I just looked through my earlier posts, trying to see if I had ever written about the spelling I'm doing with my oldest this year, and didn't see anything. How can that be? We are really doing good with spelling this year, for the first time.
Spelling has been my oldest's bane since 1st grade. We've used curriculum from Evan-Moor, BJU Press, CLE, Sequential Spelling, Rod & Staff - nothing really worked well. She liked the stories that went along with BJU, but she still couldn't spell and hated to write since she worried too much about spelling things wrong. She really liked Sequential Spelling, at first. But after about 20 lessons or so, she had decided it was boring, and she still couldn't spell the words we had "learned" at the beginning - the patterns didn't really click with her, and she couldn't remember them apart from the sequence in the lessons. I'd have to correct her on the first word, and then she'd get a few correct - until the pattern changed again. Now, Sequential Spelling might be a perfect fit for my middle child, with her excellent visual memory, but it wasn't for my oldest.
I had read about All About Spelling (AAS), and seen so many good reviews, but it was expensive, and seemed a bit overkill to me, what with all the letter tiles and "accessories." I also didn't like how teacher-intensive it was. I wanted independent! I didn't think Rebekah was dyslexic (which AAS is supposedly really good for helping) - she reads well above grade level, and loves reading. But after everything else seemed to be not working, I decided to splurge and try it for 3rd grade.
It is amazing! Rebekah's spelling has improved drastically, and she loves our spelling lessons! I'm even enjoying them, and not minding how teacher-intensive they are. If she starts to misspell something when writing for other subjects, I just have to remind her to sound it out like in our spelling lessons, and she can usually figure it out. She will write more now, with less fear of misspelling things (though her writing level is not as high as I'd like it - we may be focusing on that area next!). We are almost through with Level 1 of AAS, and I just ordered Level 2. We should be able to get through that by the end of the year, I believe, and she will be basically at grade level then. You can start AAS in 1st grade, but I think it might be better to wait until the child can read at a 1st grade level, thus doing Level 1 in 2nd grade, Level 2 in 3rd, etc. But every child will be different, I'm sure. AAS is designed for one-on-one teaching, going at the speed the student needs, and not just blasting ahead with one spelling list a week, like so many other methods.
AAS teaches the rules about why things are spelled the way they are, and that is apparently what my daughter needed to learn. I've always been an excellent speller, but I didn't know these rules - I just spell things the way they look right, and had no idea spelling followed rules so much! So I'm learning too.
It's great for reinforcing phonics too. Rebekah needed some reinforcing on that, since her earlier phonics lessons didn't seem to stick. It's like a lightbulb went on, now that she's hearing the sounds and connecting them with the correct letters. Before, she just seemed to draw a blank when she had to figure out what letter was making a particular sound. She could go the other direction easily - from written letter to sound - but had a terrible time going from the sound to the correct letter. AAS starts with learning all the sounds the letters make, getting into blends and digraphs later. That's one reason I think it might be best to wait until after a child has learned both short and long vowel sounds, and possibly other sounds (like /ah/), before starting AAS, since AAS starts with teaching that "a" makes 3 sounds.
As for the teacher-intensive part, I've finally accepted that Rebekah really does so much better with me teaching her directly, and is not really ready for independent work in many areas. I had dreams at first (fantasies, maybe) of just setting work in front of her and having her learn on her own, self-taught, or video-taught, or whatever. Yeah, well, that didn't work. I've had to let go of my desire to do my own thing all morning, and buckle down to this teaching stuff. That's my job, after all! And a very rewarding job. And it will not last forever. Rebekah is already a voracious reader, and seeks out information about everything. Before long, she'll be going full-steam ahead on her own, and never looking back.
And, hopefully, spelling things correctly.
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Monday, October 28, 2013
CLE Learning to Read
My middle child is working through Christian Light Education's Learning to Read program. We started it last year around when she turned 5, but only did a few lessons. This past summer we jumped back in wholeheartedly, and are more than halfway done now. I've mentioned a few things about it here and there before, but I thought I'd write a more complete review of the program.
Learning to Read (LTR) is designed for 1st graders, but starts at the beginning of learning to read, with letter recognition. Christian Light Education curriculum is published by Mennonites, and their children do not start formal school until 1st grade, typically. This turned out to be a perfect fit for my middle child, actually, since she has a November birthday. In public school, she would be starting kindergarten this year, even though she turns 6 next week. She is a quick learner, however, and has always been a bit ahead of her age in terms of academic ability, so I have put her in mostly 1st grade material this year. LTR then made sure she understood the basics and then is moving along fairly quickly to get her up to a 1st grade reading level.
LTR is composed of 10 workbooks, or LightUnits, for the student, with 2 spiral-bound teacher's manuals. Each LightUnit has a test at the end. Then there are letter/sound flash cards, word flash cards, phrase flash cards, and 4 small paperback readers. There are also extra practice sheets, which we did not get, and some phonics cards like small versions of posters you might see posted around a teacher's classroom. Those phonics cards seem to be more used in the Language Arts curriculum, which starts around the 6th LightUnit (a little more than halfway through learning to read), but they are very nicely done, and my daughter likes to look at them.
Learning to Read covers phonics, reading (obviously), spelling, and handwriting. Then a little more than halfway through, you are told to start with the first Language Arts LightUnit (of which there are 10). These are shorter lessons, and cover punctuation, reinforce phonics, and do a little grammar. I believe there are some creative writing activities as well, but we haven't gotten there yet. These LightUnits have a couple quizzes and a test each. After finishing the last LTR LightUnit (but before finishing the Language Arts ones), you then start the first of 5 LightUnits in their Reading 1 program, to complete the 1st grade Language Arts curriculum. So there are 10 LTR LightUnits and then 5 Reading LightUnits, while the Language Arts LightUnits overlap with both. The material is not multi-color, but they do use one color (red for LTR, blue for Language Arts) instead of just black and white, so it is a bit more colorful to use.
My daughter enjoys the whole program, though we are skipping some of the oral portions in the teacher's guide. Some of those parts are geared more for a classroom, with everyone taking turns, so it's a bit much to make one student do all of them. But it's nice to have examples of oral review to do, in case you need it. I do more review when she is struggling with a concept, which is really not very often. We have just finished all the letter/sound flash cards, and are halfway through LightUnit 107 (the 7th workbook). So we have covered all the consonants, 5 short vowels, 5 long vowels, and 4 consonant dipthongs: sh, th, wh, and ch. The rest of the workbooks go into vowel sets, such as "ee," "ai," "ay," etc. The last LightUnit does a few 3-letter sets, like "thr."
The Teacher Guides are very helpful, with portions scripted, though you don't have to follow them exactly. I like the way they have given little stories to explain things and help the children remember, such as how the silent e at the end of a word helps the earlier vowel remember to say the long sound. There is a longer story for each new letter or dipthong, which I read while my daughter colors the picture in her LightUnit which is a black and white copy of the picture on the flash card. There is a little saying embedded in each story which becomes the rhyme they use to remember the letter. My daughter loves these, and even my 4-year-old son has memorized some of them. The flow of the program is very nice, with everything falling into place in a good order - it makes sense, in other words. The pace is just right for us too, with just the right amount of review and practice (which you can adjust, depending on how much of the oral work you do). It is very thorough, and my daughter is learning to read very well.
Since Christian Light Education is a Mennonite company, they do have more "old-fashioned" references than some more modern curriculum - stories about farming, grinding grain, taking care of farm animals, etc. There have not been as many obscure images for me as there were in some other curriculum I've tried, such as Climbing to Good English and the Pathway workbooks. Any images of women also have a head covering shown, but I have to say that my daughter has never asked about that (and we do not know any Mennonites personally). Some of the more defined gender roles might bother some people, but while women are always shown working at home while the men go out to work, that separation of roles is never pushed or made obvious really in any of the stories. That is how our family works anyway (at least now), so it is not a big deal to us. Christian beliefs, God, prayer, and worship all play a big part in the stories and exercises, so that definitely may make LTR better suited to Christian homeschoolers. There was one story in the Teacher's Guide that spoke against the idea of the earth being millions of years old, but I have not found nearly as much anti-old earth talk as in other Christian curriculum (which is a big deal for me, you may know if you've read my other posts....). Overall, despite not being Mennonite (though definitely a Christian), I have enjoyed all the material.
I'm not sure yet if we will continue with CLE for 2nd grade for my daughter, mostly because I'm not sure if I want to continue with a Language Arts program that has grammar, handwriting, and spelling all in one. It's nice to have it all together, but if a child is at different levels in those areas, you might not want them all in one book. I'm not sure if I will use LTR with my younger son yet either. My main concern is that he does not like writing in workbooks nearly as well as my daughter, and does not have nearly as long an attention span. However, LTR lessons can be split into multiple smaller ones (which they recommend actually, and mark in the Teacher Guide when to break). Maybe I will modify the program for him, or maybe I will do something else. But for my middle daughter, it is turning out to be just right.
Learning to Read (LTR) is designed for 1st graders, but starts at the beginning of learning to read, with letter recognition. Christian Light Education curriculum is published by Mennonites, and their children do not start formal school until 1st grade, typically. This turned out to be a perfect fit for my middle child, actually, since she has a November birthday. In public school, she would be starting kindergarten this year, even though she turns 6 next week. She is a quick learner, however, and has always been a bit ahead of her age in terms of academic ability, so I have put her in mostly 1st grade material this year. LTR then made sure she understood the basics and then is moving along fairly quickly to get her up to a 1st grade reading level.
LTR is composed of 10 workbooks, or LightUnits, for the student, with 2 spiral-bound teacher's manuals. Each LightUnit has a test at the end. Then there are letter/sound flash cards, word flash cards, phrase flash cards, and 4 small paperback readers. There are also extra practice sheets, which we did not get, and some phonics cards like small versions of posters you might see posted around a teacher's classroom. Those phonics cards seem to be more used in the Language Arts curriculum, which starts around the 6th LightUnit (a little more than halfway through learning to read), but they are very nicely done, and my daughter likes to look at them.
