by Ruth Beechick
This booklet is one of three components of The Three R's, which is a group of books sold together as a unit along with a double-sided chart (phonics and math). The ISBN for The Three R's is ISBN: 0940319063.
I must admit that A Strong Start in Language is my favorite Ruth Beechick book. Why? Well, because it was my first contact with an ingenious way to teach writing. Ruth Beechick calls it the "Natural Method." Myra J. Linden and Art Whimbey, the authors of Why Johnny Can't Write, call it Text Reconstruction. Basically, Text Reconstruction (TRC) is learning to write by copying the masters. This "Natural Method" is just one more example of Ruth Beechick's common sense.
After introducing the "Natural Method," Ruth discusses learning grammar, punctuation, and creativity. Grade-Level Guidelines is the title the second chapter. As I'm re-reading this book for this review, I'm once again struck by the years of experience behind her words. She's so balanced in her views. The topic of the third chapter is spelling, and it contains two different approaches to spelling: the Common-Word Approach and the Phonics Approach. Sample writing lessons and ideas are contained in the last two chapters.
If you have children in the early years of grade school, I want to recommend this book to you. This book lays it all out for you. The only thing that I can think of that you would need beyond this book is a good writing handbook like Write Source 2000 so that you will have a resource describing parts of speech and punctuation rules for you.
The Three R's are a real deal from Amazon.com! It's best to just buy the inexpensive set of three booklets! The Three R's contains three booklets, one of which is A Strong Start in Language. The following two books are also included.
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