My son is a 6th grader. He took the DORA test from Let's Go Learn. His reading level is in the 4th and 5th grade range. At the end of his 4th grade year he didn't seem to be improving much with reading so I decided to do an intensive phonics course and use Saxon for 5th grade this year. It's a great course and he has learned phonics very well. The assessment test shows he scored the maximum for phonics. So, essentially, more phonics instruction is not going to help. What do I do now? His word recognition was high, 8th grade level. But his comprehension was low at 4th grade. Is this probably the reason for the low reading level score? Basically, I am wondering if this information is telling me he can recognize and decode words but he is not comprehending? Thanks a bunch :)

Thanks for all the info on MCT! I am really considering this. Yes, this is one of my qualms with AAS. I am concerned about his age and it going slow. I have not heard of Logic of English and will look at that, thanks!! Do you use the vocabulary in the Sonlight IG's? I really wish there were some way to make use of that. I just don't think reading through all those words a day and there definition is going to do much. I am thinking of maybe taking 10 or 15 words for the whole week in the IG and do something with them. I have also debated WWE because of the dictation and narration, but than I think I can use Sonlight LA for that. Their new LA has a couple dictation assignments a week. However, WWS is different and I have heard quite a few Sonlighter's using that and really liking it! I just wish is was a completed program.

I am going to take a look at CLE and MCT. I hear about them quite a bit and haven't really given much attention to them. That is a good point about not doing all the components of language arts and other core subjects everyday. That may help to not feel so overwhelmed if I can spread them out. I can separate our year into 3 or 4 terms and so I can also choose to focus on some things for just one term and than do something else the second term. Maybe copywork in term one and do dictation in term 2...or something like that. Thanks for that idea. :) Yes, it is costly. However, I have a daughter who I am using All About Reading with and so I can save the AAS for her. Also, AAS has great resale value. But, I am going to look more at MCT. It looks a bit expensive at first glance, but again it may be worth it if I can use it again with my daughter.

Timberdoodle has great stuff, you can still order from RR but just get ideas from them. They have this new thing at Timberdoodle they started a few years ago with organized curriculum packages by grade. They also do toddler and preschool. They have some really great ideas!! If I didn't already have a bunch of stuff I would order one of their curriculum packages. In fact if it had been around when my son was younger I think he would have really thrived with their choices. Atleast until about 3rd or 4th grade, not sure I really like their older kids stuff. But for the younger crowd I really like what they have to offer. Here is a link, just scroll down a bit and see the packages. This may give you some ideas for your RR order.

Hi all, I am just stumped at what direction to go with my 6th grade son this year for language arts. We really need to up the focus with his spelling, writing and comprehension. We use Sonlight for our main and have used their language arts and a hodge podge of other stuff since pre K. I am wondering if we need to take a more rigorous or even classical method approach. I am a bit tired of Sonlight LA, it is just not focused enough because it just jumps around with teaching English skills and there is not any writing instruction. I am thinking of All About Spelling and maybe Writing Strands. I like that both of these have a good amount of instruction and depth and also a step by step process. It feels organized and that skills build from one level to the next. I guess, that is what has been lacking in our language arts curriculum and something I really want to have now. Language arts comes with a Sonlight Core and that really irritates me. I feel like I should use it, I know I can just skip it. It really frustrates me that they included it, it feels really manipulative. Anyway... I have already purchased Core E, but for my next Cores I may consider buying used. Maybe there is a way I can make Sonlight LA work, but it just feels like extra and feels overwhelming to have all this langauge arts. I really want our language arts to be simplified. I am wondering what to do for grammar, vocabulary and all the other components to language arts. What about dictation, copywork, narration. Language arts just feels so overwhelming with all the different subjects included. It's hard to find something that works well that included everything and it feels too much when a person buys curriculum for each piece! Any help, wisdom or suggestions appreciated.

