Parent Tip: Lesson 2.6

In this lesson, we teach spelling strategies and specific spelling words, as well as fiction writing. One of the examples we use for our lesson about story writing is “David and Goliath,” a brief story from the Old Testament of the Bible/Torah that is, in some key ways, the opposite of the Beowulf story your child read in Lesson 1.5: Greek & Latin Roots 2. As part of our overall goal of teaching your child to write, we expose your child to the foundational stories and texts of the Western canon. These stories, by and large, still shape the stories and academic and popular discussions of today, whether we realize it or not; they are the key to understanding the long and rich Western canon.

In addition, we deliberately selected the King James Bible version of the “David and Goliath” story because we want your child to become comfortable with the sound of the English that shaped many classic English texts and thinkers. The English in this version of the story is harder to read—a good challenge for your child—but dense with more sounds from the language’s Germanic roots. Getting this sound in your child’s ear will help them develop a deeper word sense, which then lets them notice the valence and layers of meaning in many other English words. This awareness will then help with their spelling, critical reading, and writing. Plus, it’s fun.

We encourage your child to use the glossary (at the bottom left in SeeSaw and at the end of the lesson book in our print lessons) to decode challenging words in the “David and Goliath” story. But it is also okay to have your child read the many simpler, more modern versions of the story available for free online and in libraries, and use what they learn to help read the King James Bible version.

We hope your child enjoys the story (as well as the others they’ll read in this lesson)!