Dave Marks of the National Writing Institute has revolutionized the way home schoolers teach writing! Many home schoolers are intimidated by the task of teaching writing. Mr. Marks has made the task much more manageable by providing exercises, planning and details to help us in our task. The Level 2 book, intended for children who are at the second grade level, is appropriate for the child who can independently write the sentence, "The dog is big." If your child can do that, they can succeed at this program. This volume of Writing Skills covers these mastery skills: adjectives, listing, reporting, paragraphing, ordering actions, grouping and variety, story writing, convincing, dialogue, letter writing, personal narration, comparison, greeting cards, role playing and imagination. It is anticipated that each unit will take four days or sessions to complete. The student then fills out his own record of progress n which he evaluates how he did on that unit. The daily work progresses from easier to more complex. For example, in the unit on interviewing, day one is devoted to reviewing the rules of punctuation in dialogue. One day two, the child writes an interview which they conduct with a non-person, such as a tree, cat or bike (cute!). On day three, he begins to write his interview paper, incorporating the work of the previous days. Day four is devoted to polishing and completing.

The goal of the author is to provide a complete writing program using a process aproach to writing and composition. I appreciate the attention to detail and instruction offered in getting children to try different kinds of writing and in exploring the many aspects of the process. This series is immensely popular with home schoolers and I can understand why! A complete series of levels is available, extending through the college preparatory level.



-- Product Review by: Christine Field, Senior Correspondent, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine