Complete Writer Writing With Ease Level 2 Workbook [Paperback]

We have used this curriculum for one semester. My 7-year-old has gained skill in summarizing without repeating the whole story back to me. She likes the dictation and copywork. The classic literature used each week seems to always appeal to her, something I was worried about. I think the approach could be too repetitive for some children. Don't buy the larger textbook...just get the workbook...it has all the instructions and passages included for the teacher!

This is our second year of homeschooling. This is our first year with a structured writing program. Last year was just a general language arts and reading program.

We use the Writing With Ease workbook, although we have the book and workbook. You don't NEED both, just one or the other - although the book is a good primer on the overall program. The book doesn't, however, have all the daily work laid out like the workbook does. It just has the background and philosophy, the structure, some samples and general ideas. We easily prefer the workbook over the book.

Our ds is using the Writing With Ease Level 2 workbook.

The program consists of four days per week. The same piece of literature is used all week. For example, you may use half of "The Pied Piper" during the first half of the week and the second half during the second half of the week.

Day one is narration. You read a chosen portion of a book, story or poem to the child and have them summarize it back to you in two or three sentences. You write down their summary sentences as they tell them to you. As the course progresses, the passages get increasingly longer and more complex.

Day two is copywork. They copy a sentence or more from the same piece of literature.

Day three is dictation. You dictate a sentence or two to the student, pausing appropriately for commas and periods or reading with excitement for exclamation points. The student has to use your reading of the passage to write the sentence out without being told what the actual punctuation is.

Day four is narration AND dictation. It is similar to day one. You read a different portion of the same piece of literature. The child summarizes the passage back to you in two or three sentences. You write down their summary. You then dictate one of their sentences back to them and have them write it out (with correct punctuation) after you read it to them.

Each day's work takes anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes.

I was very surprised at the success we've had with this program. We're in March now and we have found that our ds is falling in love with listening to the poems or stories. His summarization went from completely incompetent to oftentimes better than the examples given in the book. I'm amazed to be honest.

What spurred me to write this review was that yesterday, on a whim, my ds started writing his "own book." I read his first two little chapters today and I was shocked at how good it was. It sounded like some of the writers we've been copying, narrating and dictating from. He actually summarized his book to my wife and then started to write it out, just like we've been doing. There were a few misspellings but the writing itself was very impressive for his age.

As a comparison, we also have Ruth Beechick's Three R's. Her recommended writing method is similar to this method, which is one of the reasons we went this route. We're the type of parents that like things laid out for us rather than coming up with our own daily program. The Writing With Ease workbook is very well laid for each week, with no real questions. The main thing that parents need to do is put out the effort to teach the child to summarize their thoughts so they can put them on paper. Summarizing thoughts clearly and putting them onto paper in good language is what good writers do. Writing With Ease teaches the child to copy, read, hear and summarize good writing so they know what good writing looks like on paper.

I've read how people like Ben Franklin and Jack London learned to write by copying great writers. They literally copied page after page verbatim to teach themselves how to write well. It worked for them. Quite frankly I'm amazed at how far my ds has come in the span of four or five months. He absolutely looks forward to Writing With Ease. He often wants to do two days in one just so he can hear the second part of the passage that comes during the second half of the week. I can't wait to see how his writing looks a few years from now. We'll be sticking with this writing program for the foreseeable future.

I used this with my second grader last year. He went from hating the thought of writing (and complaining/crying every time any writing on his own was mentioned) to competently summarizing and writing what is required in this book without complaint. It was a huge step for us. I am going to use Level 3 this coming year for him, and also start my 5 1/2 year old on Level 1.

I also agree with the first commenter...ALL you need it the WORKBOOK! We did all our work on paper and didn't use the student sheets in the back.

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