I think Cindy and Angelina only allow AO to be recommended on their Facebook page (at least that’s how it was in the past…I’m not on there anymore, so I don’t know if that’s changed). They see AO as the standard, and they often quote Charlotte Mason’s idea about giving children the best books, which they would define as the best-written books. I’m not familiar with the Facebook incident you mentioned, but based on things they’ve said on their podcasts (in general, not about the Alveary in particular), I would suspect that it wasn’t just one book that they had a problem with. I think it probably has more to do with the way the Alveary is choosing books in general. Just looking through the Alveary’s videos, I do see a difference in their recommendations versus Ambleside’s. The Alveary seems to choose at least some books based on the illustrations or because they look fun, where AO is more concerned with always giving kids the very best written language, regardless of the appearance of the book. The two groups are prioritizing different things. I think Cindy and Angelina would say the Alveary’s “fun” book choices are okay for free time but they wouldn’t consider them appropriate for school, at least not for literature class. If you really want to understand Cindy’s thinking about this, listen to her podcasts about the Building Blocks of Stories. I think that might give you some insight on why she prefers certain curricula over others. I don’t know a lot about the Alveary, but it doesn’t appeal to me personally because I like to choose my own books and create my own reading lists, and I want to be able to reuse books for my younger kids. The Alveary has new book lists every year, so that wouldn’t work well for me. That being said, if the Alveary appeals to you, go for it. There’s nothing wrong with trying it out to see if you like it.

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Has anyone else experienced this situation—a child with learning challenges sandwiched between gifted siblings? How did you handle the emotional needs of the child with learning disabilities while still allowing the siblings to progress at the faster rate that they needed? Are there things I can do now while they are young to make this easier as time goes on? I know there are other boards for learning challenges and accelerated learners, but I didn’t know which of them to choose for this situation.

In my area, most people are using either TGTB or Abeka. It does surprise me how little thought many parents seem to give to their curriculum choices. For a while I assumed this was because I live in a lower SES area and moms might have fewer resources for researching curriculum. But then I came across a homeschooling thread in a Facebook group for moms in my STEM field, and they were also saying things like, “My sister uses TGTB, so I use it too.” Out of the dozens of responses to that thread, I was the only one who mentioned that there were different types of reading and math curricula and that your choice might depend on your kid. Everyone else was just using what a friend or relative had recommended to them. Maybe it goes back to the old marketing advice that word of mouth is the best advertisement.

We use written narration for this. The child tells the story in his own words, including any insights or connections he made. Comprehension questions are a way for classroom teachers to evaluate students because they don’t have the time to talk to each student individually. As such, they often fall into a few categories: 1. They ask overly simplistic questions with one right answer to ensure that the child read the story. 2. They direct the child into reducing a complex story to a single moral. 3. They tell the child that a character made a bad choice and then ask the child what he would have done in that character’s shoes. Maybe the child would’ve made the same choice? He isn’t going to tell the teacher that! 4. They claim to be “going deep” when they’re really just asking questions that are over the child’s head. I’ve seen questions in elementary literature guides that could be thesis topics. This is not an exhaustive list, just a few types of commonly asked bad questions. All of these questions lead to the child looking for “the right answer,” what she thinks the teacher wants to hear, which, at the very least, doesn’t produce good writing, if that is the goal. The best comprehension questions I’ve seen in literature guides are things like “Describe the cottage” or “Describe Jill.” But those are likely to come up naturally in a narration, and if they don’t, they’re easy enough to ask. They aren’t the sort of questions you need a literature guide for. I agree with you that writing prompts about the child’s own experiences don’t typically lead to good writing. I think asking them to write about something they’re interested in is better. I would consider that to be separate from writing about literature though. For literature, I think narration is usually the best route because the child is just describing things, not looking for correct answers or trying to make judgements on things he doesn’t fully understand. In An Experiment in Criticism, CS Lewis talks about how good readers are able to enter into a story, set aside their judgments, and receive the story as it is. That way they aren’t seeing things in the story that aren’t really there, such as their own biases. I think most comprehension questions are doing the opposite. They are directing the child to make certain judgments or simplifications to the story. That doesn’t produce good readers or good writers.