Learning to Read covers phonics, reading (obviously), spelling, and handwriting. Then a little more than halfway through, you are told to start with the first Language Arts LightUnit (of which there are 10). These are shorter lessons, and cover punctuation, reinforce phonics, and do a little grammar. I believe there are some creative writing activities as well, but we haven't gotten there yet. These LightUnits have a couple quizzes and a test each. After finishing the last LTR LightUnit (but before finishing the Language Arts ones), you then start the first of 5 LightUnits in their Reading 1 program, to complete the 1st grade Language Arts curriculum. So there are 10 LTR LightUnits and then 5 Reading LightUnits, while the Language Arts LightUnits overlap with both. The material is not multi-color, but they do use one color (red for LTR, blue for Language Arts) instead of just black and white, so it is a bit more colorful to use.
My daughter enjoys the whole program, though we are skipping some of the oral portions in the teacher's guide. Some of those parts are geared more for a classroom, with everyone taking turns, so it's a bit much to make one student do all of them. But it's nice to have examples of oral review to do, in case you need it. I do more review when she is struggling with a concept, which is really not very often. We have just finished all the letter/sound flash cards, and are halfway through LightUnit 107 (the 7th workbook). So we have covered all the consonants, 5 short vowels, 5 long vowels, and 4 consonant dipthongs: sh, th, wh, and ch. The rest of the workbooks go into vowel sets, such as "ee," "ai," "ay," etc. The last LightUnit does a few 3-letter sets, like "thr."
The Teacher Guides are very helpful, with portions scripted, though you don't have to follow them exactly. I like the way they have given little stories to explain things and help the children remember, such as how the silent e at the end of a word helps the earlier vowel remember to say the long sound. There is a longer story for each new letter or dipthong, which I read while my daughter colors the picture in her LightUnit which is a black and white copy of the picture on the flash card. There is a little saying embedded in each story which becomes the rhyme they use to remember the letter. My daughter loves these, and even my 4-year-old son has memorized some of them. The flow of the program is very nice, with everything falling into place in a good order - it makes sense, in other words. The pace is just right for us too, with just the right amount of review and practice (which you can adjust, depending on how much of the oral work you do). It is very thorough, and my daughter is learning to read very well.
Since Christian Light Education is a Mennonite company, they do have more "old-fashioned" references than some more modern curriculum - stories about farming, grinding grain, taking care of farm animals, etc. There have not been as many obscure images for me as there were in some other curriculum I've tried, such as Climbing to Good English and the Pathway workbooks. Any images of women also have a head covering shown, but I have to say that my daughter has never asked about that (and we do not know any Mennonites personally). Some of the more defined gender roles might bother some people, but while women are always shown working at home while the men go out to work, that separation of roles is never pushed or made obvious really in any of the stories. That is how our family works anyway (at least now), so it is not a big deal to us. Christian beliefs, God, prayer, and worship all play a big part in the stories and exercises, so that definitely may make LTR better suited to Christian homeschoolers. There was one story in the Teacher's Guide that spoke against the idea of the earth being millions of years old, but I have not found nearly as much anti-old earth talk as in other Christian curriculum (which is a big deal for me, you may know if you've read my other posts....). Overall, despite not being Mennonite (though definitely a Christian), I have enjoyed all the material.
I'm not sure yet if we will continue with CLE for 2nd grade for my daughter, mostly because I'm not sure if I want to continue with a Language Arts program that has grammar, handwriting, and spelling all in one. It's nice to have it all together, but if a child is at different levels in those areas, you might not want them all in one book. I'm not sure if I will use LTR with my younger son yet either. My main concern is that he does not like writing in workbooks nearly as well as my daughter, and does not have nearly as long an attention span. However, LTR lessons can be split into multiple smaller ones (which they recommend actually, and mark in the Teacher Guide when to break). Maybe I will modify the program for him, or maybe I will do something else. But for my middle daughter, it is turning out to be just right.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Wiggly Phonics
My middle child, an almost 6-year-old girl, cannot sit still. We've noticed this for a while, especially at church, where she cannot sit still even during the music parts. She is constantly moving at least some part of her body. It drives my husband crazy, since I am usually up at the piano playing for the service. She's also fallen out of her chair while sitting at her school desk more than once. The time she almost smacked her chin on the desk was when I decided the swivel chair might not be the best idea for her.
My youngest, a boy, has often fallen off his chair in the past, and has some typical little-boy wiggle problems, but my middle daughter is definitely worse. She is a prime example of what Cathy Duffy calls a "Wiggly Willy," although she does really love workbooks too.
Anyway, I've been trying to find ways to focus her attention more during phonics and reading lessons by incorporating more physical movement. We are using Christian Light Education's Learn to Read program, which we both really like, but which doesn't have enough hands-on or active learning for her. She loves the workbook format, and has always loved filling in worksheets, but some of the drill and flashcard time is a bit boring for her.
One frequent activity is identifying when the first sound in a word is a particular letter. The book suggests having the child raise their hand whenever the word starts with the letter we're working on. Instead, I have her sit on the floor and jump up whenever the word begins with our letter. She loves doing that, though I have to make sure she has plenty of room.
Another activity is identifying the vowel sound in a word. Instead of just telling me, I give her flashcards for the vowels, and she has to raise the right card. She raises the cards quite exuberantly at times, jumping out of her seat as she does so!
I sometimes have her write on our lovely 2' x 3' white board I recently got, instead of on paper. That provides a little more physical activity, and a change of position.
She has also, all on her own, started acting out the flash card words as she shouts out the word. These are words like "dig" and "cup" (she takes a sip) and "wag" and "lap" (she pats her lap) and "hop" (her new favorite). There are phrase cards too, which provide even more fodder for her imagination. The mental activity of trying to figure out a motion for each one is useful too, since the flash cards are generally very easy for her. It exercises her ever-active brain which is always flitting to dozens of different thoughts with every word I say. I sometimes wonder how her brain works, she is so often chasing rabbit trails and coming up with amazing connections to everything imaginable. Her brain cannot keep still any more than her body, I do believe.
Whatever works. And keeps her happy. And it is definitely working. She is learning to read quite well, and can read pretty detailed, lengthy stories now. Along with every single road sign we pass as we drive....
My youngest, a boy, has often fallen off his chair in the past, and has some typical little-boy wiggle problems, but my middle daughter is definitely worse. She is a prime example of what Cathy Duffy calls a "Wiggly Willy," although she does really love workbooks too.
Anyway, I've been trying to find ways to focus her attention more during phonics and reading lessons by incorporating more physical movement. We are using Christian Light Education's Learn to Read program, which we both really like, but which doesn't have enough hands-on or active learning for her. She loves the workbook format, and has always loved filling in worksheets, but some of the drill and flashcard time is a bit boring for her.
One frequent activity is identifying when the first sound in a word is a particular letter. The book suggests having the child raise their hand whenever the word starts with the letter we're working on. Instead, I have her sit on the floor and jump up whenever the word begins with our letter. She loves doing that, though I have to make sure she has plenty of room.
Another activity is identifying the vowel sound in a word. Instead of just telling me, I give her flashcards for the vowels, and she has to raise the right card. She raises the cards quite exuberantly at times, jumping out of her seat as she does so!
I sometimes have her write on our lovely 2' x 3' white board I recently got, instead of on paper. That provides a little more physical activity, and a change of position.
She has also, all on her own, started acting out the flash card words as she shouts out the word. These are words like "dig" and "cup" (she takes a sip) and "wag" and "lap" (she pats her lap) and "hop" (her new favorite). There are phrase cards too, which provide even more fodder for her imagination. The mental activity of trying to figure out a motion for each one is useful too, since the flash cards are generally very easy for her. It exercises her ever-active brain which is always flitting to dozens of different thoughts with every word I say. I sometimes wonder how her brain works, she is so often chasing rabbit trails and coming up with amazing connections to everything imaginable. Her brain cannot keep still any more than her body, I do believe.
Whatever works. And keeps her happy. And it is definitely working. She is learning to read quite well, and can read pretty detailed, lengthy stories now. Along with every single road sign we pass as we drive....
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Reading Lists
I just updated my Reading Lists page with the books we've been reading this year and plan to read next year. They are mostly from Sonlight (from the PreK cores to Core C for next year) and Ambleside Online (years 1-3), plus a few of my favorites (and ones I just found on my shelves). For next year, I also listed the books from Beautiful Feet's History of the Horse, which we will probably start this summer.
The read-alouds have mostly been just for the benefit of my oldest, but I expect my middle child will start listening in to more this coming year. I also have a separate (smaller) set just for her next year. For the next year or two, I will probably have more separate readings, but I hope, by the following year, to be more on the same page (no pun intended) with all 3 kids. I hope that by then, my youngest will have a bit longer attention span. If not, then he can just listen in when he wants.
Some of the read-alouds I listed for next year will really be within the reading level ability of my oldest, so I may just let her read some of them by herself, if she wants. I really want to read all of them myself too, though, including the readers, so I think I need to start getting busy reading all of them now!
The read-alouds have mostly been just for the benefit of my oldest, but I expect my middle child will start listening in to more this coming year. I also have a separate (smaller) set just for her next year. For the next year or two, I will probably have more separate readings, but I hope, by the following year, to be more on the same page (no pun intended) with all 3 kids. I hope that by then, my youngest will have a bit longer attention span. If not, then he can just listen in when he wants.
Some of the read-alouds I listed for next year will really be within the reading level ability of my oldest, so I may just let her read some of them by herself, if she wants. I really want to read all of them myself too, though, including the readers, so I think I need to start getting busy reading all of them now!
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Internet Connection Fixed
We finally got our internet fixed, after getting a new DSL modem. It still seems a little sluggish at times, but at least it is consistently on.
I have been busy trying to organize/schedule our school days for the near future. I am changing a few things for Rebekah. I'm adding Winning with Writing 2 to our schedule, to try it out, since I think we need to work on more writing. Copywork might eventually work to produce a good writer in many children, but I prefer teaching more specific tools for how to write, instead of just mimicking other writing, and I think that will work better for Rebekah too.