My son has always struggled with language arts. He was a late talker, read late, trouble putting thoughts on paper etc... gradually we have worked through this. He is finishing up 5th grade and I am looking at language arts for 6th grade. He is reading above grade level now, he is still a slower reader, he seems to comprehend what he/we read well. We are working through Sonlight Core E. We have lots of great discussions about our literature and history and his science. He can write fairly well, I work through the pre writing phase with him, we create outlines or brainstorming using graphic organizers than he writes it all our for himself. For 6th grade I really want to fine tune his writing and go deeper with his oral narrations. With his writing it's been very topical and simple, but for us that's a huge improvement from not being able to put anything on paper to him being able to fill up a whole sheet. For narrations it's been very simple observational type stuff. Any of the serious discussions come from me and I feel like I am just telling him. I really feel like I need to step this up a bit for next year 6th grade and not sure how to go about it. My plan was to do Hake Grammar and Writing. It seems great quality and we like Saxon materials for language arts. Very impressed with their phonics and so this seems a good choice, but not sure if the writing will help me get the substance I am wanting. Maybe Writing with Skill but than I am stuck without grammar? Any help is welcome! Thanks a bunch for listening! :)

My daughter right now is 4 and she seems, from an intllectual perspective ready to do formal work. She seems ready to understand phonics, math and other academic type subjects. Her language skills are impressive, her comprehension and understanding of things is impressive. However, even though I know she could learn these things she is not ready maturity wise for formal work. She doesn't want to sit longer than 5 minutes to do any "official" learning activity. I use fun games to teach phonics and math and she can only tolerate it so long. She wants to just play with me. I have these cute little frogs to teach math concepts and she won't let me really teach her anything, she just wants to play. We have some Kumon workbooks with mazes, dot to dot, cutting, pasting and she likes those and she will go through spurts where she will sit down and do tons of pages and than go for weeks and not want anything to do with them. I had this similar situation with my son, who is now in 5th grade and my older son. I have learned that it is so much better to wait until a child is fully ready before teaching them. It is amazing how fast they will learn something when they are ready. You could spend a couple years trudging through something, or just wait until they are really ready and it will just go so much more smoothly. So, for my 4 year old daughter I am not doing anything other than just reading books. If your child wants to do some workbook stuff that's fine but I wouldn't push it. They may go through spurts of doing workbooks and not want to do them everyday. Or they will spend a week, or couple weeks wanting to do workbooks and than stop and not interested for awhile. To be honest until even 1st grade there is nothing you really HAVE to do. Beginning to teach a child to read at the age of 5 is a good thing if they are ready, but that's about it in my opinion. So, I recommend having a variety of books and educational games and toys, maybe a few workbooks, a white board and eraser with colorful Dry Erase markers are good and just be very flexible. I think at this age it's good to start creating a learning environment rather than creating a routine of educational activities and curriculum. ETA: Reading lots of books I think is essential for these years and years to come. My children always seem willing to sit on my lap for long periods of time reading and looking at books.

I tried to do everything in the WTM and it was too much, I had burn out and so couldn't continue. I still keep the book and find it as a great resource once in awhile. From K - 1st grade we did about 1.5 hours For 2nd and 3rd grade we did about 2 -2.5 hours. 4th grade 3 - 3.5 hours 5th grade (this year) 4 hours sometimes more. He is able to do a lot of independent work now and that increases his time (not mine) I can assign him his math, reading, drawing, Rosetta Stone and stuff like that. For these earlier years we spent about 30 minutes on Math (Right Start) sometimes math would take longer if we were playing games. We spent 30 minutes on language arts.Sometimes depending on the composition assingment it may take longer. When I was doing language arts using exactly what WTM suggested it would take 1.5 hours just for language arts, that lasted a semester and I was done with that. Because language arts has so many components I do not do the same skills everyday. I try to alternate days with grammar, handwriting, vocabulary, composition and phonics/spelling. I also like to add in things like copywork, dictation and narration. So, there is just so much to language arts and it's hard to do all those subjects each day. We did Five in a Row and that would take 30 - 45 minutes. Sometimes we were doing Sonlight and that would take longer more like 1 - 1.5 hours.

