The subject line gives a lot of ground to cover, but I lumped them all together because they are combined subjects in our homeschool. If you teach them separately, that's fine. (There really isn't any one "right" way to homeschool. The beauty of homeschool is being able to tailor curriculum to meet the needs of each child.)

I start out with penmanship. I teach each letter of the alphabet as they are introduced in phonics. I take some penmanship exercises from reading books, some from the Bible, some from poetry books. I like to vary the selections to keep up the child's interest. Also, I keep each lesson short and try to focus on one main problem area at a time.

For those who feel their own writing is not good enough for a child to copy, I personally recommend the Getty Dubay Italic Writing series. It starts with italic manuscript and progresses to italic cursive, and is a more natural way to write than fancy looped cursive. I also find it easier to read.

I recommend getting this series through Christian Book Distributors (www.christianbook.com; click on "homeschool"). They sell stuff cheaper than any other distributor I know of. There homeschool catalog is packed with information, reviews, and tips. If you are not Christian, please don't be turned off by the name. They have lots of terrific stuff that is not necessarily Christian. I almost can guarantee that any homeschooler will enjoy their catalog.

Before your child can write on his own, he can dictate stories and letters to you. Have him tell about a recent trip; this will help him with sequencing events ("then what happened?" or "but what happened before that?"). He can draw pictures to illustrate his stories, or he can cut out appropriate magazine pictures.

When your child knows enough phonics to start writing on his own, there are lots of ways to give him practice. Have him write letters (to Grandma, pen pals, the editor of his favourite magazine, the President, the author of his favourite book, etc.); short, illustrated stories (real or imaginary); book reviews; poetry.

I have gotten writing ideas from many sources including teacher and homeschooler magazines, children's magazines, different homeschool "how to teach" books, etc. I have yet to come across the "perfect" writing program to recommend, although the Writing Strands series is good.

I do not teach formal grammar until high school. I found that A Beka grammar (especially at the third grade level) stifled my children's creativity with it's endless, repetitious exercises. In talking to other homeschoolers, I found that our experience is not unique. Instead, I point out grammatical errors as they occur in a child's writing, and explain the appropriate "rule" then. When we start formal grammar, I like to use A Beka high school grammar, but I don't make the child do exercises repeatedly that he doesn't need. (By the way, it's okay to leave blank spaces in workbooks. Not every child needs all that drill.)

I also do not teach formal spelling. Instead, I watch for errors in writing, look for a pattern, and make a customized list for the child. For example, one child had trouble remembering to double certain letters in words like collection, session, etc. So I gave him a list of double-letter words to learn. Also, I teach the child how to use a dictionary to look up words they don't know how to spell. This works especially well for children who usually misspell only a few words--they don't necessarily need a whole list.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), January 14, 2002

Answers

Cathy-I think if you get kids to read a lot, it really helps thier grammer and spelling fall into place. As for handwriting-my son has a terrible time with it. I found a couple of dry erase boards at WalMart-(I'm not going to get drawn into the goodness/evilness of Walmart here) that have the letters writen with a space where you can make the letter, and there are little arrows showing how to make the letters. There is one for printing and a couple for cursive-these have been great for us. I have a lot of teaching resourses if you need something specific.

-- Kelly (homearts2002@yahoo.com), January 14, 2002.

Children also learn grammar by listening to how you speak, especially things which aren't taught anymore in schools, like properly pronouncing "the". (When before a word with a vowel sound "aardvark, for example", "the" would be pronounced as "thee" (like in the Bible). When before a word with a consonant sound "dog", "the" would be pronounced "thuh" (rhymes with "duh")).

Same for using "a" as in "a dog" and "an" as in "an aardvark". "H" is tricky. US speakers usually make it a hard "huh" sound, so use the consonant rule "a history" and "the (thuh) history". But usually British speakers of English (and for us, the noun "herb" for example (unless you're Martha Stewart), though not the name "Herb" let the "h" be silent and the word then sound-wise begins with the first vowel sound, so... an "(h)istory", the (thee) (h)erb".

I know the topic was actually about writing, but speaking skills are important too. Hope this is of interest. Like I said, this is not being taught in schools anymore, for the most part.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), January 14, 2002.

We use the Robinson Curriculum, but we have modified the methods to fit us. I use a comprehensive English Language college text, THE LEAST YO SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ENGLISH, which uses many of the same principles as Robinson.

With both methods, the child is to write at least one page every day on any subject they choose or from the list. They start with a rough copy, check their spelling and punctuation and then the final copy with good penmanship, spelling and stuff. They also have to write a page in their journals which is not subject to correction.

Since changing to these from busy work books this past school year, I've noticed much improvement, not only in skills, but in attitudes. What we all like about this textbook is, if the student gets the first 10 problems right, the lesson is over and they move on to the next section. If they miss any, they must do the next set of 10, up to 100 problems. This is a real incentive to work hard and master the skill on the first 10!

-- Laura (Ladybugwrangler@hotmail.com), January 14, 2002.

We have only used spelling textbooks on rare occasions in our years of homeschooling. When the kids are young I pull spelling words from the reading that we are going to do that day. They then just copy the words 5 times (less if they prove they already pretty much know the word). As they get older I continue pulling words from what we are reading together and have them look them up in the dictionary, write the word 5 times and write the definition. This has worked really well for us. I am convinced, however, that you are born either a good speller or a bad one. I have always read to all my children during our school day and the younger ones again at night. I believe that reading good books and doing copy work from them goes a long way to having kids that can spell, have proper word usage and proper grammar.

-- Deena in GA (dsmj55@aol.com), January 14, 2002.