We are doing good with Rod & Staff spelling right now, so we will continue that, perhaps adding in some games with SpellingCity.com. Her reading skills are very good, and we are doing good with a mostly Charlotte-Mason approach to that - reading on her own and then narrating it back to me. Her grandparents were amazed at her reading ability over Christmas break, as she chose a difficult, small-print, non-fiction book about horses to read at their house. Narration proved to be useful in a discipline matter recently too. She did not seem to be paying attention to me, so I told her to "narrate" back to me what I had just told her.
I may eliminate much of the cheap English workbook we've been doing the past few months, in order to have room to add in Winning with Writing. It has some good parts, but I don't think is really too necessary right now. We have a few more phonics pages to do, so we may do those, and then skip the other reading comprehension, grammar, test prep, and other odds-and-ends worksheets. I think we may wait on much more grammar until next year. 3rd grade will be soon enough for that. I'll write more later on my thoughts for next year, but it may involve Latin, Rod & Staff, and/or Growing with Grammar, depending on how well she likes Winning with Writing.
Well, I'll write more later, as the other grandparents are about to come over. Next time - preschool plans.
I have been busy trying to organize/schedule our school days for the near future. I am changing a few things for Rebekah. I'm adding Winning with Writing 2 to our schedule, to try it out, since I think we need to work on more writing. Copywork might eventually work to produce a good writer in many children, but I prefer teaching more specific tools for how to write, instead of just mimicking other writing, and I think that will work better for Rebekah too.
We are doing good with Rod & Staff spelling right now, so we will continue that, perhaps adding in some games with SpellingCity.com. Her reading skills are very good, and we are doing good with a mostly Charlotte-Mason approach to that - reading on her own and then narrating it back to me. Her grandparents were amazed at her reading ability over Christmas break, as she chose a difficult, small-print, non-fiction book about horses to read at their house. Narration proved to be useful in a discipline matter recently too. She did not seem to be paying attention to me, so I told her to "narrate" back to me what I had just told her.
I may eliminate much of the cheap English workbook we've been doing the past few months, in order to have room to add in Winning with Writing. It has some good parts, but I don't think is really too necessary right now. We have a few more phonics pages to do, so we may do those, and then skip the other reading comprehension, grammar, test prep, and other odds-and-ends worksheets. I think we may wait on much more grammar until next year. 3rd grade will be soon enough for that. I'll write more later on my thoughts for next year, but it may involve Latin, Rod & Staff, and/or Growing with Grammar, depending on how well she likes Winning with Writing.
Well, I'll write more later, as the other grandparents are about to come over. Next time - preschool plans.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
English changes again
Well, public schools around here start on Monday, but we've had a full school load for a few weeks now (4 days a week, anyway). It's funny - I've seen some raised eyebrows when I've told others that we're already doing school, but then when I tell them we're planning a vacation the end of September, they say, "Oh, ok." I guess they think I'm working the kids too hard! It doesn't take much explaining here in the Houston area, actually, to convince people that having school in the middle of the summer when it's too hot to do anything else is actually a good plan. We'd much rather have time off when it's decent enough weather to go play outside!
We've already changed our curriculum plans for 2nd grade English too. I really, really like the way CLE Language Arts and Reading is set up. It seems like such an organized, thorough program, with plenty of variety for interest, yet covers the material in a rigorous, complete manner.
Rebekah hated it. I admit that she pouts and complains on Monday mornings with many things, but after a few weeks of CLE lessons, she was just impossible to work with. She dragged through the pages, getting slower and slower, and didn't seem to retain any of it. I know that was because she was protesting, and instead of thinking about the material and learning it, her thoughts were more like, "I don't like this. I don't like this." Her handwriting was getting terrible, and her reading was getting slower.
So we changed the curriculum. She did really like the CLE Math curriculum, and we are still doing quite well with that. But for English, with this child, I'm thinking we will be much better off with a more Charlotte Mason-type approach. I have always been in favor of the CM approach for science and history, but have been a bit skeptical of the CM language arts style - delayed grammar teaching, more natural language learning, reading good books to learn proper English, etc.. But really, I think this is going to be the way to go with my oldest. My middle child will do just fine with CLE English, I think (hopefully, so I can still get my money's worth). She's a more structured, workbook type of learner. But for my oldest, we're going to back off on the structured English.
So, what are we using? A mix of things. I cannot bring myself to totally ignore grammar, so we are using parts of a Foresman English workbook we found online here for free. We are using just the grammar portions, doing one lesson a week, split into 3 days of oral questions, and 1 worksheet on the 4th day to review the week's lesson. We go over the main point on Monday and do part A orally. Then we do part B on Tuesday and part C on Wednesday, both orally. This gives her an introduction to some terminology, but at a very relaxed, easy-going pace. It only takes about 5 minutes a day, 4 days a week.
I also give her 1 page of handwriting practice a week. We will move on to learning cursive the 2nd half of this year.
We are still using Writing With Ease level 1, which gives us a little bit more grammar (punctuation), a little bit more handwriting, some copywork (for writing conventions) and narration practice (which we neglected last year, but which has been improving, along with her attention span, considerably so far). This also takes about 5-10 minutes a day, 4 days a week.
I am having her listen to the Wordly Wise level 2 word definitions (found online for free) 1 day a week. There are only 15 lessons, so we will finish this early, and maybe just do games with the words (also free online) the rest of the year. Again, just a bit of exposure - no need to do the whole workbook.
For spelling, as I wrote earlier, we are using Sequential Spelling (level 1), and she is doing remarkably well with this compared to any other spelling. I gave her the option of skipping spelling this year, and she said no, she wants to do Sequential Spelling still. Sometimes she only does half a lesson a day (12-13 words), but she's still going strong (we got the DVD too, which she likes).
For phonics, she is going through the online Click'n'Read lessons, 3-4 lessons a week, since we already have a lifetime subscription to it, and neither of the other kids is using it right now. All the other phonics we've done has been heavy on learning the rules, and that just never went over well with her. Too many rules just confuses her (and me too, sometimes) - she does better picking up on the "rules" naturally.
For reading, I am still having her read through the CLE readers (starting with the Grade 1 reader, which she's almost finished), and instead of doing 3-4 pages of worksheets on each story, I'm just having her tell me about what she read. This is the Charlotte Mason narration practice which I am finding works much better for her. No handwriting, but she has to remember the details of the story, and put them into her own words. She is getting much more out of the stories this way, and is even eager to read them now. She is missing out on some of the insightful questions in the CLE reading curriculum, but we just had to make some compromises. I still can bring out some of the best questions informally (and orally) during our discussion time. We are also going to mix in most of the Sonlight Grade 2 readers this year, with her doing narrations only for each one.
Finally, I am also doing several read-alouds with her, taken from my own interests (Black Stallion), Sonlight lists (core B mostly), and Ambleside Online lists. Right now, we're reading Charlotte's Web, with some stories also from the Burgess Bird Book, Aesop for Children, Parables from Nature, and the Blue Fairy Book. Not to mention our Bible (Leading Little Ones to God) and history (Hillyer's A Child's History of the World) readings. I'm not requiring narrations from her on these, just expecting her to listen. I know that's not quite pure CM-style, but it works for us.
This seems like a lot for English, all written down, but not everything is done every day, and overall, it's only taking us about an hour a day, 4 days a week (with read-alouds being extra time, and also sometimes on Friday and Saturday). And the important part is that she's enjoying it (mostly, except on Mondays), and she's learning!
We've already changed our curriculum plans for 2nd grade English too. I really, really like the way CLE Language Arts and Reading is set up. It seems like such an organized, thorough program, with plenty of variety for interest, yet covers the material in a rigorous, complete manner.
Rebekah hated it. I admit that she pouts and complains on Monday mornings with many things, but after a few weeks of CLE lessons, she was just impossible to work with. She dragged through the pages, getting slower and slower, and didn't seem to retain any of it. I know that was because she was protesting, and instead of thinking about the material and learning it, her thoughts were more like, "I don't like this. I don't like this." Her handwriting was getting terrible, and her reading was getting slower.
So we changed the curriculum. She did really like the CLE Math curriculum, and we are still doing quite well with that. But for English, with this child, I'm thinking we will be much better off with a more Charlotte Mason-type approach. I have always been in favor of the CM approach for science and history, but have been a bit skeptical of the CM language arts style - delayed grammar teaching, more natural language learning, reading good books to learn proper English, etc.. But really, I think this is going to be the way to go with my oldest. My middle child will do just fine with CLE English, I think (hopefully, so I can still get my money's worth). She's a more structured, workbook type of learner. But for my oldest, we're going to back off on the structured English.
So, what are we using? A mix of things. I cannot bring myself to totally ignore grammar, so we are using parts of a Foresman English workbook we found online here for free. We are using just the grammar portions, doing one lesson a week, split into 3 days of oral questions, and 1 worksheet on the 4th day to review the week's lesson. We go over the main point on Monday and do part A orally. Then we do part B on Tuesday and part C on Wednesday, both orally. This gives her an introduction to some terminology, but at a very relaxed, easy-going pace. It only takes about 5 minutes a day, 4 days a week.
I also give her 1 page of handwriting practice a week. We will move on to learning cursive the 2nd half of this year.
We are still using Writing With Ease level 1, which gives us a little bit more grammar (punctuation), a little bit more handwriting, some copywork (for writing conventions) and narration practice (which we neglected last year, but which has been improving, along with her attention span, considerably so far). This also takes about 5-10 minutes a day, 4 days a week.
I am having her listen to the Wordly Wise level 2 word definitions (found online for free) 1 day a week. There are only 15 lessons, so we will finish this early, and maybe just do games with the words (also free online) the rest of the year. Again, just a bit of exposure - no need to do the whole workbook.
For spelling, as I wrote earlier, we are using Sequential Spelling (level 1), and she is doing remarkably well with this compared to any other spelling. I gave her the option of skipping spelling this year, and she said no, she wants to do Sequential Spelling still. Sometimes she only does half a lesson a day (12-13 words), but she's still going strong (we got the DVD too, which she likes).
