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What advice do you have for someone beginning CQLA?
The best advice I have for someone just beginning CQLA is to move slowly in the beginning. One of the biggest difficulties people have with CQLA is starting! (Isn't it like that for everything??) It is especially true when facing seventy to one hundred pages that are to be done in one month's time - and many blanks to be filled in, essays to write, etc.
I remind families over and over again that CQLA is at least comprised of four different curricula: vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and composition. Of course, it also contains comprehension, editing, copying, and dictation, too. If you were to stack a curriculum for each of these four areas-plus up beside a year's worth of CQLA, you would see that CQLA is not that overwhelming after all.
While it is true that CQLA is at least four curricula in one, it is also true that many people normally only do one or two of those at a time, and seldom do all four at once. CQLA wants to change all of that! Comprehension is too linked to vocabulary not to do them together; spelling is too linked to copying not to do those together; grammar is definitely too linked to composition not to do those together.
So..my first bit of advice in beginning CQLA is to move slowly. The first week only do vocabulary, copying, spelling, and one grammar assignment. Next week do that, plus the Key Word Outline and rough draft. The next week, when it's time to start the two-week essay, do everything except one grammar lesson. And so forth.
Or, you could take six to eight weeks to do the first CQLA and spread each "one week" lesson out over two weeks.
Lastly, you could just do the first two weeks of the unit over the first month, and the next month just do the last two weeks of the unit. With this method, you would be familiar with all four weeks of a CQLA booklet, but it would be spread out over two months. This would be a gentle introduction that even younger students could probably handle.
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