What we use - Language Arts

This post will detail the curriculum we have used or tried and what has or has not worked. My intent is to provide you with our "why" when it came to choosing which curricula we would go with. When it comes to Math and English, I firmly believe that changing curricula multiple times is more harmful than helpful, so it was important to me to have a solid reason for choosing and staying with a curriculum.

What we use

Logic of English

Overview

Logic of English is a language arts program that teaches students basic and advanced phonograms (example: s says /s/ as in sad but also /z/ as in is) and spelling and grammar rules to achieve reading comprehension. I highly recommend reading Uncovering the Logic of English before starting this program. She details the issues in how American schools have taught languages over the years and how these simple rules help a student not only become a proficient reader, but an excellent speller.

Why it works for us

The teacher's manual lays each lesson out like a script. There are a lot of flashcards which may seem overwhelming at first but after organizing them into these containers, pulling out the flashcards for the lesson each day is the only prep work I have to do. The grammar and spelling rules are clear and easy to understand and have enabled my third grader to read very difficult words. I also appreciate that you can work at your own pace so if your student is having a hard time remembering a rule or concept you can pause and spend more time on it. Or if you feel that too many concepts are covered in one lesson, you can spread it out over a few days.

How we use it 

I typically try to get through a “part” a day unless I feel too much is being covered. I do the games and spelling tiles activities because I can work with both my third and first grader at the same time and they really enjoy it. (I also organized the tiles into a grid container to make my life easier.)

What we’ve tried

All About Reading 

Overview

All About Reading has the same approach as Logic of English in that the program teaches the phonogram sounds for each letter first and even chooses to teach the lower case version of each letter before introducing the upper case. All About Spelling is an additional program that uses a similar approach with phonogram tiles (that you can also purchase digitally for an app).

Why it did not work for us

Both All About Reading and All About Spelling have a LOT of parts and pieces. Multiple cards and tiles that you have to punch out and separate at the beginning of the year. Not terrible, considering the extensive ground that the material covers but just keep in mind you'll need an hour or so to organize everything. They do send you boxes with dividers which makes it really easy to organize which flashcards you've covered and which ones you still have to work on. All About Reading seems more geared for a classroom setting and has a LOT of prep work. Each lesson requires multiple cut outs, copies, booklets to be made and read, and a list of spelling words that literally bored us both to tears. When I started this program with my oldest in kindergarten, I also had a three-year-old and a one-year-old so it did not work to be spending at least an hour each day preparing for the next day's English lesson.

Conclusion 

Logic of English has proven to be a great curriculum for our family that I will continue to use for all 5 of my children. The workbooks are $15 and I purchase the digital version so that I can print off what I need for each student each year which brings the cost down significantly by the time we get to our youngest! The teaching methods of both programs are effective and helpful so this really is just choosing what works for you!