For phonics, she is going through the online Click'n'Read lessons, 3-4 lessons a week, since we already have a lifetime subscription to it, and neither of the other kids is using it right now. All the other phonics we've done has been heavy on learning the rules, and that just never went over well with her. Too many rules just confuses her (and me too, sometimes) - she does better picking up on the "rules" naturally.
For reading, I am still having her read through the CLE readers (starting with the Grade 1 reader, which she's almost finished), and instead of doing 3-4 pages of worksheets on each story, I'm just having her tell me about what she read. This is the Charlotte Mason narration practice which I am finding works much better for her. No handwriting, but she has to remember the details of the story, and put them into her own words. She is getting much more out of the stories this way, and is even eager to read them now. She is missing out on some of the insightful questions in the CLE reading curriculum, but we just had to make some compromises. I still can bring out some of the best questions informally (and orally) during our discussion time. We are also going to mix in most of the Sonlight Grade 2 readers this year, with her doing narrations only for each one.
Finally, I am also doing several read-alouds with her, taken from my own interests (Black Stallion), Sonlight lists (core B mostly), and Ambleside Online lists. Right now, we're reading Charlotte's Web, with some stories also from the Burgess Bird Book, Aesop for Children, Parables from Nature, and the Blue Fairy Book. Not to mention our Bible (Leading Little Ones to God) and history (Hillyer's A Child's History of the World) readings. I'm not requiring narrations from her on these, just expecting her to listen. I know that's not quite pure CM-style, but it works for us.
This seems like a lot for English, all written down, but not everything is done every day, and overall, it's only taking us about an hour a day, 4 days a week (with read-alouds being extra time, and also sometimes on Friday and Saturday). And the important part is that she's enjoying it (mostly, except on Mondays), and she's learning!
Friday, July 6, 2012
School in July
We started 2nd grade this week, my oldest daughter and I. It is so hot outside, the kids just can't play outside during the middle of the day more than a few minutes, and in the mornings and evenings there are too many mosquitoes. So it's really the best time of year to spend indoors doing schoolwork. We're just doing math, English, and reading, all with our new CLE curriculum. I plan to add in the rest in August - science, history, art, music, etc. I did give my daughter a piano lesson on Monday, though. It's about time we get that started on a more regular basis. I am also reading aloud from The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley. The Sonlight reading we did the past year was pretty much my daughter's favorite thing, so I figured we might as well keep reading - this time, a book of my choice. The Black Stallion books were among my favorite as a child, and I still have all of them. My daughter loves horses too, so it's a big hit with her so far.
But anyway, back to school. We will be participating in a music co-op this year, starting mid-August, so our Friday mornings are going to be pretty booked. We could do some schoolwork in the afternoons, but it would be nice to not have to, so we're going to try doing a 4-day week this year. The CLE material has 170 lessons in each class, so with a 4-day week, that comes out to 42.5 weeks. That still gives us about 10 weeks off, to take when we want, so I figure starting now, in July, will give us plenty of time to finish 2nd grade by next summer.
Our science for this year (mostly NOEO Physics 1) is already in a 4-day week format. For history, we're doing a combination of a couple Intellego unit studies, and reading aloud from Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, so I can make that however many days a week I want. 4 days should give us plenty of time to complete everything. For Bible, I am using Telling God's Story, Year 1, which I plan to do 3 days a week, adding in some reading from Leading Little Ones to God on the 4th day. The rest (hands-on art, artist and composer studies, gym, logic, etc.) are just 1-2 days a week, whenever we can fit them in.
My daughter balked a little at starting school again (not like we've had much time off anyway), but she seems to really like the format of the CLE LightUnits. It's new, different, and doesn't take as long as the BJU videos did. She really loves the math - especially the speed drills, to my surprise. She groaned when she first saw the half-page of problems, but when I started timing her, her eyes lit up and she took off! Wow, if I had known timing her would be encouraging, I would have done that a long time ago! We're just in the 1st LightUnit, which is review, so we'll see how things go when we get to harder material. I wanted to make sure and do the review unit, since we are switching curriculum, but so far, the 2nd grade level of CLE seems just right for her, in all subjects.
She doesn't like the English as well, probably since it's a bit longer, and we had a meltdown on the 2nd day, when we were working on vowel sounds. She really didn't learn them like she should have in 1st grade, since she refused to practice saying the sounds out loud with the video teacher. It was painful, but I made her work on pronouncing them for me this week (even when she doesn't know the word, which is her sticking point), and we're slowly overcoming her stubbornness. I had to have a good long talk with her about not being afraid to try, about the benefits of making mistakes, and about how rude it is to just sit there and not answer someone's question. I also told her about my own shyness and nervousness when I was in school, and how I overcame it, and I think that helped the most. We'll see.
I have my doubts about the spelling in CLE too. My daughter's worst area is spelling, and looking ahead, I don't see much that I think will help her. The basic list of words, activities with those words, and testing seems to not work well with my oldest. I'm thinking we may try Sequential Spelling soon. We'll see. I'll give CLE another week or so, and then maybe try out the samples of SS.
The reading will be challenging for her too, even though she scored so well in the standardized test we took earlier. She has a hard time remembering what she's read (especially the next day), and reading "between the lines." She can read it, and answer a few questions, but she doesn't seem to really process the reading and internalize it enough to really comprehend the big picture. The CLE material really brings that out, and I think will be very good for her skill improvement. I've also been reading a lot about Charlotte Mason's methods (I joined the Ambleside Online yahoo group to get pointers on artist and composer studies). The need for narrating in order to really comprehend a reading makes a lot of sense, and my daughter's inability to tell me what happened in a story we just read shows me that ability to narrate is a good indicator of comprehension. So maybe we'll use some narration every now and then for me to judge her comprehension (and to get her to understand that she needs to be able to re-tell at least the basics of a story).
Oh, I forgot - I am also planning on using Writing With Ease (level 1) with her this year. She's definitely not ready for level 2 yet. I think WWE will address some of her problem areas, including narration, and will round out the CLE material. It is also designed for a 4-day week, so we'll wait a few more weeks to start it.
Next blog - I think I'll discuss my youngest and his potty training progress! Stay tuned!
But anyway, back to school. We will be participating in a music co-op this year, starting mid-August, so our Friday mornings are going to be pretty booked. We could do some schoolwork in the afternoons, but it would be nice to not have to, so we're going to try doing a 4-day week this year. The CLE material has 170 lessons in each class, so with a 4-day week, that comes out to 42.5 weeks. That still gives us about 10 weeks off, to take when we want, so I figure starting now, in July, will give us plenty of time to finish 2nd grade by next summer.
Our science for this year (mostly NOEO Physics 1) is already in a 4-day week format. For history, we're doing a combination of a couple Intellego unit studies, and reading aloud from Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, so I can make that however many days a week I want. 4 days should give us plenty of time to complete everything. For Bible, I am using Telling God's Story, Year 1, which I plan to do 3 days a week, adding in some reading from Leading Little Ones to God on the 4th day. The rest (hands-on art, artist and composer studies, gym, logic, etc.) are just 1-2 days a week, whenever we can fit them in.
My daughter balked a little at starting school again (not like we've had much time off anyway), but she seems to really like the format of the CLE LightUnits. It's new, different, and doesn't take as long as the BJU videos did. She really loves the math - especially the speed drills, to my surprise. She groaned when she first saw the half-page of problems, but when I started timing her, her eyes lit up and she took off! Wow, if I had known timing her would be encouraging, I would have done that a long time ago! We're just in the 1st LightUnit, which is review, so we'll see how things go when we get to harder material. I wanted to make sure and do the review unit, since we are switching curriculum, but so far, the 2nd grade level of CLE seems just right for her, in all subjects.
She doesn't like the English as well, probably since it's a bit longer, and we had a meltdown on the 2nd day, when we were working on vowel sounds. She really didn't learn them like she should have in 1st grade, since she refused to practice saying the sounds out loud with the video teacher. It was painful, but I made her work on pronouncing them for me this week (even when she doesn't know the word, which is her sticking point), and we're slowly overcoming her stubbornness. I had to have a good long talk with her about not being afraid to try, about the benefits of making mistakes, and about how rude it is to just sit there and not answer someone's question. I also told her about my own shyness and nervousness when I was in school, and how I overcame it, and I think that helped the most. We'll see.
I have my doubts about the spelling in CLE too. My daughter's worst area is spelling, and looking ahead, I don't see much that I think will help her. The basic list of words, activities with those words, and testing seems to not work well with my oldest. I'm thinking we may try Sequential Spelling soon. We'll see. I'll give CLE another week or so, and then maybe try out the samples of SS.
The reading will be challenging for her too, even though she scored so well in the standardized test we took earlier. She has a hard time remembering what she's read (especially the next day), and reading "between the lines." She can read it, and answer a few questions, but she doesn't seem to really process the reading and internalize it enough to really comprehend the big picture. The CLE material really brings that out, and I think will be very good for her skill improvement. I've also been reading a lot about Charlotte Mason's methods (I joined the Ambleside Online yahoo group to get pointers on artist and composer studies). The need for narrating in order to really comprehend a reading makes a lot of sense, and my daughter's inability to tell me what happened in a story we just read shows me that ability to narrate is a good indicator of comprehension. So maybe we'll use some narration every now and then for me to judge her comprehension (and to get her to understand that she needs to be able to re-tell at least the basics of a story).
Oh, I forgot - I am also planning on using Writing With Ease (level 1) with her this year. She's definitely not ready for level 2 yet. I think WWE will address some of her problem areas, including narration, and will round out the CLE material. It is also designed for a 4-day week, so we'll wait a few more weeks to start it.
Next blog - I think I'll discuss my youngest and his potty training progress! Stay tuned!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Changing My Mind
My lovely, well-researched, well-thought-out plan for English is fading fast. Neither I nor my daughter are enjoying it much, and this is not a good thing. She even told the doctor today, during her 6-year-old checkup, that she didn't like reading. (On the plus side, she did say she liked math.)
