Sonlight for real!

I have been using Sonlight material, to some extent, since my oldest started 1st grade - so, for 3 years now. But we haven't actually bought a full core until now.

For 1st grade, I bought a used Core A instructor guide, to see how we liked it. We were using BJU Distance Learning videos for 1st grade also, so we just did the history/geography/missionary readings, and not any of the language arts or Bible parts. I discovered that the read-alouds were really fun for the kids, and that Rebekah learned the most through that style of learning (rather than textbooks or workbooks or even videos).

I debated our future plans quite a bit, considering combining Sonlight with BJU videos (which we eventually decided to not use, mostly due to worldview differences, plus they took too long and did not take advantage of the one-on-one instruction that my oldest does best with). For 2nd grade, I finally just bought many of the Sonlight Core B history books listed on their webpage, and we just read through them at our own pace. Again, this worked really well. For English, we ended up trying a variety of things - CLE (which she hated- though she loved CLE math), various workbooks (done orally mostly), Writing with Ease, Wordly Wise, Sequential Spelling, and the Sonlight Grade 2 readers, which I just bought separately and had her read as she wanted. The only thing she loved and did well with? The Sonlight readers. At this point, I began to come to terms with the fact that the Charlotte-Mason method of language arts was really the best fit for Rebekah, and that she really was learning without all the grammar drill and details. At least at this age.

For 3rd grade, we continued with our "relaxed" history method of buying the Sonlight Core C books separately, and just reading them at our own pace. For English, we started out with Rod & Staff, and made it through 3/5ths of the book before burning out and switching back to a Charlotte-Mason method. I should have known. Despite various workbooks I used for grammar, Rebekah just never really liked them, and, due to her stubborn personality, she never learned from them. But I let her read Sonlight books as much as she wanted, and her reading ability soared. Her test results this year showed her to have a 6th grade reading level (91st percentile in her grade). She finished all the Grade 3 Sonlight readers early, and I bought the Grade 4-5 readers - which she has now finished also. She's also writing more on her own now, without any prompting on my part, though that area does still need more work. Oh, and her "social studies" test scores? Her grade equivalent was 7.8 (eighth month of 7th grade), and she scored in the 99th percentile.

So, for 4th grade? I bought Sonlight Core D in its entirety. It's just simpler this way! For 2nd and 3rd grade, I'm still happy we did them the way we did, at least for history. At those grade levels, we didn't really need the full structure of the instructor guide, and I think the language arts wouldn't have been a good fit for her, especially as far as writing ability goes. Maybe it would have, I don't know. But it's worked out fine. We will use Sonlight Core D for Bible, history/geography, and language arts this coming year. And we are both very excited!

For my younger two, I plan to use our old Sonlight Core A schedule again. It's been long enough that I am looking forward to reading those books aloud again! Ryan will be in kindergarten, and Reanna is somewhere between 1st and 2nd grade, so I think Core A will be good for them. (I'll write about English plans for them later.) For the next two years, I'm not sure yet if I'll just read through the Core B and C books like I did with Rebekah, or if I'll break down and get an instructor guide. My guess right now is that I won't, since I've already been through those books once and have a good grasp of what discussions to have. But starting with Core D, we are going all out, and doing the whole thing! Sonlight for real!

Test Results

I really need to get back to posting more often. I got out of the habit, and now I tend to just not think about it. Even though I have plenty of things I could write about!

So, to start with tonight, I'll update you on my 1st grader's standardized test experience. We did the test over 3 days, doing 2-3 sections a day. It really didn't take too long, and my daughter ended up enjoying it too. She wants to do it again now! I made sure she knew that some of the questions were meant to be too hard for her to answer, and that it was mostly just for fun, for us to see how much ahead of 1st grade work she really was, and how much she had learned. It was interesting to me, too, to see what kinds of questions they asked, since that gave me an idea of what "standard" 1st grade students were supposed to know. The social studies and science questions were particularly interesting, since those topics are more random really, than the basics of math and reading. I knew that we hadn't covered exactly the same things as were on the test, so I wasn't worried about her scores in those areas. I know that we will get to everything in time, whether or not we do it in the same order as public schools.

The main area of interest to me, as far as her score goes, was reading. That is really the biggest thing for 1st grade, and Rebekah did excellent - better than I expected. The test placed her at a 2.8 grade level, which is the 8th month of 2nd grade (and the 90th percentile). Her vocabulary and listening scores were also extremely good. Her spelling, on the other hand.... Well, I already knew spelling was one of her weaker areas. We'll be trying a different approach for 2nd grade.

Her math was not as good as I'd like either, but it was obvious that her main difficulty was memorizing her basic addition facts. I have not pushed her with flash card drills nearly enough, since she protests them so much, and she didn't get enough fact review with her math curriculum this past year. Again, this is an area we'll be doing differently for 2nd grade.

For science, she did not score very high, and that bugs me a bit, since science is the one subject I like the best, but I know it's just because we covered different topics than were on the test. She left too many blank on those questions - not wrong answers, just unknown to her. Then for social studies, surprisingly, she scored the best of all the subjects, coming in with a grade equivalent of 3.2, and ranking at the 94th percentile.

So, overall, combining all the subjects, she ranked comfortably above average, with a grade equivalent of 2.1. Considering that she still had almost 2 months left of 1st grade material to cover when we took the test, I'm pleased with that!

Baptism

My firstborn, Rebekah, was baptized today! She became a Christian last year, when she asked Jesus to forgive her sins, and to come into her heart, promising to follow Him. She went forward at the end of the service at our church, to tell the pastor and the congregation. However, being only 5, she was a little too nervous to declare her belief very loudly, and while she became a member of the church that day, we decided to wait on baptism for a while. We, and the pastor, talked with her quite a bit, and were convinced that she understood enough to have made her decision. But we told her she could wait until whenever she felt comfortable enough to be baptized. (She is also afraid of being under water, so we figured it would go more smoothly when she was older.)

She had talked and talked about waiting until she turned 7 (which isn't until July), but last month, after another person was baptized, Rebekah told us that she was ready. My in-laws were planning a visit in a few weeks, so we decided that weekend would be a perfect time for it. We met with the pastor, visited the baptismal, practiced at home, and so this morning, Rebekah was baptized. She was nervous, but was very brave, and was so excited afterwards that she couldn't stop talking and hugging everyone she met!

It has been a nervous week this past week, though. My dad had to make a trip to the emergency room last Monday night, and was admitted to the hospital for 2 days. They think he had a TIA (or "mini-stroke"), but he recovered very quickly, and was able to come to our church today for the baptism. They changed my dad's medication again, so hopefully he won't have any more episodes like this one.

My in-laws will be here this whole week, and they will be keeping my 2 little ones under control while I give Rebekah her first standardized test - the IOWA 1st grade level test. Homeschoolers are not required to give standardized tests here in Texas, but I wanted to anyway, for my own knowledge. We'll see how she's doing, after almost 2 years of school, 1.5 of those being homeschooled. I have a feeling she's going to do great!