Suzuki and IEW

As an Essentials tutor, I get a lot of questions about why we use Institute for Excellence in Writing's (IEW) History Based Writing Lessons.  I can see their point.  After the following techniques are introduced, students are required to have an ly adverb, a quality adjective, a strong verb, a who or which clause, and subordinate clause in each paragraph.  Students are also required to vary their sentence openers.  One sentence should start with a prepositional phrase, another with an adverb, and so on.  Each paragraph also needs an alliteration, a metaphor or a simile.  If the assignment is a five paragraph essay, then each paragraph must contain all these stylistic techniques, dress ups, and decorations.  It can make the writing seem a little awkward and forced.  So why do I choose to have my children in this program?   

To understand the reasons why IEW requires such a strict rubric, it is helpful to understand a little bit more about Andrew Pudewa, IEW’s founder.  Mr. Pudewa is a violin teacher.  He actually studied under Shin’ichi Suzuki.  I am a cellist, and when I heard that Pudewa studied with Suzuki, I could easily see the parallels between IEW and the Suzuki method.

 I am not a certified Suzuki teacher and I am not a certified IEW instructor, but I am very comfortable with both methods of teaching. I learned to play cello with the Suzuki  method.  In high school, I was so inspired by Suzuki’s methods that I wrote a report on his book, Nurtured by Love.  It is on my shelf today and I try to read it each summer as one of my inspirations for teaching.  Today I am a cello teacher for beginning cellists and I tutor seven children with the IEW method.  I also homeschool my ten year old daughter using IEW.

Here are 4 of the components of the Suzuki Method of learning music:

1. Scales, Arpeggios, and drills.  (This is not exclusive to the Suzuki method for learning an instrument. Most musicians spend much of their practice time playing scales, drills, and arpeggios.  A soloist will not play a concert of just scales, but music often consists of these things.  A soloist who has practiced drills will be able to play difficult passages with ease. 

This is why IEW has a checklist that requires students to practice stylistic techniques, sentence openers, dress ups, and decorations. While it may seem like a lot of fluff, practicing these techniques will enable students to use them when they need them in any kind of writing.  I remember studying metaphors and similes in school, but I was never asked to use it in a paper.  IEW students write a metaphor or simile in every paper. This is just good practice.  The assignments from IEW may not produce good writing, but it does help to produce good writers.

2. Parental help.  When Suzuki took a new young student, he first taught the student’s parents.  He asked the parents to hold that tiny violin (sometimes 1/16 the size of a full violin) and learn to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  He gave the parents a few lessons in front of the child, but would not allow the child to participate.  The parents had to complete assignments at home.  Watching and listening to the parent, the child wanted to mimic what they did.  The result of this was two-fold. The young child was motivated to learn to play like his parents, and his parents were able to help him learn. 

Similarly, Pudewa says that parents cannot help their child too much.  In IEW, parents are given so many tools to help their children. From live seminars, to the Teaching With Structure and Style dvds, to webinars, articles, books, and teachers’ manuals, there are so many resources to equip parents.  I have taken advantage of the live webinars that Mr. Pudewa holds each month for Essentials tutors, which walks us through a mock lesson that we will teach later in the semester.  IEW is designed to walk students through all 9 units each year.  In the first few years, the student is somewhat like an apprentice to their parents.  My ten year old sometimes needs help selecting an appropriate –ly adverb, or rearranging a sentence so that it starts with a prepositional phrase.  IEW allows me to model and provide those things for her.  This is not cheating.  This is equipping.  Eventually, she will not need me to help her find the correct word.  Next year, she will be more independent in her writing.  

3. Ear Training. Suzuki students listen to recordings of master musicians who play the pieces they are studying.  These young musicians sometimes listen to the piece hundreds of times.  This trains their ears to play in tune, follow the complicated rhythms, and play with expression. 

In IEW, Pudewa recommends daily reading great literature aloud to children, even older children.  This trains students’ ears to hear what good writing sounds like.  Reading aloud has done wonders for the lyrical writing of my own children.  They write with expression.  They know when something doesn’t sound right.

4. Gradual increase in difficulty.  Suzuki’s music books gradually get more difficult and the student learns a little more with each piece of music.  For example, a student may be asked to play an already familiar piece in a different key, or with a different fingering and a different position on the fingerboard.  Cellists are required to learn 3 different staves.  The Bass Clef is the simplest.  When a cellist has mastered the Bass Clef, she will need to learn the Tenor Clef.  Suzuki gently introduces this by allowing the student to play familiar pieces in a different key and notation.  When the Tenor Clef notes seem more familiar, the student will be asked to play a new piece of music in the Tenor Clef.  The same process is repeated with the Treble Clef.

