One of the commenters on another post wrote that Teaching Tips should be summer assigned reading with DYOCC. We DO need assigned reading!
Here’s my suggestions:
Read DYOCC BACKWARDS. I mean Appendix first, 12th grade second, 11th grade next, etc. I would have avoided a lot of worry had I done that years ago. The last 70 pages of that book really make the first 180 make more sense. Here’s my own personal index of the last 70 pages:
Next, I would read Teaching Tips. It’s all kinds of practical. See the table of contents below. Note the “plus” signs. Those are repeated in other resources:
Below is the table of contents for The Writing Manual and Language Arts Overview. Note that “The Beginning of the Language Arts Curriculum” is identical to the combined two articles above with the plus signs. Also, note the four chapters with dots. If you already own Teaching Tips and the Composition Manual shown next, only 19 pages of this manual are going to be unique. But if you own neither and are choosing between the two writing-type manuals, I would get this one. The unique material in this manual has proven more helpful to me K-6 than the Composition Manual‘s unique material. The “Explanation of Common Writing Forms” and “Progression of Writing Skills” (a K-12 chart of where/when each writing form is introduced/repeated in the curriculum) have proved to be most helpful. 
Below is the table of contents for the Composition Manual. Everything with dots is an exact repeat from the above manual. Nothing is repeated from Teaching Tips. Out of 44 pages of content, 28 pages are unique. I’m glad I bought it, but you should know. I think if I had to choose between them, I would buy the first two and save this one until later.