So, I did a hodge podge of phonics for my son from prek - 4th grade. Trying lots of things, never happy with much of the results, but my son was not progressing in reading so for this year in 5th grade I decided to make reading a priority and we are using Saxon Phonics Intervention and it's been really good. His reading and spelling has improved, I am not really sure if it's this curriculum or just maturity. This is also sort of the age many boys will start to "come around" so to speak. Anyway, I am not sure what to do about spelling afterwards. AAS would be a repeat of all we have done. I have looked at the table of contents for all 7 levels and it's basically the same as what we are doing with Saxon Phonics Intervention. If I do AAS it would all be repeat and I am not sure that is necessary. Since we would be covering basically (or atleast about 90%) all the stuff that is taught in AAS up to level 7 than I am wondering if maybe we are done with spelling and all I need to do is just watch his spelling in his writing. I could do something like Spelling Power or Sequential Spelling, it's a different approach. But, I guess I am wondering how long do you teach spelling. I notice spelling is not usually taught in high school.

I like DORA as well, they give lots of great information. But, if you are not wanting a bunch of information but just a basic level, I have found this to be fairly accurate. I like to use DORA every couple years or so. It does make for a nice end of the year test. They also have an assessment for math.

I have answered this question in every one of my posts. I am sorry you don't see it or get it. We are obviously coming from very different directions. For one, my opinion is not that Sonlight is so factually absent. I agree they get some stuff wrong. We do not use the Marshall books in this house, but for religious reasons and also the historical information. I feel fully capable of being able to direct my children when we come up against something that I believe to be not accurate or for whatever reason. The benefits of Sonlight and all the good that I see in Sonlight FAR exceeds the "factually absent" parts. I just don't agree with you that the factually absent parts of Sonlight are all that much or all that big of a deal that it cannot be easily rectified by explaining to my children or further study from other sources. As stated before my priority for humanities is the other reason why I have no problem using Sonlight. I think Sonlight does the best job for teaching humanities and since that is a priority for me than I use Sonlight. Just because I say historical accuracy is not as important as humanities does not mean I don't care whatsoever for historical accuracy. I honestly just not care about it as much as some of you because the list that was given that started this thread is so minute in the grand scale of history and what is taught in Core D. I feel like I just keep repeating myself. I think we just disagree and why does it even matter why other's use Sonlight? I doubt there is any reason we could give you that you would understand because we just see things very different regarding this. Again, this is not a criticism or an accusation that my way is better. I am aware of other curricula that teaches history. I am also aware of all the arguing that goes on with these threads and other threads with the discrepancies with that historical information. Aslo, Sonlight does the best at what I want and need for schooling my kids. Being insulted by my opinion is unfortunate and not sure why you choose to do that. I am certainly not insulted by your opinion nor anyone else who has one different than mine. I am insulted in the manner in which the opinion is given. History is far from science in my opinion. There are procedures but to me history is about people and humanities and not about approaching it like a science. It is just a different perspective and approach I have to it. I use a creation based science so I assume many people would believe I was using a curriculum that was similar to saying that man never landed on the moon. The idea that I believe in a Creator and the world was made in days instead of years is a big deal for some. I don't consider the issues with Sonlight history to be the same as teaching my children we never landed on the moon. When I do come across something that isn't right to my knowledge I correct it. But the truth is my approach to teaching history is to constantly remind my children that we don't know exactly all of the details for this. I understand as a historian many would completely disagree, and I guess we will just have to disagree. Science changes and so do opinions about history. Many of Einstein's theories were thought to be fact, or at least were the main thought of the time. When Quantum Physics came along he didn't want to believe it. It debunked many of his beliefs. I think he died still not agreeing with Quantum Physics, but that is a theory that hold great weight nowdays and some of Einstein's theories have gone to the way side. Not all of them obviously. I don't see how history is any different. Historical opinions change and new information is found and discovered. History and science are not solid in my opinion. ETA: I love your use of Timey Wimey!!