Writing five paragraphs about Amelia Earhart

Vygotsky called this teaching technique of gradually increasing the difficulty scaffolding.  Mr. Pudewa calls it Easy + 1.  Although there are many components to the paragraph checklist in IEW’s writing assignments, every student starts by adding just one –ly adverb to the paragraph.  When that becomes easy, the child will add an –ly adverb and new skill, like a quality adjective.  When the –ly and quality adjectives become easy, they will have a third requirement for their paragraphs. This continues until all the skills are mastered and practiced in each paragraph.

It is easy to see how Pudewa’s educational journey with Suzuki has helped him to mold the IEW program into what it is today.  Suzuki’s methods made me the cellist I am today, and I know that IEW will continue to sharpen the writing skills of my students.

Defeating a Dyslexic's Nemesis: Reading Aloud

“What’s the best way to defeat an enemy?”- Sensei Wu, Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu

It has been about a year since I intentionally decided to read out loud more.  Honestly, I would go weeks without reading a single book to my children.  We homeschooled.  I taught Math, and Science, and Spelling, and reading mechanics.  They did workbooks.  It was dry.  It was missing something.  I knew what was missing, but I didn’t know what to do about it.  I love reading.  I really do.  To myself.  But out loud… Shew. That’s another ballgame.  When I read out loud, dyslexia rears its ugly head.  I suddenly can’t remember how to pronounce a word I’ve said many times.  I find an unfamiliar word that I just skipped while reading to myself.  The words get jumbled up in my head.  On paper they sometimes magically rearrange themselves into a big hairy mess.

            Reading out loud has been my nemesis for years.  In college, reading aloud sometimes kept me from getting the parts I wanted when I auditioned for plays.  I was the kid in grade school who would count how many paragraphs until my turn to read out loud during reading circle.  Then I would read ahead, practicing the words in my head for the paragraph I knew would soon be mine.  I would be so focused on that paragraph that I would have no idea what was going on in the story, and I would miss my cue.  I missed a lot of recess because of this.  I remember visiting my cousin’s church in maybe sixth grade.  The Sunday school class was reading The Horse and His Boy, one of the Chronicles of Narnia books.  Each student took turns reading a WHOLE CHAPTER.  A whole chapter of British literature?  I asked if I could stop at after one page.  When studying teacher education in college, I sometimes had to read to different classes during my field experiences and internship.  It scared me.  One year a teacher asked me to read The Secret Garden out loud to her class.  Have you read The Secret Garden?  Some of it is written in Yorkshire.  Yorkshire.  I figuratively broke into hives.

            When my children were very little, I found the Five in a Row curriculum. It is a sweet way to introduce picture books to your littles.  I loved it. Each week we read the same book five days in row (hence the name…)  We read Madeline, and The Story about Ping, A Pair of Red Clogs, and so many other sweet stories.  We found the countries where they were located on the map.  It was easy and sweet. We counted and cooked. My children and I have many fun memories from that time.  Picture books are no big deal for me to read. Twenty-four pages with simple words? I can do that.

            Chapter books are a different hairy deal.  As my children got older, I wanted to introduce them to some of my favorites:  The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Holes, The Tale of Despereaux, The Secret Garden, Ramona and Her Father.  I just didn’t have the stamina or the confidence to do it.  We would start a book and then never finish it. 

            By the end of the day, I’m exhausted.  My dyslexia kicks in and words on a page look like an unscramble the word puzzle.  (I’m actually really good at unscramble the word puzzles, because that is how words look to me all the time.) Reading out loud at bedtime just won’t work for me about 80% of the time.

            I was beginning to feel like this was hopeless.  My children would never experience listening to chapter books with me.  Then I started to listen to Sarah MacKenzie’sRead Aloud Revival Podcast.  Sarah says that you should read out loud even to your older children.  I had never really thought about it, but I was worried that I was losing the window of opportunity to read aloud with my oldest child.

            Here is how I went from reading almost nothing with my children each day to reading for several hours each day.  It was a gradual process. 

            The first thing I did was try to identify why reading aloud was intimidating for me.  The main reason was that I was just too tired at bedtime to read, and for some reason I had it in my head that I had to read chapter books at night to my kids in order to be a good parent and educator.