I'm not sure exactly what the problem is. Perhaps it is the black and white workbook pages? Too many "problems" on each page? The Learning through Sounds II book does have a lot of fill-in-the-blank-letter words, for sound/letter recognition, on these first few pages in the workbook. Her handwriting has actually gotten better, though, so it's not as hard for her to write. Some of the hand-drawn pictures on the pages are hard to identify, and perhaps are a bit too Amish and farm related. The Climbing to Good English workbook is very similar, since they are made to go together. She loved the workbook the first few days, because of the dog mascot that appeared on every page. But it is perhaps too much of the same thing day after day? The Evan-Moor workbook pages we've tried are a little better, but are still black and white. They have very short lessons for each day, but I still encounter much resistance from my daughter, and a pouting attitude.
I did have a little success in changing her attitude the day I told her that if she didn't stop pouting, I'd give her more worksheets to do! She paused, then turned to me with a big smile plastered all over her face! It was a little fake, but she did cheer herself up, making things much more pleasant for me.
I'm pretty sure that the worksheet style and quantity has a little to do with her dislike, but I will confess that the majority of it is probably my approach to teaching it to her. I just cannot make myself nearly as exuberant teaching English as I can teaching, say, science. I tend to tell her what to do on the page as quickly as I can and then just tell her to do the page. Not the best teaching method. Some of it is my lack of interest in the subject, and my frustration with this basic level of education, and a lot of it is having to deal with my 2 and 3 year olds at the same time.
("Stop coloring on the desk! Don't take your sister's scissors! Sit down! No, not at my desk! Stop singing so loud! Stop grabbing your brother's cars! Stop grabbing your sister's hair! Stop crying! Stop! Stop!" - it really is quite constant sometimes.)
I still really like the concept of the Pathway readers, Climbing to Good English, and Learning through Sounds approach. The teacher guides have tons of good information about how to present the material, how to drill the students so they get everything they need to, in what order to teach things, etc. I love the back-to-basics approach, with wholesome, moral beliefs intertwined in the material. I love the inexpensive price for all that you get. I think this course of study would still be really good for many homeschool teachers, and has the potential to be used well with multiple grades. But I think the parent/teacher must still be a good, willing teacher in order to engage the child. The teacher guides talk about this, and show how to do this, but I find myself skipping too many of those parts due to time constraints and lack of interest (on my part, that is). It is not doing my daughter much good, and is driving me crazy, so I am sorrowfully acknowledging that our plans must change.
What If You Don't Like to Teach?
So, what is my plan now? If you have read my blog from the beginning, you might recall that my first thoughts when deciding to homeschool were to use distance learning videos, such as from A Beka Academy (so I'm not really changing my mind, right - just returning to my original mind!). I thought they might be the only way I could homeschool, since I knew I didn't really like teaching. I moved away from that when I started researching curriculum more and found so many other wonderful resources available. I moved away from A Beka when I talked with several friends who had either been taught themselves with A Beka, or were using A Beka with their own children (the textbooks, not the videos). None of them liked it. Too much drill and repetition, too boring, too dry - they had other complaints, but those were probably the main ones. The videos also had bad reviews, as they are just cameras set up in the back of classrooms. Too much time spent listening to other children responding to questions, too long, too much like regular school, etc. My daughter thought the sample videos online were cool (she liked the school atmosphere, I think), but I think she would soon tire of listening to the repetition of other students.
Other places have distance learning videos, primarily for jr high and high school, with several different math programs, some science ones (mostly secular), and classical rhetoric and logic and discussion classes teaching literature and history. Many of these sound wonderful (and expensive), but they are not for early elementary. There are also online game-type sites that are for elementary ages, but they are more supplementary than primary for teaching. There are also co-ops that teach for 1-3 days a week, with the parent doing the rest at home, but these focus on science, literature, and history, leaving the basics of reading, English, and math for the parent - exactly the opposite of what I want! (kinda ironic that I named my site “Teaching the 3 Rs,” huh?)
Bob Jones also has distance learning videos for 4-year-olds through 12th grade which have much more wonderful reviews. They have engaging teachers who address your student directly, with props, field trips, puppets for the younger ages, etc. Their entire curriculum has good reviews, and is intensive and college-prep (very different from the Amish material I've been trying - some of their websites even discourage sending your students to college, which I knew from the start was pretty opposite of my inclination - perhaps I should have paid more attention to our philosophical differences. I still think a college-bound student could use the Amish/Mennonite material with excellent results, just adding more college-prep material in high school.)
Anyway, one reason I steered away from Bob Jones originally was because the textbook material is very teacher-intensive, which I was pretty sure I couldn't handle with 3 students (and didn't want to handle, since I'd rather be hands-off in teaching). Also, the main turn-off for me was their young-earth belief, which is quite strong and can be somewhat dogmatic in their science courses, and is also present in their ancient history texts. Most of their other religious beliefs are very similar to mine, and I don't have any qualms (based only on their online samples) about their take on U.S. history, economics, Christianity, math, English, etc.
However, I am rethinking using their video-based distance learning (just omitting their science). That would take care of the teaching for me, and I think the video teachers would engage my oldest much, much better than I can. Their reading program has extremely high ratings from others, for example. Their higher-level English and literature program also has very high ratings from multiple people, and is very rigorous all the way up through 12th grade.
I think to save my sanity, and my daughter's interest in learning, we really should use BJU videos for English and math (despite my daughter saying she likes math, we really have the same attitude problems - hers and mine - with math every day). Since it is the same price for the whole grade level as it is for 3 classes (and the English is split up into 2-4 classes each year, not even counting math), I will probably just get the whole grade level, even if we don't use it all. I love the skits and field trips they have for history too, and while I had planned on doing the 4-year-cycle for history and using Sonlight, I have figured out how to intertwine Sonlight history reading with BJU history for many years, and will probably still use Sonlight only in some of the later years. (I'll post about those details later - using portions of BJU history and portions of Sonlight.) I will probably also use the BJU Bible course (it's just 15 minutes a day).
I will not, however, use their science, and will continue to teach all 3 children together with our own science courses. (I may pre-screen some of the science videos to show them, however.) Science and art, as I mentioned in an earlier post, are fun for me to teach, and fun for the kids to learn from me. Music, computers, robotics, also, I will teach myself. Reading aloud from historical fiction and even non-fiction is also fun for me to do with the kids, so I will still do that part myself, leaving some of the textbook, fact parts to the BJU teachers.
BJU videos are expensive, yes. But they are much cheaper than sending my 2 youngest ones (or even 1 youngest one) off to daycare so I can focus on my oldest (which I don't want to do anyway, since I want my 2 youngest ones at home too). It will be cheaper to use full-grade videos for all 3 children than to send even one child to a private Christian school, which would be my next move. I don't want to stop homeschooling, and I don't want to send them to a public school, and I don't even really want to send them to a private school. But I'm afraid I will be burnt out very, very soon if I have to continue teaching reading and basic math to all 3 children over the next few years.
It does make me sad to give up some of my earlier plans, and to not use some of the material I’ve bought. The cost does bother me too, considering that you can homeschool for free, really. There are so many resources available, free educational videos, an entire year of history units and activities for $1.99, etc. I am basically a frugal person, and knowing that there are materials available to use so cheaply (if one were only an interested, good teacher), but then spending so much on a video curriculum does disturb me a bit. But what price is sanity?! And if the alternative is public school, even my husband prefers spending the money. We are very fortunate to be able to afford it.
My new role then, aside from continuing to teach science, art, music, computers, robotics, and some history, will be more of a mentor, tutor, and administrator. With the videos, the parent can be as involved as they want to be. At a minimum, the parent must gather and organize the needed materials for the day or week, grade papers, re-teach anything the child didn’t understand from the videos, and help the students focus and maintain a schedule. For many homeschooling parents, those are the unpleasant tasks - they prefer to focus on the teaching. I, however, don’t like that part (except in science). I actually enjoy the administrative parts! So I think maybe distance learning videos are perfect for us.
I'm not sure exactly what the problem is. Perhaps it is the black and white workbook pages? Too many "problems" on each page? The Learning through Sounds II book does have a lot of fill-in-the-blank-letter words, for sound/letter recognition, on these first few pages in the workbook. Her handwriting has actually gotten better, though, so it's not as hard for her to write. Some of the hand-drawn pictures on the pages are hard to identify, and perhaps are a bit too Amish and farm related. The Climbing to Good English workbook is very similar, since they are made to go together. She loved the workbook the first few days, because of the dog mascot that appeared on every page. But it is perhaps too much of the same thing day after day? The Evan-Moor workbook pages we've tried are a little better, but are still black and white. They have very short lessons for each day, but I still encounter much resistance from my daughter, and a pouting attitude.
I did have a little success in changing her attitude the day I told her that if she didn't stop pouting, I'd give her more worksheets to do! She paused, then turned to me with a big smile plastered all over her face! It was a little fake, but she did cheer herself up, making things much more pleasant for me.
I'm pretty sure that the worksheet style and quantity has a little to do with her dislike, but I will confess that the majority of it is probably my approach to teaching it to her. I just cannot make myself nearly as exuberant teaching English as I can teaching, say, science. I tend to tell her what to do on the page as quickly as I can and then just tell her to do the page. Not the best teaching method. Some of it is my lack of interest in the subject, and my frustration with this basic level of education, and a lot of it is having to deal with my 2 and 3 year olds at the same time.
("Stop coloring on the desk! Don't take your sister's scissors! Sit down! No, not at my desk! Stop singing so loud! Stop grabbing your brother's cars! Stop grabbing your sister's hair! Stop crying! Stop! Stop!" - it really is quite constant sometimes.)
I still really like the concept of the Pathway readers, Climbing to Good English, and Learning through Sounds approach. The teacher guides have tons of good information about how to present the material, how to drill the students so they get everything they need to, in what order to teach things, etc. I love the back-to-basics approach, with wholesome, moral beliefs intertwined in the material. I love the inexpensive price for all that you get. I think this course of study would still be really good for many homeschool teachers, and has the potential to be used well with multiple grades. But I think the parent/teacher must still be a good, willing teacher in order to engage the child. The teacher guides talk about this, and show how to do this, but I find myself skipping too many of those parts due to time constraints and lack of interest (on my part, that is). It is not doing my daughter much good, and is driving me crazy, so I am sorrowfully acknowledging that our plans must change.