The condescending tone in this thread is worse than any of the historical inaccuracies. Basically, people are puffing themselves up about how knowledgeable they are about history and us other poor homeschool moms just don't know what we are doing. We don't realize that we are teaching our children the same thing as never having landed on the moon. How are we not to be insulted by these comments, opinions and attitudes. I was trying to find some neutral ground in my post that suggested maybe we have different priorities and that no one is wrong or bad. Maybe you all agree with that but the general feeling of these comments do not reflect that. These sorts of comments being made reflect how absurd Sonlight is and how terrible it is to teach history with it. This whole thread drives home even more why I make humanities a priority over historical fact. As women...as moms and as homeschool moms we have got to learn to treat each other better, with kindness, understanding and accepting people where they are. Not allowing BEING RIGHT to be more important than the person. So many times on this board and other homeschool boards, being right seems to be the most important. That is sad....way more sad than the historical inaccuracies being talked about.

I am so glad you all liked my word mystified! :) I can't explain it any better or different than what I said. It makes complete and perfect sense to me. :) Sorry, we don't understand each other. I do think we have different priorities and that is not a bad or wrong thing in my opinion. ETA: to answer someones question. I do believe teaching historical facts, I never said this was not important, just not as important to me as the humanities part. In all my years of homeschooling I have encountered countless threads, book reviews, historians who all have different opinions and different facts about history. Some differences are big and some are subtle. I see no end to it. I see that their are several people who it is a priority to get the most factual, unbiased historical information they can. I did start out homeschooling 13 years ago, doing just that. But, to be honest it seemed a fruitless endeavor. I don't think I am comprising my child education by any means because I am not concentrating all my efforts on historical accuracy. I have other priorities that I feel are more important than historical accuracy. I by no means am saying historical accuracy is not important. The things you have all mentioned in this thread about that list is very trivial in my opinion and if you have used Core D you would see that it had an absolute minuscule effect on the whole Core. I understand their is apprehension in trusting Sonlight as a source if you feel they get so many historical facts wrong, that makes complete sense. But again, I just don't feel like they have gotten all that much wrong compared to what they have gotten right. It's about priorities and perspective in teaching our children and not about what is right or wrong to teach our kids.

We all have priorities and I don't consider some of these issues to really be that big of a deal. Infact, I am completely mystified by all these comments. I don't see the big deal at all. I don't consider history to be very factual. The most important thing I want my children to learn from history is humanities. Humanities is the main reason I chose Sonlight and teach history. The basic, factual information has it's place; but not nearly as important for my children as it is to learn about what it was like to be a Jew during the Holocaust, or a black American during the Civil War. Through historical fiction my children can really feel and understand and sense. Talking to my child about these important topics not in terms of factual information but in terms of how they affect us as people, what we can learn from our history is important to me. I also think teaching humanities through history teaches people empathy and compassion for other people. It can also encourage people to do remarkable things because history has the best heroes! With Sonlight we have the most remarkable, engaging and beautiful discussions. Personally, I can't imagine anyone using anything else. I have been homeschooling for 13 years and it is a wonderful curriculum and we have tried many. I think it really depends on priorities for your homeschool. For me all these things being mentioned are quite trivial. When you say "isn't a majority of the curriculum" you pass this off as not important, but that's exactly what I am saying. In my opinion these things are quite minor and the pros of what we get from Sonlight far outweigh any of these minor issues. Now, I could just come up with my own book lists and organize all of this on my own. Kudos to those of you who do. But the schedule and everything planned out for me is a huge benefit. It gives me more time to teach and spend time with my kids. I have been using Sonlight for many years. I certainly have issues with certain things but they are all minor compared to the immense benefit Sonlight gives our family and our school.

In The Well Trained Mind it talks about teaching a child to read quickly. What does this exactly mean? I really do not like Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and won't be using it. For my other children I have used things like Alpha Phonics, Phonics Pathways, 100 EZ... all of these were a bore and we didn't finish them.I am currently using Saxon Phonics Intervention with my 5th grade son to make up for all my blundering through phonics programs. I have found many phonics programs really frustrating and boring to use. I have thought about with my daughter who is starting to get to the age for me to teach her to read that I would use All About Reading. But, this program is 4 levels and from my experience with AAS it will probably move quite slow. I am wondering if that is going to be a big problem for her. I have a hunch she will take to reading quickly. This will be my third time teaching a child to read and I just want things to go better!! :)

When my son was really young I gave rewards for reading books. I was hoping that once he started reading he would really start to love books. I know for me personally, it can take a bit to really get into a book and than I can't put it down. So, I was hoping it will encourage him to keep on reading the book and try other books. But, it didn't work. Rewards just did not motivate him. Fortunately, he is quite obedient and so when I assign him a book for school he will read it. I really don't like using rewards because in general I want my children to do things because it's required, it's good for them, I ask them to etc.... But, there are situations where it could be helpful and with some kids it may be a good thing. I think it's worth a try and if it does not give good results than it's no biggie.