I decided to implement a Morning Time. Your morning time probably won’t look like mine.  I started just with Bible, a history storybook and some poetry.  Last year, I used Our Island Story about British history.  This year we are reading A Child’s Story of America.  I also love James Baldwin’s anecdotal history stories, and the Story of the World.  Our Morning Time at the beginning was Bible and History, and Poetry.  Already I was reading more.  I’m most alert in midmorning, so we usually started 8:30 or 9:00 am.  Then the kids did their workbooks and math and we went on with our day.  After the children got used to a few subjects for morning time, I gradually added one more.  (I think I added 1 subject each month.)   Here is our Morning Time schedule after 14 months (on a day when we don’t have any appointments or anywhere to go. You can read about how I modify this when we have a busy day here.) Our current schedule includes Bible, Precepts, Storybook of Science, A Child’s History of the United States, The Blue Fairy Book, and a chapter or two of whatever chapter book we are reading.  I finish Morning Time by reading Life of Fred, our math curriculum.  Then we move on to our next part of the day.  When we are home, my oldest two children can listen for up to two hours. They play quietly, or draw, paint, or do something.  I love using “living books” as our source of information.  Our history, science, and Life of Fred are all living books.  Living books draw children into a story to help them remember details.  The term living books was made popular by Charlotte Mason, an educator in the 1800s. Mason believed that history is best learned when you study famous people by looking at their childhood.  George Washington and Cherry Tree is an example of an anecdotal history story.  (I know that is just a tall tale, but it does help children link a relatable story to a famous person). I’m much too eclectic to use Charlotte Mason’s method exclusively, but I do love living books, and her ideas about nature walks, and narration.  I don’t require a lot of writing or worksheets about what we read. But we do discuss.  Yesterday, I read “The White Cat” from The Blue Fairy Book.  My seven year old chimed in that the story reminded him of Repunzel because the white cat, who was really a princess under a spell, was locked up in a tower for years when a prince tried to rescue her by climbing the tower.  I didn’t prompt him to tell me that.  My children are used to making connections because we do this many times each week.  I continue to add things to our Morning Time.  I want to do some music and art appreciation.  I want to read simple biographies.  I want to add a Five in a Row picture book. 

Here are some benefits that I have seen in the 14 months we have made reading aloud the focus of our day.  I am a much more confident reader.  Many of the books I read were written in the 1800s, with a broad vocabulary and complicated sentences. That makes reading chapter books a piece of cake for me, and it strengthens my children’s vocabularies and sentence structures.  Also, not to brag, but my Yorkshire is en pointe now!

My daughter studying the art of writing in her Essentials class using Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW)’s History Based Writing Lessons.  When I read out loud to her, she is able to identify strong verbs, quality adjectives, -ly adverbs, different kinds of sentence openers, alliterations, and much more.  Reading aloud makes her a stronger writer. If you are familiar with the Suzuki method for learning an instrument, you know that a major part of Suzuki is that children listen to the pieces they will eventually play hundreds of times.  This trains their ears to play a piece like a master.  Similarly, reading out loud trains a writer’s ear to write like a master.

Another added perk of reading out loud is that my children have become better readers.  They read out loud for ten to fifteen minutes out loud each day.  They do it because they see me model reading out loud all morning.  My son is a good reader, but he has never really liked reading to himself.  In the past month, I have actually seen him pick up a book to read for pleasure. This is so encouraging to me.  I want my children to be vivacious readers, and I feel like we are starting to take a step in the right direction.  My daughter also has dyslexia, but she now reads above grade level, and her out loud reading is much better than mine was at her age.

Reading with friends on a cozy, rainy day

I have found that at bedtime we do read a little more now.  Like a snowball rolling down a hill, our reading amount is continuing to grow.  Picture books are my choice for bedtime, but my daughter and I recently took turns reading Flora and Ulysses (one of our new favorites) and last night, my youngest requested a chapter from Winnie the Pooh.

“What is the best way to defeat an enemy?”

“It is to make him your friend.”- Sensei Wu

Our family has made a friend out of reading aloud.  (Leave it to me to use a CARTOON to illustrate a blog post about reading.)

Shakespeare Camp: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."

I’ve been called a special kind of crazy on more than one occasion.  I’m usually told this after I announce my plan for the summer’s Shakespeare Camp. 

What is it that makes Shakespeare so unapproachable? The Bard of Avon intimidated me in high school.  I had this idea in my head that my dyslexia would keep me from understanding the language. During my freshman year, I completely fell in love with the story of Romeo and Juliet.  It’s the first real tragedy I studied, and I still get that heart wrenching feeling when Romeo doesn’t receive the letter in time.  It is one of the most moving stories I have ever read.  For extra credit, I memorized Juliet’s lines in the balcony scene.  I’m sad to say that they were the only Shakespeare words that I memorized while I was in school.  When I was rereading the play this week, the words of the balcony scene greeted me like a familiar friend.  I wish I had memorized more Shakespeare in my youth.