What If You Don't Like to Teach?
So, what is my plan now? If you have read my blog from the beginning, you might recall that my first thoughts when deciding to homeschool were to use distance learning videos, such as from A Beka Academy (so I'm not really changing my mind, right - just returning to my original mind!). I thought they might be the only way I could homeschool, since I knew I didn't really like teaching. I moved away from that when I started researching curriculum more and found so many other wonderful resources available. I moved away from A Beka when I talked with several friends who had either been taught themselves with A Beka, or were using A Beka with their own children (the textbooks, not the videos). None of them liked it. Too much drill and repetition, too boring, too dry - they had other complaints, but those were probably the main ones. The videos also had bad reviews, as they are just cameras set up in the back of classrooms. Too much time spent listening to other children responding to questions, too long, too much like regular school, etc. My daughter thought the sample videos online were cool (she liked the school atmosphere, I think), but I think she would soon tire of listening to the repetition of other students.
Other places have distance learning videos, primarily for jr high and high school, with several different math programs, some science ones (mostly secular), and classical rhetoric and logic and discussion classes teaching literature and history. Many of these sound wonderful (and expensive), but they are not for early elementary. There are also online game-type sites that are for elementary ages, but they are more supplementary than primary for teaching. There are also co-ops that teach for 1-3 days a week, with the parent doing the rest at home, but these focus on science, literature, and history, leaving the basics of reading, English, and math for the parent - exactly the opposite of what I want! (kinda ironic that I named my site “Teaching the 3 Rs,” huh?)
Bob Jones also has distance learning videos for 4-year-olds through 12th grade which have much more wonderful reviews. They have engaging teachers who address your student directly, with props, field trips, puppets for the younger ages, etc. Their entire curriculum has good reviews, and is intensive and college-prep (very different from the Amish material I've been trying - some of their websites even discourage sending your students to college, which I knew from the start was pretty opposite of my inclination - perhaps I should have paid more attention to our philosophical differences. I still think a college-bound student could use the Amish/Mennonite material with excellent results, just adding more college-prep material in high school.)
Anyway, one reason I steered away from Bob Jones originally was because the textbook material is very teacher-intensive, which I was pretty sure I couldn't handle with 3 students (and didn't want to handle, since I'd rather be hands-off in teaching). Also, the main turn-off for me was their young-earth belief, which is quite strong and can be somewhat dogmatic in their science courses, and is also present in their ancient history texts. Most of their other religious beliefs are very similar to mine, and I don't have any qualms (based only on their online samples) about their take on U.S. history, economics, Christianity, math, English, etc.
However, I am rethinking using their video-based distance learning (just omitting their science). That would take care of the teaching for me, and I think the video teachers would engage my oldest much, much better than I can. Their reading program has extremely high ratings from others, for example. Their higher-level English and literature program also has very high ratings from multiple people, and is very rigorous all the way up through 12th grade.
I think to save my sanity, and my daughter's interest in learning, we really should use BJU videos for English and math (despite my daughter saying she likes math, we really have the same attitude problems - hers and mine - with math every day). Since it is the same price for the whole grade level as it is for 3 classes (and the English is split up into 2-4 classes each year, not even counting math), I will probably just get the whole grade level, even if we don't use it all. I love the skits and field trips they have for history too, and while I had planned on doing the 4-year-cycle for history and using Sonlight, I have figured out how to intertwine Sonlight history reading with BJU history for many years, and will probably still use Sonlight only in some of the later years. (I'll post about those details later - using portions of BJU history and portions of Sonlight.) I will probably also use the BJU Bible course (it's just 15 minutes a day).
I will not, however, use their science, and will continue to teach all 3 children together with our own science courses. (I may pre-screen some of the science videos to show them, however.) Science and art, as I mentioned in an earlier post, are fun for me to teach, and fun for the kids to learn from me. Music, computers, robotics, also, I will teach myself. Reading aloud from historical fiction and even non-fiction is also fun for me to do with the kids, so I will still do that part myself, leaving some of the textbook, fact parts to the BJU teachers.
BJU videos are expensive, yes. But they are much cheaper than sending my 2 youngest ones (or even 1 youngest one) off to daycare so I can focus on my oldest (which I don't want to do anyway, since I want my 2 youngest ones at home too). It will be cheaper to use full-grade videos for all 3 children than to send even one child to a private Christian school, which would be my next move. I don't want to stop homeschooling, and I don't want to send them to a public school, and I don't even really want to send them to a private school. But I'm afraid I will be burnt out very, very soon if I have to continue teaching reading and basic math to all 3 children over the next few years.
It does make me sad to give up some of my earlier plans, and to not use some of the material I’ve bought. The cost does bother me too, considering that you can homeschool for free, really. There are so many resources available, free educational videos, an entire year of history units and activities for $1.99, etc. I am basically a frugal person, and knowing that there are materials available to use so cheaply (if one were only an interested, good teacher), but then spending so much on a video curriculum does disturb me a bit. But what price is sanity?! And if the alternative is public school, even my husband prefers spending the money. We are very fortunate to be able to afford it.
My new role then, aside from continuing to teach science, art, music, computers, robotics, and some history, will be more of a mentor, tutor, and administrator. With the videos, the parent can be as involved as they want to be. At a minimum, the parent must gather and organize the needed materials for the day or week, grade papers, re-teach anything the child didn’t understand from the videos, and help the students focus and maintain a schedule. For many homeschooling parents, those are the unpleasant tasks - they prefer to focus on the teaching. I, however, don’t like that part (except in science). I actually enjoy the administrative parts! So I think maybe distance learning videos are perfect for us.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Crystals and Paint Are Fun!
I just finished cleaning up the girls' paint palettes after our art class and sent them to the playroom, so I thought I'd write a blog entry. We do art once a week, using a book called Discover Art by Laura H. Chapman. I found the books on amazon.com, after reading some good reviews about the series. I actually bought it (and all the books in the series) for about a penny each, though shipping was $3.99.
There are 6 books, for grades 1 through 6, I assume, though this level 1 book we're doing right now is good for both my almost-6-year-old and my 3.5-year-old. I've let my 2.5-year-old boy participate a few times, since he likes coloring and painting, but he doesn't really understand the point of the lesson most of time. For that matter, my 3.5-year-old girl may not get it very well either, but at least she doesn't eat the crayons and smear paint and glue on herself like my son does! I waited until his naptime today to have art class. It's just much cleaner that way. The lessons are very basic - lines, curves, colors, painting, paper collages, but there are some nice images in the book to demonstrate things. Today's lesson had some paintings by Van Gogh.
These books are out of print, and there is also another series by Laura Chapman called Adventures in Art, which is also out of print, I believe. I think that series is very similar to mine, maybe even just repackaged. The books I got are old library books, but I think they were frequently used in elementary schools years ago. Anyway, they are perfect for our art lessons, with short lessons using a wide variety of activities and simple materials. I made up a list of materials needed for the level 1 book, and it includes crayons, white & colored paper, construction paper, scissors, glue, paints & paintbrushes, clay or playdough, colored pencils, markers, textured objects for tracing and pasting, cardboard tubes, objects to use as stamps, paper plates, stapler, string, tape, paper cups, and fabric pieces. I haven't gone through books 2-5 in as much detail, but they seem to follow a similar pattern.
The other hands-on activity we did today was for science class. We are making crystals in a pie pan. This activity was listed in the Intro to Science course we're doing, but is detailed in the More Mudpies to Magnets book. It is fairly simple, though we had to have some "blueing agent" which I had to order. You put some sponge pieces, water, blueing agent, salt, and ammonia in a pie pan, and then let it sit for several days to let crystals grow. We started it about 4-5 hours ago, and it is already showing some nice white crystal structures around the perimeter of the pie pan, just above the liquid level. The ammonia smelled terrible, but overall, it is a good and easy experiment.
The kids all enjoy the science and art work that we do. I never have to prod or push or scold them into doing those classes, or to pay attention while I'm talking. I enjoy teaching these subjects too. Science - because it is fascinating and one of my favorite topics, and art - because it can be beautiful, colorful, and I love making art myself.
Now, math and English, on the other hand, can be a pain for both my daughter and myself. I am realizing that I could never be an elementary school teacher! I admire those who do teach these ages, year after year! I am just not patient enough for all the necessary repetition that these subjects require at these young ages. Having to repeat myself has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, and teaching addition and subtraction, letter sounds, and reading in general, to either a kindergartner or a first grader (and probably higher) just requires the teacher to repeat themselves a lot. That's how this age learns. It's not that she doesn't get it - just that learning this stuff and getting it down pat requires lots of repetition.
I should know that, since as a pianist, I have to repeatedly practice the same thing over and over again. I don't mind that, but then, I'm the one doing the repeating for myself. Having to drill things with my daughter is driving me crazy. I get bored, I get frustrated, and I just want to be done with it and move on to something more interesting. That's why I dislike it, I know, and I'm afraid my dislike of it is being transferred to my daughter.
I love the material I've picked out, both for math and for language arts, and think it could be a really great way of teaching. But I'm not liking having to be the one doing the teaching. Impatience on my part, I know. But I'm seriously thinking of switching to a distance learning video product, at least for math and English. That's what I had originally planned to do, upon taking my daughter out of public school, because I knew teaching wasn't my favorite thing to do. But then I got distracted by all the curriculum available, and found so many (cheaper) curriculum products that sounded great and really are great and can make it easy to teach and cover everything needed. But in order to keep my sanity, and to keep my daughter loving to learn, I'm seriously thinking about the Bob Jones distance learning products, at least for elementary school. I'll write more about them later, but I just thought I should confess my thought trends at the moment! Science and art we are all loving, and I will continue teaching those subjects no matter what, but we've got to change something with how we're doing math and English.
Addition and digraphs may drive me crazy, but crystals and paint are fun!