Yes. I’m not advocating literary analysis for elementary ages. I’m saying the opposite, that you should just read the books and talk about them, mostly with narration. The books I’m recommending are for parents to educate themselves so they don’t feel that they need to buy literature guides from curriculum companies, not because I think they should be teaching literary criticism to elementary children. It’s the same concept as learning upper level math so you can teach your young children better. You aren’t going to teach them high school math (unless they’re very gifted), but you will be able to teach the basics better because you understand where the subject is headed. It also gives parents more confidence in making curriculum choices. Thanks for mentioning this. I added a note above so that hopefully others will better understand my intent.

Nm

As people are making curriculum choices for next year, I’ve seen some questions about literature guides. If you’re on the fence about whether to buy them, as many parents seem to be, I want to reassure you that it is ok to not use literature guides in the elementary years (or ever—but I’ll focus on elementary-age kids here). I think many parents sense that literature guides are not instilling a love for literature in their kids—they may even feel that the guides are pushing their kids away from a love of reading—but they worry that they don’t know enough about literature to teach their kids on their own. I’m going to offer a bit of unsolicited advice—don’t let curriculum companies play on your insecurities. You don’t have to have an English degree to teach your child literature, and you don’t have to use literature guides either. I think many people understand that math curricula that push algorithms and memorization are not typically going to develop a love of math or a deep understanding of it in a student. Literature guides (at least the ones I’ve seen, and I’ve looked around quite a bit) are the equivalent of algorithm-based math. They will not help your child love books or develop a deep understanding of stories. Elementary-age kids do not need to understand a lot of literary terms. They need to read (or hear) lots of stories so they learn to love books and understand how stories work. Rather than using literature guides, it’s ok to just read the books and discuss them. By discussion, I don't mean teaching them literary analysis. I mean talking about what happened in the story and whether it reminded them of other stories they've read. This can be at a very basic level. However, I think some parents worry that they can't talk about books at even a basic level because they didn't get a great education in literature themselves. I want to encourage those parents that they can develop their own knowledge without literature guides or pricey teaching courses. Here are some books that have helped me to educate myself about literature. I want to emphasize that these books are for parents to improve their own understanding of literature, not for them to discuss with their elementary-aged children. Kids just need to read and narrate. But if you're wanting to learn more about literature for your own benefit, these books may be helpful. C.S. Lewis was regarded as the most well-read person of his time, and many people forget that he was primarily an academic and that his roles as theologian and fiction writer were secondary to that. His scholarly essays and books were a good starting point for me. An Experiment in Criticism by CS Lewis Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye Hard Times by Charles Dickens On Fairy-Stories by JRR Tolkien How to Read the Bible as Literature by Leland Ryken A Preface to Paradise Lost by CS Lewis (I’m rereading this one right now, and it has a lot of information about epic poetry in general, not just Paradise Lost.) Another helpful book when it comes to discussing literature with your children is Know and Tell by Karen Glass. I know I’ve recommended that book here several times, but if you want to break away from workbooks and literature guides, this is the best resource I’ve seen on how to do that. I hope my post is seen in the spirit that it is intended—as a genuine desire to help in an area where many parents seem confused and overwhelmed. I think many of us are here on the forum because the spirit of classical education appeals to us, but much of that beauty gets lost in our modern culture’s attempts to systematize education, and, sadly, many classical curriculum companies play into that because they sell what we are used to: step-by-step packages that provide knowledge in bite-sized pieces. If that’s all we know, that’s all we will seek, even if we sense that something is amiss. But I want to encourage parents that there are alternatives out there, and that you can teach your child about beautiful literature without a guide or a degree.

I haven’t used any of these but just wanted to throw out the suggestion that you could take the elements you like of each curriculum and create your own. You could start with the areas where there is overlap among the curricula, the books that are recommended by more than one of the book lists you are looking at, and go from there. The temptation in doing this (at least for me) is to want to do it all, so I have to be realistic about what we can actually accomplish in a year. But creating your own curriculum could lessen your FOMO, along with removing the elements in each of these that you already know you don’t like or don’t want to do.

