Hunter Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Last month I splurged on a set of the Mott Media McGuffey Readers and the Beechick Parent-Teacher Guide. I'm finding my study of this set interesting and not what I was expecting. I'm interested in hearing from anyone that has actually used any of this set. At this point I'm thinking of using the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th readers and the speller. I'm planning on using the "speller" to mostly teach READING, and some of the early tables for cursive/phonics dictation. I think I'm going to skip the primers through 1st reader, as I they contain content that I don't want to have to explain while trying to focus on decoding stage skills. The 2nd through 4th readers seem like a good preparation and complement to using the KJV Bible as the main language arts textbook. The reading aloud instructions, the vocabulary, and the comprehension questions look really good to me. They look like they will fill in the gaps of using Student of the Word curriculum, especially when using the KJV instead of the recommended NKJV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 4, 2015 Author Share Posted March 4, 2015 According to Beechick these 3 concise books cover grades 3/4-12, and that only one or two lessons a week are required. I need to add up the number of lesson in each book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommy to monkeys Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Is there anywhere that has good samples for the guide? I've looked at CBD and Rainbow and pretty much only see the Table of Contents and a bit of the phonics section. I'd be very interested to see what type of language lessons are included for the readers. I only recently read How To Teach Your Child Successfully and took copious notes. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 I really couldn't find any good samples. I had to buy the book unseen. My copy of the parent guide has more notes and underlining than my other Beechick books. Even if I don't use the readers, I'll keep the guide. The instructions go a bit beyond just the readers and is good general advice. There are notes for each lesson in each reader. The notes sometimes add grammar, creative writing, comprehension, Bible, phonics. There are partial glossaries for the 3rd and 4th reader. Some of the stories are a bit creepy, like a dialogue between a father and son about the dead cold mother that died overnight. For a family that has raised the children on the KJV BIble and Grimms fairy tales, the readers will be fine, but for a child raised on a more modern and sheltered selection of literature, this all could be quite a shock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Btervet Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I really really like these as readers and phonics practice. We use them to practice oral skill as well, and I plan to continue through all the books if I can. My 5yo was an early reader, so it was hard to find content for him that was challenging him, so that his reading was improving, yet still short enough and simple enough in concepts to not be overwhelming. He is about 3/4 of the way through the second reader, we do about 4 lessons a week. I really like the markings that it uses to show different pronunciations, and how it has all the new words right at the start of each lesson. I pull a short sentence out of each lesson for copywork each day. So all of our reading and writing instruction is covered with a single lesson from OPGTR, him reading a McGuffey lesson out loud to me, and then copying a short sentence. Most days it takes 20 minutes and is straight to the point. There are occasional lessons that are in cursive, which is difficult for DS, but it is also his only current exposure to cursive, so I am using those lessons to teach him to read cursive. The script is a bit outdated, with open b's and p's so it can be difficult to read, but you could always just skip those lessons. Some of the stories are a bit dark, or very Christian. I haven't had a problem with this, and we are not Christian homeschoolers. I just consider it cultural literacy. In terms of dark stories, there are some, but most of our history books we like to read are worse. I absolutely LOVE the size of these books as well. They are small enough to my DS to hold, not too heavy. They can fit in my purse. These really make reading and oral skills instruction so easy for me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 I really really like these as readers and phonics practice. We use them to practice oral skill as well, and I plan to continue through all the books if I can. My 5yo was an early reader, so it was hard to find content for him that was challenging him, so that his reading was improving, yet still short enough and simple enough in concepts to not be overwhelming. He is about 3/4 of the way through the second reader, we do about 4 lessons a week. I really like the markings that it uses to show different pronunciations, and how it has all the new words right at the start of each lesson. I pull a short sentence out of each lesson for copywork each day. So all of our reading and writing instruction is covered with a single lesson from OPGTR, him reading a McGuffey lesson out loud to me, and then copying a short sentence. Most days it takes 20 minutes and is straight to the point. There are occasional lessons that are in cursive, which is difficult for DS, but it is also his only current exposure to cursive, so I am using those lessons to teach him to read cursive. The script is a bit outdated, with open b's and p's so it can be difficult to read, but you could always just skip those lessons. Some of the stories are a bit dark, or very Christian. I haven't had a problem with this, and we are not Christian homeschoolers. I just consider it cultural literacy. In terms of dark stories, there are some, but most of our history books we like to read are worse. I absolutely LOVE the size of these books as well. They are small enough to my DS to hold, not too heavy. They can fit in my purse. These really make reading and oral skills instruction so easy for me. It sounds like you are using the revised Wiley McGuffey? Are your covers orange and blue or tan and brown? The Mott Media books don't have marking except for numbers in the speller. There is no cursive in the Mott Media books. I have the Wiley set too. I'm not sure if I can go straight from Alpha-Phonics to Mott Media 2nd reader. I might choose to plug a lighter and more modern Wiley McGuffey in the gap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommy to monkeys Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I really couldn't find any good samples. I had to buy the book unseen. My copy of the parent guide has more notes and underlining than my other Beechick books. Even if I don't use the readers, I'll keep the guide. The instructions go a bit beyond just the readers and is good general advice. There are notes for each lesson in each reader. The notes sometimes add grammar, creative writing, comprehension, Bible, phonics. There are partial glossaries for the 3rd and 4th reader. Some of the stories are a bit creepy, like a dialogue between a father and son about the dead cold mother that died overnight. For a family that has raised the children on the KJV BIble and Grimms fairy tales, the readers will be fine, but for a child raised on a more modern and sheltered selection of literature, this all could be quite a shock. See that story sounds creepy to ME. . .and I'm not a fan of Grimms or the KJV. :/ I have the edited version of the readers with the orange covers. Would the guide be usable with those? I'm not sure how very different the editions are. I feel better equipped to handle writing for my older kids after reading more of Ruth Beechick's writing. She's very practical and no nonsense. Whether I'd end up using this guide or not, I'd love to get my eyes on it and glean. