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In practice Under construction
Saxon Math For our math we do math drill sheets until they are consistently (at least a week in a row) 100% and under take 5 minutes each. Then they begin Saxon 54 if their reading is ready . They will read Saxon 54 independantly. ( Although initially I am happy for them to ask me or a sibling with a word they are unable to read.) You can read more about this here and here. There is the most wonderful interview with the author of Saxon Math and Art Robinson here. ( scroll down to the bottom of the page ) We require our children to achieve at least 85% on the problem sets and 90% in the 5 chapter tests. They do the drill sheets at the beginning of each lesson.
We sell the hard cover middle grade Saxon books ( Saxon 54- 87 ) The hard covers are out of print and so the textbooks I have for sale are second hand, but they have new answer and test books. Have a look on Trademe or give me an email.
Poems We were reawakened to mastery learning again by Andrew Pudewa's Developing Linguistic Patterns Through Poetry Memorization. You can buy it in NZ here and there is some more information on Andrew's America website here . We bought the book and David made a recording of the poems. The children have enjoyed listening to Dad :-) Six days a week at breakfast and through the morning we have poem recitations.
Vocabulary Within the Robinson curriculum are vocabulary lists linked to particular books. The books to read are in levels. We started with requiring the learning of these words by memorizing their definitions and the sentence they contained as outlined by Art Robinson but we drifted away from this. We have returned! Each book has about 15-30 words on drill cards with a sentence with the word in it and a definition. Some children will incorporate new words into the active vocabulary from reading, mine do not. So by memorizing the word the definition and the sentence, this helps them master the new word. It really works! One of words in the vocabulary list from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling was notion - a vague thought, belief or opinion. Isn't it funny when you meet a new word you often see or hear it more frequently. I noticed it in a fresh way in "My Shadow" by Robert Louis Stevenson in our poem time. "He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play..."
This week Jonny is learning boisterous - rough or loud. He has started using it in his active vocabulary. He may not have done just from reading it in a book. This can be done with any book. Have the child read the book and note down as they read 10-20 words that are not sure of the meaning and the sentence that accompanies it. They use a good dictionary get a definition and drill until they can recite the definition and the sentence when shown the word. In order to gain mastery we keep testing the words from 2 previous books. At the beginning of the year I ran through some quick matching sheets with all the words in all the books they have studied from the Robinson curriculum book lists. I will do that again this year.
Explode the Code We use these wonderful books for learning to read. I sell them too :-) on Trademe or give me an email.( dburge@slingshot.co.nz )
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