I think this is a good point, although I’ve never seen it mentioned in the Memoria Press materials we’ve used. What are the classroom teachers adding to the lessons? Are the extras recommended by MP, or are the teachers coming up with them on their own? Perhaps I’m missing some context—maybe the “fun” materials were inferior because they had poor-quality content and the girl was doing well to recognize that—but minus that sort of detail, I don’t view this story as illustrating a positive attribute in a child. Rather, it reminds me of Eustace Scrubb in the Narnia books. I think it might be helpful to define “joy-sucking.” What I mean by that is material that focuses primarily on facts without room for creativity or imagination. An example would be a math book that focuses only on procedural learning, algorithms and memorization, without room for playing with concepts. All of the problems in each lesson are worked exactly the same way. It’s math without the beauty. Another example would be a grammar curriculum that only provides stilted sentences as exercises for students, and never shows the complex language that would be seen in a well-written book. I think it’s fine to use a more “stilted” sentence as an introduction to the concept, but when all of the exercises in the lesson are simply variations on that same sentence, where is the beauty of language? Personally I do not think the final question comes down to what a child knows at the end, but to how much they care about what they know. Yes, hard work and memorization are important aspects of education, but what do those matter if the child has never had her imagination captured by any of it? Please don’t misconstrue what I’m saying—I understand that test scores and challenging classes can be important for getting into college and finding employment. But if those things, in and of themselves, are the ultimate end-goal, what kind of adult will that produce? Charles Dickens explores this idea in his book Hard Times. Does every single aspect of a child’s education have to be joyous and imaginative? Of course not. That would be impossible. But should we try to introduce them to beauty where we can? I think it’s a worthy goal. My concern with “joy-sucking” materials is that if a child only sees those sorts of “facts without beauty” lessons for a single subject, year after year, they will never develop an enjoyment or appreciation for that subject. I think this could be why many adults dislike math and grammar—they were only taught the facts about them and were never introduced to their playful or creative sides.

If you’re interested in narration, I highly recommend Karen Glass’s book Know and Tell. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about narration, and this book explains the process of narration as CM intended it, along with appropriate expectations for different age groups.

We’ve used Latina Prima. It was okay, though somewhat dry and boring. We ditched the workbook pretty quickly but continued with the videos and flashcards. We’ve also used Minimus and University of Dallas’s Latin Through Stories, and we found both of those to be far more enjoyable. I think we’ve retained the most with Latin Through Stories. It uses songs and stories but no workbook. (Edited for accuracy: Latin Through Stories does have an optional workbook for older kids, but we haven’t used it yet.) I bought some used MP literature guides a couple of years ago, thinking they might be helpful for vocabulary, etc. But I found them to be exactly as you described: joy-sucking. I don’t use any literature guides now—just read and narrate. I find that our discussions are better when we’re talking about something the kids have noticed on their own instead of trying to answer someone else’s scripted questions. I do like to look at MP’s book lists though. The books they choose are typically well-written and engaging.

I haven’t used those specific editions of Singapore, so I can’t answer your question exactly. I am using Primary 2022 right now, though, and I would say that, for this edition, I’ve found the teacher’s guide to be much more helpful than the HIG. It’s in color, and it has pictures of the student’s pages in the book, which is nice for teaching lessons. It also explains the concepts better and shows the progression of skills that are being taught. I found the Primary 2022 HIG to be essentially an answer key, without much guidance for the parent. I know the editions vary, though, so maybe others will weigh in on their experiences with those you mentioned. If you’re struggling with teaching Singapore math in general, though, there is a book written for teachers that you may find helpful, regardless of which Singapore edition you use. It’s called Elementary Mathematics for Teachers. It goes through the major concepts taught in elementary math and explains different approaches to teaching each concept. I think it is helpful for teaching any math curriculum, but it is specifically geared toward Singapore math. It is a little expensive to buy new, but I found a used copy that was reasonably priced. https://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Mathematics-Teachers-Thomas-Parker/dp/0974814008/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=216CSJVUTAO4H&keywords=elementary+mathematics+for+teachers&qid=1702984836&sprefix=elementary+mathematics+f%2Caps%2C147&sr=8-1

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