After I got married, I got a job as a teachers’ aide at a classical school.  I completely fell in love with Classical education, and I was inspired by young students who studied Shakespearian plays.  The next year, I was hired as a fourth grade at a traditional school, and I decided that my students would perform The Fifteen Minute Hamlet, a play my college drama troop had performed, as a big end of the year program.  The Fifteen Minute Hamlet is a one act play by Tom Stoppard.  It is pure Shakespeare, ultra-abridged.  I loved it.  The quick pace makes the tragedy almost comical.  My class of 7 boys and 2 girls loved it. Who wouldn’t love ghosts, and poison, and sword fights, and skulls? In fact, many years later (am I showing my age?!) I got this lovely note from one of the students who had been in that first fourth grade class.

“Dear Mrs. McAdams,  

So a couple of days ago, we started reading Hamlet in my AP English class. My teacher was and still is extremely impressed that I had been exposed to Shakespeare in fourth grade. As I'm reading through it though, all I can think about is our absolutely fantastic performance that we did. It's almost next to impossible to read it because I'll hear Noah and Jacob and Isaac and Kelly and everyone else saying the lines! However, just that little edited version we read has made a world of a difference for me. I cannot thank you enough for making us read through something that people eight years above us were reading and helping us understand it. You've made AP English easier!"

This is the number one reason I teach Shakespeare to children: to build confidence.  When you expose children to something that seems hard and they understand a little bit about it, it makes them believe that they can do even more.  I love teaching hard things to young children.  It’s my philosophy of education in a nutshell.  Some of my other reasons for teaching Shakespeare are the story, the language, the poetry, and the fun.

FAQ about Shakespeare Camp

Where did you get the idea for a Shakespeare Camp?!

 I’m not going to bore you with all the details of how Shakespeare camp came to be.  Here’s my abridged version.  I was very familiar with teaching The Fifteen Minute Hamlet to kids.  I also spent five summers in high school and college as a camp counselor.  My husband moved me out in the country on some land that feels “campy” to me.  Naturally, all this begs the question: Why NOT have a Shakespeare Camp? (“Why not” is also a part of my philosophy of education.  Just call me Vygotsky. )

What Is Shakespeare Camp?

This will be my third summer to host a Shakespeare Camp.  I call it camp because we play campy games like Capture the Flag (Capulets versus Montegues), my version of Giants, Wizards, and Elves (Midsummer Night’s Dream- Fairies, Humans, and Elves), archery, etc. 

Every day we have devotions by the cross.

We make crafts and sing songs. 

It is a day camp, with a Shakespearian theme.  Each year we study and perform a play.  We have performed Hamlet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and this year we will perform Romeo and Juliet.

We have memory work set to music.  (Side note: Today my lovely daughter said exasperatingly, “This is what my mom does.  She takes perfectly good music and turns it into school!”  She is not wrong.)  The memory work is pure Shakespeare.  We study iambic pentameter.  We study the life of William Shakespeare. I wrote a song about the Bard's life set to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies. We study tragedies and comedies.  We practice and preform an abridged version of the play.  We have fun with language and poetry.  Shakespeare camp makes Shakespeare memorable and enjoyable.  I do not strive for a perfect performance.  It is not a drama camp.  I’m more focused on learning and enjoying the story.

What about all the heavy themes?

Yes.  That’s a tricky one.  Some children are not ready to hold a skull and lament, “Alas. Poor Yorik.” Honestly, I’m still wrestling with Romeo and Juliet.  It’s such a sad story.  I always go back to the Bible.  What does the Bible say about this? Was the decision to end his life a good one?  Did anything good come out of Romeo and Juliet’s deaths? Can God use tragedy for his good and glory?  I believe He can and He does.  I have had a few students that request to take a role other than the ghost in Hamlet, or to be a character that lives. I always honor those requests.  A few parents have kept their sensitive children home instead of performing in the tragedies.  They join us when we do a comedy.  At the moment, I’m considering Taming of the Shrew for next year.

And the question you are all waiting for:  When is the next Shakespeare Camp?

We will meet at my house on Friday June 1, and the week of June 4-8 from 9am to 12:30 pm.  Our performance will be on Friday, June 8 at 7:00 pm.

The cost is $35 per child and $30 for each additional child in the same family. *As always, if money is an issue, please let me know.  We will work something out! The cost goes toward supplies, memory work CD, copies, and my time.

Students must be ages 5-12.  This is for any child.  Every year I have children who are in traditional school as well as homeschoolers. If your child is part of the Challenge program, they are welcome to apply to be a Counselor in Training (CIT). This is a volunteer position that would count for service hours. 

I prefer to have parents stay.  If you need to drop off your children, please arrange that with me in advance.

Please let me know if you are interested!  We would love to have you!