Question: How can I learn to be a better CQLA teacher?

First of all, I want to encourage you that once you "learn the ropes," you will always have the same format, the same order, the same style of lessons, etc. in all CQLA’s for all levels! Thus, trying to stick with it during the learning curve can be very valuable for home schooling moms. I will enumerate some answers below.

• If you want an overview of the entire program, I recommend that you get the Teacher’s Guide with accompanying cd/cassette. This now-nearly 300 page book will teach you everything you need to know about using CQLA. However, it is much more than a “CQLA-How to” book. It is a grammar handbook and writing handbook, as well. Even if you do not use CQLA, this TG is a book you can use in all of your language arts teaching. Besides the CQLA helps (overview charts, Scope and Sequence, how to use CQLA, etc.), it also contains a Master Checklist Challenge, all Grammar Cards in alphabetical order, and many “how to” chapters, such as how to do a Key Word Outline, how to do the Checklist Challenge, how to cite sources in reports, and much more.
• If you want to learn more about what a weekly lesson should look like, you may want to order the CQLA demonstration video from Training for Triumph for $15.00. It shows me teaching two of my Level B students one entire weekly lesson (in a very fast forty-five minutes!). With the video, you get the weekly lesson that correlates, so you can follow along with me and my students. I think just seeing it in action helps tremendously and answers so many of the beginning questions (including "Which passage?").
• We have a three-tape cassette series entitled The Almost Three R’s in which I describe how to teach spelling, grammar, and composition. This cassette series is available for $12.00 and comes in a three-cavity cassette holder. It is unrelated to CQLA in that it does not reference the program, but many of the concepts CQLA ascribes to are elaborated on in it.
• We are developing all day language arts workshops in which I describe how to use CQLA, give Moms a “Grammar 101” lesson, teach editing and revising strategies, and have editing/revising sessions with small groups. This workshop will be appropriate for CQLA and non-CQLA users, so you would be able to bring friends along who are not using CQLA too. Contact us to set up a workshop in your area.

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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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