There are 6 books, for grades 1 through 6, I assume, though this level 1 book we're doing right now is good for both my almost-6-year-old and my 3.5-year-old. I've let my 2.5-year-old boy participate a few times, since he likes coloring and painting, but he doesn't really understand the point of the lesson most of time. For that matter, my 3.5-year-old girl may not get it very well either, but at least she doesn't eat the crayons and smear paint and glue on herself like my son does! I waited until his naptime today to have art class. It's just much cleaner that way. The lessons are very basic - lines, curves, colors, painting, paper collages, but there are some nice images in the book to demonstrate things. Today's lesson had some paintings by Van Gogh.
These books are out of print, and there is also another series by Laura Chapman called Adventures in Art, which is also out of print, I believe. I think that series is very similar to mine, maybe even just repackaged. The books I got are old library books, but I think they were frequently used in elementary schools years ago. Anyway, they are perfect for our art lessons, with short lessons using a wide variety of activities and simple materials. I made up a list of materials needed for the level 1 book, and it includes crayons, white & colored paper, construction paper, scissors, glue, paints & paintbrushes, clay or playdough, colored pencils, markers, textured objects for tracing and pasting, cardboard tubes, objects to use as stamps, paper plates, stapler, string, tape, paper cups, and fabric pieces. I haven't gone through books 2-5 in as much detail, but they seem to follow a similar pattern.
The other hands-on activity we did today was for science class. We are making crystals in a pie pan. This activity was listed in the Intro to Science course we're doing, but is detailed in the More Mudpies to Magnets book. It is fairly simple, though we had to have some "blueing agent" which I had to order. You put some sponge pieces, water, blueing agent, salt, and ammonia in a pie pan, and then let it sit for several days to let crystals grow. We started it about 4-5 hours ago, and it is already showing some nice white crystal structures around the perimeter of the pie pan, just above the liquid level. The ammonia smelled terrible, but overall, it is a good and easy experiment.
The kids all enjoy the science and art work that we do. I never have to prod or push or scold them into doing those classes, or to pay attention while I'm talking. I enjoy teaching these subjects too. Science - because it is fascinating and one of my favorite topics, and art - because it can be beautiful, colorful, and I love making art myself.
Now, math and English, on the other hand, can be a pain for both my daughter and myself. I am realizing that I could never be an elementary school teacher! I admire those who do teach these ages, year after year! I am just not patient enough for all the necessary repetition that these subjects require at these young ages. Having to repeat myself has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, and teaching addition and subtraction, letter sounds, and reading in general, to either a kindergartner or a first grader (and probably higher) just requires the teacher to repeat themselves a lot. That's how this age learns. It's not that she doesn't get it - just that learning this stuff and getting it down pat requires lots of repetition.
I should know that, since as a pianist, I have to repeatedly practice the same thing over and over again. I don't mind that, but then, I'm the one doing the repeating for myself. Having to drill things with my daughter is driving me crazy. I get bored, I get frustrated, and I just want to be done with it and move on to something more interesting. That's why I dislike it, I know, and I'm afraid my dislike of it is being transferred to my daughter.
I love the material I've picked out, both for math and for language arts, and think it could be a really great way of teaching. But I'm not liking having to be the one doing the teaching. Impatience on my part, I know. But I'm seriously thinking of switching to a distance learning video product, at least for math and English. That's what I had originally planned to do, upon taking my daughter out of public school, because I knew teaching wasn't my favorite thing to do. But then I got distracted by all the curriculum available, and found so many (cheaper) curriculum products that sounded great and really are great and can make it easy to teach and cover everything needed. But in order to keep my sanity, and to keep my daughter loving to learn, I'm seriously thinking about the Bob Jones distance learning products, at least for elementary school. I'll write more about them later, but I just thought I should confess my thought trends at the moment! Science and art we are all loving, and I will continue teaching those subjects no matter what, but we've got to change something with how we're doing math and English.
Addition and digraphs may drive me crazy, but crystals and paint are fun!
Saturday, May 21, 2011
English
I have been having the hardest time choosing an English curriculum, mostly because there are so many good choices. Plus, there are quite a few components of English, and while you can get an all-encompassing English course, you can also pick and choose your components from several sources. Phonics and learning to read is the most important part for the first couple of years, but then there's spelling, grammar, handwriting, writing/composition, literature, literary analysis as you get into later years, and so on.
My favorites, at the moment, are all from Amish or Mennonite publishers: Rod & Staff (R&S), Christian Light Education (CLE, or sometimes, CLP - Christian Light Publications, but not to be confused with Christian Liberty Press), and the Pathway Readers/Climbing to Good English combo (CtGE). Pathway Readers are published by Pathway Publishers and CtGE is published by SchoolAid, but they are made to go together. (Note that the links to R&S and Pathway/CtGE aren't the publishers' official sites, but just resellers, of which there are several.)
These 3 choices are all quite similar in scope and coverage, though they approach things a little differently. I have been going back and forth, back and forth, trying to decide which I like best, and which will work best with other things I've chosen (like Sonlight, which includes a large amount of reading and literature - or really any history course I choose, since I know I want a literature-based history).
I got a few workbooks from Evan-Moor for 1st grade a while back, before I really went into depth in my curriculum search: Building Spelling Skills, Grammar & Punctuation, and Daily 6-Trait Writing. These look like good workbooks, with just short 10-15 minute lessons a day, for 25 to 30 weeks. The grammar is really more of a supplement, though, for specific topics, and is not really considered a full English grammar course. These workbooks do go up to 6th grade, but I don't think I'll use them after this coming year. But since I already had grammar, writing, and spelling workbooks, and since I have been using Explode the Code (ETC) Online for phonics, I was originally just looking for a reading comprehension component.
So I bought both the CLE Grade 1 Reader (I Wonder) and LightUnits and the Pathway Grade 1 Readers and workbooks to check them out (they are fairly cheap). I do like them both, but the CLE reading seems to be more integrated with phonics, and I didn't want to introduce 2 different methods of phonics at the same time. My daughter has now completed book 2 of ETC, but has gotten tired of it, and I think will do better with a workbook format rather than online (I'll post more about that another day). So I was still stuck between choosing CLE and Pathway for reading. I didn't like the Bible-only focus of R&S reading, but I did like their English, and it would be nice to have a combined, correlated program. So hard to choose!
So I continued studying the choices, and here's what I've found:
R&S uses reusable textbooks mostly, which is nice when I have 3 kids that will be using them. They are pretty cheap - especially the additional worksheets and test booklets which would be all I'd need to buy for child #2 and #3. R&S has a reputation of having the most complete and advanced grammar curriculum, though some people say it requires too much drill and repetition. I tend to like "rigorous" programs, since I tend to want my kids to learn everything there is to learn. However, I'm learning patience as I gradually accept that my 5-year-old may not be ready for everything I want her to learn yet! I'm too ready to teach her everything as quick as I can! R&S has a phonics program for 1st and 2nd grade, a reading program for 1st-4th based solely on Bible readings (more literature in 5th-8th), handwriting for 1st-4th, spelling for 2nd-8th, and English/grammar for 2nd-10th grade which includes quite a bit of writing too. In fact, 9th-10th grade English is pretty much all writing, with a little grammar thrown in. Grades 2 and 3 are pretty basic grammar courses, but from 4th grade on, R&S is said to be advanced for the grade level, with the course work going through things that some people don't learn until college. I like the grammar books, but many people say that it does take a good amount of "teacher" time, and many people do at least half of the questions orally instead of having the student write down the answers, to prevent burnout (and student rebellion!). I am concerned that this would take quite a bit of my day, to do 3 grade levels of this at a time.
CLE is similarly complete and advanced, though its Language Arts (LA) and Reading courses just go from 1st-8th grade. 1st grade is a continuation of the Learning to Read (phonics) program, with lots of phonics in the LA material. The Learning to Read material is meant for 1st grade, but it could probably be used starting in kindergarten (same as with R&S learning to read material). CLE uses workbooks instead of textbooks, with 10 LightUnits for each grade level per course (though 1st grade just has 5 - learning to read takes the first half of the year, and then splits into 5 LightUnits of reading and 5 LightUnits of LA). The reading courses have hardcover readers, and then the LightUnits to go along with the texts, offering comprehension questions and some phonics. The LA course includes grammar, spelling, and handwriting in its LightUnits, though many people say they still need to supplement the spelling and handwriting. Composition isn't included as much in CLE as it is in R&S - a separate writing textbook for the teacher is recommended starting in 3rd or 4th grade. I think my kids would like to have workbooks instead of textbooks, but it does make it a bit more expensive for multiple kids. CLE is meant to be more independent, making it easier for teachers with multiple grades to teach. But I really want more integrated writing, and the cost is a big negative compared to the other 2 choices.
Pathway is a reading comprehension program for 1st-8th grade, with multiple readers and workbooks to go along with them. I like their readers - wholesome, interesting stories that I think will intrigue my children, living as we do out in the country with cows and horses and chickens all around. Pathway also has a learning to read program (Learning Through Sounds), with multiple workbooks and a pre-primer for before the main 1st grade readers. CtGE is written to go along with Pathway, providing grammar and (lots of) writing instruction in a workbook format. This grammar is also said to be advanced from 3rd grade and up, extending up to 12th grade level concepts, even though the workbooks only go through 8th grade. It is also very cheap, even when buying multiple workbooks for multiple students! I have been liking CtGE more and more, though I was still concerned that it wasn't as rigorous as R&S. Someone on a forum made a comment, though, which has swayed me toward CtGE: CtGE is just like R&S, but already "tweaked." Many people love R&S, but most of them tweak it to be doable for their kids, such as doing the questions orally instead of written, or just doing half of them, etc. CtGE is more independent and workbook format, like CLE, but covers more writing, like R&S.
