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I've just started doing some HS-like work with my DS6, who was recently tested at about 3rd-4th grade reading equivalent by a local school. This is his first experience of sitting down daily to do pencil and paper work, and I am trying to keep the content light now to get him used to the process side this new discipline. When he is comfortable with it, we will graduate to more difficult work.

As easy writing work, we've been doing some cloze exercises from Enchanted Learning, but I'm frustrated because the no text is attached to the exercises in which the new vocabulary is applied. This means DS has no way to work out the meanings of new words. I wonder if there is a standard exercise book that combines these kinds of easy writing exercises with short stories or narratives.

In the longer term, I have an eye out for curriculum aids that build English, social, historical, cultural, and reasoning exercises around short stories and literature pieces.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Ian

I'm afraid I won't be much help. We just read a lot and write about what catches our fancy. I think reading widely and using context and the dictionary as needed are the best ways to build vocabulary. We don't use any sort of "exercise book" for language arts for DS7.

If you find something wonderful, I'd love to hear about it though!

I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for. I've been in the heat today lol and am not operating with a full battery. But you might look at Learning Language Arts through Literature (LLATL). It does grammar, copywork, dictation using books. You can get a booklist and look at samples at the website.

The other one that came to mind is FIAR. You can google that to find more info. I did FIAR vol 1 w/ DS8 when he was in K/1st grade. That one doesn't have any writing but uses books to discuss art, geographt, science, history, etc. It does have vocabulary in it.

Thanks Kriston and Dazed. The cloze exercises are sentences with a blank for one missing word. An exercise sheet from Enchanted Learning will lead off with a 'word bank,' listing of all the missing words, followed by a series of sentences. The exercise is to select the correct word from the 'bank' for each sentence and write it into the blank. I like these, because they give by DS bite-sized writing practice. I think they would be even better, though, if they were combined with a short, two-three paragraph narrative, which employs the words listed in the 'word bank.' This would give the student a way to reason out the meanings of new words as s/he does the exercise.

I recall exercises like this were included in the SAT tests in my day (long ago!), and wondered if there is are books of there with these things in them.

How hard would it be to just make it up yourself based on what he's reading? I've been known to "invent" vocab-type exercises to get him to use what he's reading, though we usually just do it orally since I don't have trouble getting DS7 to write--he LOVES it.

Maybe I don't have a clear picture of what you're looking for, but on the surface, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to throw something together. Am I wrong?

Maybe what you're looking for is Wordly Wise? I have level B. Each lesson has words w/ definitions. There are then exercises to learn those words. The first exercise is a chose the word which fits this definition and circle it. The next exercise is to look at relationships between words. Ex 3 is to apply the meanings of the words. The next part is a story which uses those words. You then answer the 10 questions about the story. The next exercise a crossword puzzle. So the answer questions and crossword puzzle involve writing the words.

Thanks Kriston and Dazed. My brain is about full between organizing a presentation for the local school in a couple of weeks while also working up a fall-back home school curriculum in the event we don't carry our case. So I'd rather buy or download exercises at this point than make them up. I'll look into your suggestions - thanks again!