I really cannot decide which way to go for my daughter, both will probably work out just fine. All About Reading seems like a lot of time and money to teach reading. There will be 4 levels. But, it also may be fun. I do plan to use AAS. I used Happy Phonics several years ago with my son, I don't have it anymore but I remember the games were a hit. We also use Sonlight so I will be using Sonlight LA. It seems that Sonlight LA and Happy Phonics may go well together. But, I think AAR would also be fun and we would use it in place of the Explode the Code and Wordly Wise that Sonlight suggests. Maybe AAR will just be expensive and redundant. But AAR, just really looks quite thorough and I also really like the books they use for reading practice. Can I use Happy Phonics now with my 4 year old daughter and than when she gets to Sonlight Core A, start with AAR level 1. Basically skip the AAR Pre Reading. I wonder if she is too young to use Happy Phonics? I don't remember the games very well from when my son used it, but I thought he was age 4 when we started. Maybe I will just get both AAR and Happy Phonics!! LOL seems like overkill for phonics but it may be nice to have some extra games to just play and have fun with!!

I have the STOW activity guide and also the Well Trained Mind book but am just feeling a bit overwhelmed to go through an try to figure out what titles. I have also tried to go to Sonlight's website and look at their Core H. So, I am hoping that you guys can just give me some really great historical fiction that fits with STOW 3. My son is a 5th grader. I am planning on just reading STOW 3 to him out loud each day and just finish it up in a few months. Than we were going to read some historical fiction. So I really only need about 5 titles or so. Than we were going to do some of the Homeschool in the Woods Time Travelers. So, what have been some of your favorite historical fiction that matches up with volume 3? Thanks a bunch.

Anyone use the digital products from Winter Promise? Are you putting them on a pad device? I am just wondering what it's like to have the schedule on a pad and the e books. I am sort of a paper and pencil sort of gal and not sure how I would adjust to using the digital products.

When my son was a second grader we only had formal school for 2 hours. We were using Five in a Row. Math and language arts would take us about an hour or a little more. Than we would read books and do Five in a Row for our history, science, art etc... I don't think he could handle more than that at that age anyway. The rest of the day still had learning through play, talking with him, computer and television, errands etc... At this age A LOT of learning is going on just in regular day stuff. So don't add more school stuff add more life experience. This age is precious for that!

I am not completely clear on the question. Our school is sort of between me just giving him a bunch of stuff to do on his own and doing a bunch of projects and experiments and lapbooks. My son is a 5th grader in the morning after chores he does some independent work like Rosetta Stone, Mark Kistler Draw Squad, Critical Thinking Co. workbooks. While he is doing that I work with my preschooler. We start our together time of our school day with doing Grapevine Studies for bible which is fun and hands on, but pretty easy for me to implement. We than move to our language arts which is Saxon Phonics Intervention and Winning with Writing and Growing with Grammar. I don't just give this to him but read through and teach the lessons to him. I get up periodically to do other things while he does assignments. Than we do math. Again I explain and teach the lesson to him and than he does the assignment on his own. During lunch I read Than we do Apologia science and will sometimes do the projects/experiments (once a week), but mostly we just read and he writes narrations. Than we have "project time" But I am not sure if this is what you are talking about because it's not very involved. We do geography maps. We are working through world maps. I just printed all the continents and various countries out and stuck in a folder. I just take one out and we look at an atlas and fill in various things and learn about the land. Sometimes during this project time my son will do a book report. But we use these simple forms for that. I love them, they are simple and interesting and I feel like we have something to mark the books he or we have read. Than we do history which is very simple. We mostly read from STOW and talk about it, my son does outlining from the Usborne World History. I don't do a lot of the projects from the activity guide, mostly I use the activity guide for the questions, Usborne World History guide and the extra book suggestions. When my son was younger we did much more hands on type projects but his basic schooling didn't take as long either. Now that he is older math, science, language arts and everything else is just more involved. I did not do Well Trained Mind for 1st - 3rd grade, it was too much and I wanted things to be more fun and light so we did a lot of projects and crafts. I know this is really long sorry, I just wanted you to sort of see what our day is like. Anyway.. I think sometimes we tend to have an "all or nothing" outlook to our school. We are either one of those moms who do activities everyday or several times a week or we just don't do it at all. But the truth is when you have the energy do something fun and when you feel burnt out than cut back. This is why I schedule "project time" as one of our subjects each day. Most of the time it's very simple and takes very little prep work, some days we just skip it and stick to our core subjects. I think it's good to make a plan of your core subjects and so when you feel burnt out you can fall back on that and just do the basics until you feel like you have energy to take on more. Again that is why I have a "project time" as our subject, I can skip it if it just feels too much for that day but it's there when I want and feel like we can do something extra. Another option to doing something more fun and hands on is to take a break from regular school stuff and do a unit study or projects. Amanda Bennett has some good studies. You could take a longer break and do the Homeschool in the Woods Time Travelers CD. Just drop the other stuff for awhile and only focus on projects.