So here's my current plan. I am starting to use book 2 of the Pathway Learning Through Sounds program with my daughter now, combining that with CtGE grade 1 as we move into the Pathway readers (I'll write another day about integrating CtGE with Pathway). I still want to make use of what I've already bought, though I don't want to overload my daughter. So I will use the Evan-Moor grammar workbook when the topic corresponds to what we're doing in CtGE. I will also use the Evan-Moor spelling and writing workbooks, unless they start to be too much. They seem useful, and short. We still have a few months left of our ETC Online subscription, so we'll use that when she's interested, with me doing it with her. I also have a subscription to ClickNRead online phonics (got that for my other daughter), which we may use sometime. If we complete the Pathway/CtGE grade 1 stuff early, since we're continuing through the summer, I will then do the CLE grade 1 reading material with her which I already bought. Then we'll continue with CtGE through 8th grade, adding in R&S spelling, and maybe, just maybe, R&S phonics for grade 2. I really like R&S spelling, since it is phonics based, and continues with Latin and Greek roots in later grades. Sonlight suggests Sequential Spelling, which I seriously considered, but I like the rules-based R&S method better. We may continue with the Pathway readers through 3rd grade (the same story characters are in the readers through 3rd grade), but will switch over to Sonlight reading mostly. For 9th grade+, we will focus on writing more than grammar. If Sonlight doesn't have enough, we will consider R&S 9th-10th grade English, the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) material, and other things, depending on her interests.
For my younger children, I will start them with Pathway's Learning Through Sounds program sometime around 5 years old. Before that, we'll be using the Study Time and R&S preschool workbooks (4 workbooks for 3-4 year olds, 9+ workbooks for 4-5 year olds). We will then use the Pathway readers and workbooks and CtGE, with R&S spelling in 2nd-8th. I will have the CLE I Wonder reader available, but we won't add the LightUnits. I may or may not print out more of the Evan-Moor workbook pages, if they're relevant (I got eBooks, so they're easily reproducible). If they complete the Learning Through Sounds phonics before 1st grade, I may add R&S phonics for 1st and 2nd grades, since I just like the looks of them. They probably won't need it, really, but if it's fun for them too, why not? I don't want to wait until 1st grade to start phonics and reading, but most of the Amish/Mennonite material seems to do that, since they don't have kindergarten. Learning Through Sounds is more gentle, so we'll do that first, then add R&S phonics for review if we want. Then, I will continue in later grades the same as with my oldest daughter.
My thoughts and ideas will probably change as we actually use all this stuff, and I'll write about any new impressions then, but for now, that's the plan!
My favorites, at the moment, are all from Amish or Mennonite publishers: Rod & Staff (R&S), Christian Light Education (CLE, or sometimes, CLP - Christian Light Publications, but not to be confused with Christian Liberty Press), and the Pathway Readers/Climbing to Good English combo (CtGE). Pathway Readers are published by Pathway Publishers and CtGE is published by SchoolAid, but they are made to go together. (Note that the links to R&S and Pathway/CtGE aren't the publishers' official sites, but just resellers, of which there are several.)
These 3 choices are all quite similar in scope and coverage, though they approach things a little differently. I have been going back and forth, back and forth, trying to decide which I like best, and which will work best with other things I've chosen (like Sonlight, which includes a large amount of reading and literature - or really any history course I choose, since I know I want a literature-based history).
I got a few workbooks from Evan-Moor for 1st grade a while back, before I really went into depth in my curriculum search: Building Spelling Skills, Grammar & Punctuation, and Daily 6-Trait Writing. These look like good workbooks, with just short 10-15 minute lessons a day, for 25 to 30 weeks. The grammar is really more of a supplement, though, for specific topics, and is not really considered a full English grammar course. These workbooks do go up to 6th grade, but I don't think I'll use them after this coming year. But since I already had grammar, writing, and spelling workbooks, and since I have been using Explode the Code (ETC) Online for phonics, I was originally just looking for a reading comprehension component.
So I bought both the CLE Grade 1 Reader (I Wonder) and LightUnits and the Pathway Grade 1 Readers and workbooks to check them out (they are fairly cheap). I do like them both, but the CLE reading seems to be more integrated with phonics, and I didn't want to introduce 2 different methods of phonics at the same time. My daughter has now completed book 2 of ETC, but has gotten tired of it, and I think will do better with a workbook format rather than online (I'll post more about that another day). So I was still stuck between choosing CLE and Pathway for reading. I didn't like the Bible-only focus of R&S reading, but I did like their English, and it would be nice to have a combined, correlated program. So hard to choose!
So I continued studying the choices, and here's what I've found:
R&S uses reusable textbooks mostly, which is nice when I have 3 kids that will be using them. They are pretty cheap - especially the additional worksheets and test booklets which would be all I'd need to buy for child #2 and #3. R&S has a reputation of having the most complete and advanced grammar curriculum, though some people say it requires too much drill and repetition. I tend to like "rigorous" programs, since I tend to want my kids to learn everything there is to learn. However, I'm learning patience as I gradually accept that my 5-year-old may not be ready for everything I want her to learn yet! I'm too ready to teach her everything as quick as I can! R&S has a phonics program for 1st and 2nd grade, a reading program for 1st-4th based solely on Bible readings (more literature in 5th-8th), handwriting for 1st-4th, spelling for 2nd-8th, and English/grammar for 2nd-10th grade which includes quite a bit of writing too. In fact, 9th-10th grade English is pretty much all writing, with a little grammar thrown in. Grades 2 and 3 are pretty basic grammar courses, but from 4th grade on, R&S is said to be advanced for the grade level, with the course work going through things that some people don't learn until college. I like the grammar books, but many people say that it does take a good amount of "teacher" time, and many people do at least half of the questions orally instead of having the student write down the answers, to prevent burnout (and student rebellion!). I am concerned that this would take quite a bit of my day, to do 3 grade levels of this at a time.
CLE is similarly complete and advanced, though its Language Arts (LA) and Reading courses just go from 1st-8th grade. 1st grade is a continuation of the Learning to Read (phonics) program, with lots of phonics in the LA material. The Learning to Read material is meant for 1st grade, but it could probably be used starting in kindergarten (same as with R&S learning to read material). CLE uses workbooks instead of textbooks, with 10 LightUnits for each grade level per course (though 1st grade just has 5 - learning to read takes the first half of the year, and then splits into 5 LightUnits of reading and 5 LightUnits of LA). The reading courses have hardcover readers, and then the LightUnits to go along with the texts, offering comprehension questions and some phonics. The LA course includes grammar, spelling, and handwriting in its LightUnits, though many people say they still need to supplement the spelling and handwriting. Composition isn't included as much in CLE as it is in R&S - a separate writing textbook for the teacher is recommended starting in 3rd or 4th grade. I think my kids would like to have workbooks instead of textbooks, but it does make it a bit more expensive for multiple kids. CLE is meant to be more independent, making it easier for teachers with multiple grades to teach. But I really want more integrated writing, and the cost is a big negative compared to the other 2 choices.
Pathway is a reading comprehension program for 1st-8th grade, with multiple readers and workbooks to go along with them. I like their readers - wholesome, interesting stories that I think will intrigue my children, living as we do out in the country with cows and horses and chickens all around. Pathway also has a learning to read program (Learning Through Sounds), with multiple workbooks and a pre-primer for before the main 1st grade readers. CtGE is written to go along with Pathway, providing grammar and (lots of) writing instruction in a workbook format. This grammar is also said to be advanced from 3rd grade and up, extending up to 12th grade level concepts, even though the workbooks only go through 8th grade. It is also very cheap, even when buying multiple workbooks for multiple students! I have been liking CtGE more and more, though I was still concerned that it wasn't as rigorous as R&S. Someone on a forum made a comment, though, which has swayed me toward CtGE: CtGE is just like R&S, but already "tweaked." Many people love R&S, but most of them tweak it to be doable for their kids, such as doing the questions orally instead of written, or just doing half of them, etc. CtGE is more independent and workbook format, like CLE, but covers more writing, like R&S.
So here's my current plan. I am starting to use book 2 of the Pathway Learning Through Sounds program with my daughter now, combining that with CtGE grade 1 as we move into the Pathway readers (I'll write another day about integrating CtGE with Pathway). I still want to make use of what I've already bought, though I don't want to overload my daughter. So I will use the Evan-Moor grammar workbook when the topic corresponds to what we're doing in CtGE. I will also use the Evan-Moor spelling and writing workbooks, unless they start to be too much. They seem useful, and short. We still have a few months left of our ETC Online subscription, so we'll use that when she's interested, with me doing it with her. I also have a subscription to ClickNRead online phonics (got that for my other daughter), which we may use sometime. If we complete the Pathway/CtGE grade 1 stuff early, since we're continuing through the summer, I will then do the CLE grade 1 reading material with her which I already bought. Then we'll continue with CtGE through 8th grade, adding in R&S spelling, and maybe, just maybe, R&S phonics for grade 2. I really like R&S spelling, since it is phonics based, and continues with Latin and Greek roots in later grades. Sonlight suggests Sequential Spelling, which I seriously considered, but I like the rules-based R&S method better. We may continue with the Pathway readers through 3rd grade (the same story characters are in the readers through 3rd grade), but will switch over to Sonlight reading mostly. For 9th grade+, we will focus on writing more than grammar. If Sonlight doesn't have enough, we will consider R&S 9th-10th grade English, the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) material, and other things, depending on her interests.
For my younger children, I will start them with Pathway's Learning Through Sounds program sometime around 5 years old. Before that, we'll be using the Study Time and R&S preschool workbooks (4 workbooks for 3-4 year olds, 9+ workbooks for 4-5 year olds). We will then use the Pathway readers and workbooks and CtGE, with R&S spelling in 2nd-8th. I will have the CLE I Wonder reader available, but we won't add the LightUnits. I may or may not print out more of the Evan-Moor workbook pages, if they're relevant (I got eBooks, so they're easily reproducible). If they complete the Learning Through Sounds phonics before 1st grade, I may add R&S phonics for 1st and 2nd grades, since I just like the looks of them. They probably won't need it, really, but if it's fun for them too, why not? I don't want to wait until 1st grade to start phonics and reading, but most of the Amish/Mennonite material seems to do that, since they don't have kindergarten. Learning Through Sounds is more gentle, so we'll do that first, then add R&S phonics for review if we want. Then, I will continue in later grades the same as with my oldest daughter.
My thoughts and ideas will probably change as we actually use all this stuff, and I'll write about any new impressions then, but for now, that's the plan!
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