73349 Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 Would you do parts E & F of Foundations with a second-grader, or skip them and start Essentials? DS will start B halfway through kindergarten--i.e., right after turning 6--doing 2 lessons a week (including the reviews). Then I'm thinking we can do C and D in 1st. Obviously I'm trying to think way ahead here... LoE is expensive and I don't want to buy more than I have to, yet I don't want to skip anything if it will be really useful to him to take it slowly. I know I don't have to make a decision before it's even published. He is currently on pages 68-69 of Phonics Pathways, reading four-letter short-vowel words but not enjoying it, if that helps. I am hoping to get him through to page 116 (-er, -ed, and -ing) by the time we switch to Foundations B. He will pretty much eat first-grade math for breakfast (we've been doing the Singapore extra practice book) but complains about reading three-word phrases. So I know some of y'all saw Foundations in Beta. What say you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lorisuewho Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 I am a beta tester. E & F is not written yet. So that makes the question kind of impossible to answer. However, I will say that I am doing Foundations now with my daughter, but I did Essentials last year with both my boys who had completed Phonics Pathways and it went just fine. We didn't do the grammar but the spelling was great for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 We haven't seen E and F at all, not any bit of it, not even a rough draft. The lessons that have been posted for beta users correspond to LoE A and B and what I *think* will be Level C (although thus far the final 5 or so lessons are in outline form). I don't think she has even wrote D either but of course I could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 IRT your child considering what you've written I would definitely not try to place him in Essentials. Foundations B would be a pretty good placement imo. There would be some repeat of the phonograms I'd guess as I know we haven't done ed/ing yet. There is quite a bit of reading work and they are routinely reading multiple letter words in multiple sentences with long, broad, or short vowel sounds and also w/ different silent Es. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lorisuewho Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 As a beta tester, then, would you say that what you saw was like the beginning part of foundations (A & B), or a draft of the whole thing (so E/F would be the final third)? We have A & B and what is C, to my understanding, but I am back in B so I don't really know. The final C is almost done. We haven't seen anything at all relating to E & F and I don't think as beta testers we will. My understanding is that the beta testing was just for A-D. Sorry we can't be of more help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 I don't think we will see E and F either. I do hope we receive Level D in Beta version, although technically our test was to be for the Kindergarten level and we are past that point already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 OH, ok, sorry I misunderstood what you meant. I'm about 1/3 rd the way through Essentials w/ ds currently. I think that I will likely do E and F w/ dd rather than go into Essentials after D but it is hard to say at this point without seeing D. Foundations is really a solid learning to read program whereas to me Essentials is more of a spelling program to fill in little gaps. I don't think the reading instruction is near as in-depth or explicit as Foundations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lorisuewho Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 OH, ok, sorry I misunderstood what you meant. I'm about 1/3 rd the way through Essentials w/ ds currently. I think that I will likely do E and F w/ dd rather than go into Essentials after D but it is hard to say at this point without seeing D. Foundations is really a solid learning to read program whereas to me Essentials is more of a spelling program to fill in little gaps. I don't think the reading instruction is near as in-depth or explicit as Foundations. Just wanted to say, "I agree." I did Essentials with my boys because they really didn't need reading instruction as much as they needed spelling and phonics instruction. However, I love Foundations. My daughter is learning correct letter formation, syllabication, reading, and more. It is such a solid program. I really love the readers and the activities. It is a much more "FUN" program than Essentials also. Deciding whether to go past D onto Essentials or continue with Foundations will be a decision I think I will only be able to make after we are finished with D and see where she is at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FromA2Z Posted August 24, 2013 Share Posted August 24, 2013 I'm browsing on here while I'm printing out B. :laugh: My initial plan was to do 2 lessons a week with my ds. We started A at 4.5 and ended up doing 4 lessons a week,(one a day) he liked it (and picked it up) so much. We divide the lessons into 3 parts of approx 5-10 minutes each. (Phonics/spelling, handwriting, and reading). I found that the lessons were hard to divide into multiple days. Since they covered these three disciplines that I wanted to spend time on each day and each one of those segments can be hard to split b/w days. Although maybe doing the "lesson" part on one day and play the practice games on the next day would work really well. (sorry if this is two much info.) The long story short is that I may end up going through D this year (his K). much faster than I had anticipated. However, mid-B starts picking up a bit with a lot of spelling/phonics rules so we may slow things down a bit. So hard to tell. If we finish w/ D this year. I will be definitely be doing E&F in 1st. I wouldn't do Essentials until 2nd. If we stretch out D until 1st then I probably still will move on the Essentials in 2nd. Not b/c I wouldn't love E&F but because of the younger TONE of Foundations. But who knows the tone of E&F may be more mature b/c it will obviously be for older ages than A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Socalimom Posted August 24, 2013 Share Posted August 24, 2013 I'm a beta tester and using it with my ds6. I also used Essentials with my dd6, at the time, last year. My dd did use Alpha-Phonics prior to Essentials, so she completed a thorough phonics program as your ds is doing now with Phonics Pathways. Whether E is out by the time my ds completes D, he will begin Essentials. Denise Eide wrote Foundations with the goal that by the time a student completes Foundations C, he/she will be able to read books such as Frog and Toad independently. So, nope, we are not going to use E and going straight to Essentials after D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.