and that blending several homeschool programs and approaches can increase effectiveness. This eclectic homeschool approach allows the optimal education for children being homeschooled.

Great Educational Curriculum for Homeschooling - Time4Learning

Time4Learning is a great homeschool education partner because it offers each child their own learning path, with animated lessons, interactive activities, unit assessments, and integrated printable worksheets for reinforcement.

Time4Learning is a great homeschool curriculum choice. Some parents use Time4Learning as supplementary, others use Time4Learning as the primary homeschooling curriculum. Time4Learning has curriculum for homeschooled children in Preschool, Grade School, and Junior High. The Time4Learning home school website provides a comprehensive language arts and math curriculum and includes science and social studies.