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I had one book. Too religious, too dated, too glory glory hallelujah we are the best country in the world, and too weird for my taste. And I do like old books. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Btervet Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 It sounds like you are using the revised Wiley McGuffey? Are your covers orange and blue or tan and brown? The Mott Media books don't have marking except for numbers in the speller. There is no cursive in the Mott Media books. I have the Wiley set too. I'm not sure if I can go straight from Alpha-Phonics to Mott Media 2nd reader. I might choose to plug a lighter and more modern Wiley McGuffey in the gap. Yes, we have the revised edition, with the blue pattern on the covers. According to the introduction, they toned down a lot of the religious stories in it. I though the Mott Media ones were the revised ones? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 An experienced homeschooler would find lots to apply to the new series, when reading the guide for the old series, but the guide is very definately written for the old series. It would be like applying the Electic Manual of Methods to something other than Ray's Arithmetic. I read through the some of the 2nd reader today. The level to use it at is very mixed, because times have changed so much. Mirth was a word that young children knew, now it's a middle school word. For a child raised on the KJV, the Westminster Catechism, and Scottish Metric Psalter, these readers would be a good fit. They might even be a good fit for the child raised on Grimm and Shakespeare and Aesop and the Arabian Nights and Bambi. The more modern sheltered child might be traumatized, as they often are by the BIble and Grimm when people actually start reading these books instead of pretending and talking about reading them with children. The readers reflect the daily life of children in the 1830's. There are children here in the USA and in other countries that still have lives like this, but here in the USA, that is considered abuse and neglect, or things children shouldn't know about. I bought another copy of the Barnes and Noble leather bound Aesop today. A student took my other copy and must like it, so I want to let her keep it. A less abridged copy of Aesop is similar in language and creepiness to the McGuffey readers. I look at this all as a package deal. The unabridged pre-1850's "classics" are all creepy by modern standards. Things started getting fluffier towards the 1900's, but the early 1800's were still "creepy". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 I like the 1879 ones much better for teaching phonics, the older ones are more whole word based. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 Huh. My Mott set is paperback and grey cover, with some lessons in script, and a handful of diacritical marks in the early levels. They're also 8.5 x 11 which is great, easy for my kids to see the font. I purchased it about five years ago, now. Interesting enough, the Spencerian handwriting set I bought with it are in the style of the McGuffeys you're talking about - brown and tan. So I'm thinking mine just might have been an earlier reprint by the company and less expensively bound. That is a rare set. Those are the same as the Wiley Revised. http://www.howtotutor.com/guffysoft.htm The main Mott Media set http://www.mottmedia.com/pages/publications.asp?Pub=mcguffey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 I like the 1879 ones much better for teaching phonics, the older ones are more whole word based. That is what I first thought. But I like the speller, which is numbered like Spalding. And the order of early reading lessons matches a syllabary better. Lots of 2 letter words with long vowels. That works nicely with cursive-first, phonogram, and syllable drills. I see the pros and cons of both. The methods are just different, and don't think either is entirely superior or inferior. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 We have a local source of nice KJV self-pronouncing Bibles, that are only self-pronouncing for students that have been trained with a syllabary. That is playing into my choices right now, and those Bibles are popular here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 Yup, those are the ones! We like them very much, they made it through my last homeschool purge as ones of our core resources. The revised set is VERY different! Did the McGuffey brothers have different faiths, or is the main difference just 40+ years? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 I think it was the 40 intervening years, truthfully. And considering the immense changes in America during those years, not to mention the evolving cultures encapsulated in the church, humanism, and education as they battled it out for hearts and mind in the country? When I look at it like that the shift in tone, structure, and even composition of the materials seems more logical and less 'Woah! What happened?!'. Books and educational methods sure did change from 1976 to 2009. It kind of feels like that, doesn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 Scottish Presbyterian background. :lol: I knew this series had Westminster Catechism written all over it. http://www.mcguffeyreaders.com/history.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 Some more background http://www.aacs.org/assets/Journal-Vol-12-No-3/Vol-10-NO-3/Our-Christian-Educational-Heritage.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 The Mott Media Progressive Speller is meant to PRECEDE the readers. In comparison, the revised speller from the 1970's is not meant to be started until the 3rd reader. The Mott Media set IS phonics based, but the progressive speller is the CORE of the phonics instruction and is meant to be started before the readers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 I'm still reading through the speller today. Pages 3-8, Analysis of the English Alphabet–are they written by McGuffey or Mott Media? These pages are basically Spalding adapted to the McGuffey phonics numbering system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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