Institute for Excellence in Writing has provided our family with their product, Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization.

 

 

We received the Teacher’s Manuel and CDs. Included in this product as it is sold is a downloadable student workbook. You can also purchase the printed copy of the student workbook.  The CDs came in a nice quality leather carrying case to keep them well protected and together. I really liked that. It seems that the cheap plastic cases are quickly broken and lost here. It also made it feel very “special” to the children so they treat them as such.

The CDs came with a bonus video on DVD called: “Nurturing Competent Communicators”.  This component was a blessing for the educator- ti serves to inspire and instruct a parent. The main question being addressed in this video is: “How do you get students to produce reliably correct and sophisticated English?” Then he addresses at the current media and educational scenarios that help provide the opposite of this. I was all ears. I too, had been taught that children who are good readers become good writers, but I have two children who struggle with writing that I know are excellent readers! You will love having some practical help for this problem, and it may very well change the way you are teaching in a very practical, immediately applicable way!

The student workbook that you download and print includes a single poem printed on each page with a simple illustration. The poems range from very simple to quite complex. In our homeschool, I simply wrote the poem on our white board at the beginning of the week. As I introduced a new poem, I would let the children color the simple drawing on the page with the poem, and I set the CD player on repeat on the track for the new poem. As they colored the pictures, they heard the poem repeated several times. After they seemed to tire of this, I would simply turn off the CD and ask them if they remembered the poem. Often they all did except for my youngest daughter (3) so we would continue to play the CD throughout the day at different points when she was playing play-doh or just coloring in the kitchen. I then hung up the picture in the kitchen.

When I was in the kitchen and the child who colored the picture walked by, I would ask them the poem, or say it with them. I made this a very casual, but deliberate part of their day.  Because Rebecca was younger, I stayed on each poem for about a week. By day 2, the entire rest of the family knew the poems, and would jokingly going around repeating parts of them to one another. “Oooey Gooey” was the first poem, learned nearly instantly by most of us.

I am a firm believer in the power of memorization in growing the child’s ability to organize information and to put important information into long-term memory. I do think that this program will help in this regard. It has started them on a path of finding memory work fun and easy.  This is half the battle. The child’s own ability to memorize quickly and easily will also come into play here, and also the teacher’s methodology. I am sure a more aggressive teacher could have covered more ground very quickly, but I have always been a fan of slow-but steady progress toward a goal. By doing one per week, I left plenty of time for review and did not find it overwhelming to add it into our already busy household.

This system is, by design, easy at the beginning, but grows quickly. Even older students are encouraged to begin with the lower levels and work their way up. This is a good system. Older students who are not used to memory work with gain confidence as they easily learn the poems. Students accustomed to memory work will progress very quickly, but will come to a point where some effort must be applied. 

In addition to the curriculum, this includes several audio MP3s that I put in the category of: Professional Development for mothers. These include:

• Mastering Learning
• Ability Development
• Individualized Education
• Ten Thousand Times and Then Begins Understanding
• On Listening
• On Speaking
• On Reading
• On Writing

After homeschooling all my children for the past 15 years, I still find it important to continue to use resources like these to keep me motivated and to help sharpen the saw. It also reminds me of things that children need at different stages, even when I have not been in a particular one for quite awhile. Andrew Pudawa always inspires me to see things from the long-term view and helps me desire to put in the effort to help my students develop into better communicators.

I am very happy with this program, and plan to continue using it until the children have mastered them all, which, given their ages and my casual methodology may take quite a bit of time.  I think it will be a good springboard for more advanced work later than will be required for college or work.