I agree about Sonlight Core A

My son is a 5th grader this year and we are going to do Cantering the Country which works for up to 6th grade. I really like the looks of this and I have always wished we did Galloping the Globe and now I am wondering if he is too old for Galloping the Globe now and if there is something similar for around 6th grade.

It is hard because the day does seem to get long with doing them daily, but unfortunately I just get so frustrated with doing history 3 x a week and than science 2 times a week or something like that. It just gets confusing and I don't like all the days in between of not doing the subject, so it works better for us to do these daily. We just have short assignments. Also, my son is in 5th grade and is able to do some things more independently. When he was younger and could not do as much independently it worked well for us to spend 2-4 weeks doing science and than stopping science and spending a few weeks doing history. Now, it's harder because there is more material to cover. So, we just do shorter assignments so we can do it daily and I assign somethings independent. One option I am going to try this year is just set a time limit for science and history and we do as much as we can in that time and what we get done we get done and what we don't we will pick up the next day. I am going to start with just 30 minutes for each at the beginning of our year and gradually increase it to 45 as our year progresses. That is almost 4 hours for the week and seems good. Whenever we do school with the motto of "Slow and Steady Wins the Race" we seem to do better and get more done!

We enjoy FIAR, I think it's the best curriculum out there for this age. We used it from K - 3rd grade using volumes 1-4 as our main curriculum and only adding in math and language arts. Volume 4 is really great as well for the 7 and 8 year olds, you go much more in depth with topics and you spend about two weeks on the literature unit. You don't read the book everyday for two weeks, it is just a bouncing board for studies. I didn't always read the book 5 days a week with volumes 1-3, sometimes we just read it twice or three times. However, I would open up the book and refer to certain pages with the lessons so there was still a connection to the story and the lesson. Some weeks we did just the manual and some weeks we added all sorts of stuff like extra books, lapbooking etc... I would get burned out if every week I scheduled and added things to so that is why sometimes I did and when it started to feel too much I would just do the manual for a few weeks and once I felt better we would do a few weeks of adding in extra things. It doesn't have to be either or. Things I liked to add when my son was older like in 2nd and 3rd grade was lots of extra mapping. I would print off maps from our Uncle Josh's Outline map cd and use an atlas. If the geography lesson was for a state, than we would fill in the capital, large cities, bodies of water and rivers. Basically, just add in surrounding areas to whatever the geography lesson was and color in the map. We also used Bare Books the hardcover spiral kind to put all our lapbook and print out elements in. We just kept one big book going that had several books in it instead of doing an individual lapbook for each title. Homeschool Share has lots of great print offs that we used. But again, it would be too much some weeks if I did every FIAR title like that and so some weeks we just went with the manual. Also, if more emphasis needed to be on math and language arts than we would just do the manual as well.