Do any of you or your children have diffuculty remembering what was learned since this program isn't done in a spiral? I'm looking through R&S 2 and one day they talk about nouns the next it may be something else. There isnt anymore lessons on nouns I dont think... is it hard to remember what is being learned when you dont go over it again? Should/would I need to supplement with a workbook of some sort? Or do you try to incorporate what you learn that week into other lessons like History, or reading etc?
There are oral reviews with each lesson, and the knowledge is built UP - so the student will need to know what a noun is when they diagram sentences that include verbs, and again when they learn about direct objects, etc etc. We've gone through only one year of R&S and just started our new book (4) yesterday, but I found that he HAS retained it all - even though it's been almost 3 months since he's done any of it. The way that they have each lesson build directly upon the lesson preceding it solidifies the information and includes built-in review. The third grade book has a review every 5 lessons. The fourth grade book has a lot more chapters (3rd has only 5, and 4th has 11), and has a review for every chapter. This is all in addition to the oral reviews included with each individual lesson. I found that part of the curriculum to be vital.
Thanks Dalynn, thats good to know. The reviews are they for just what was learned that week or do they include a little of everything that has been learned up until that point?
The way the grade 3 book was arranged was this: Lessons 1-4 introduced new skills, each building on the last. Lesson 5 is a review of what was presented in Lessons 1-4. Lessons 6-9 introduce new skills, each building on the last AND on what was learned in 1-4. Lesson 10 isa review of what was presented in Lessons 6-9. The oral reviews from each lesson generally review something from ANY Lesson that has already been covered. The further you get into the book, the longer the oral reviews are. The end of the chapter review (actually, there are 2 of these per unit in the third grade book) will cover what was covered in that entire chapter. I was surprised to not find an end-of-the-year test to test on all material covered, but found this year that it wasn't really necessary. So, the oral reviews cover anything and everything from the year. The written, built-into-a-lesson reviews generally cover material just learned. The chapter reviews and tests cover all material covered in that chapter. And each individual lesson builds on the last - if you don't remember what was covered in Lessons 1-30, you won't be able to do Lesson 31. (Numbers are completely made up. LOL) I had absolutely no issues with retention with R&S. We did have retention issues the previous year, when using a ps textbook to cover almost the same materials.
Thank you, Dalynn that was a very informative post. We had our 1st lesson today and it took all of 5 minutes to complete. I'm pretty happy with how little fuss was involved. My ds didn't even complain!
