Bill, I have looked at MEP - in fact, I've downloaded most of the materials for our own use, but the situation in Zambia is such that we need a curriculum that can be taught with only a teacher's manual and some paper and pens, if need be. ;) JoAnne

Hello All, I need your help. I have been tasked with helping to write a math curriculum for some schools in Zambia, and I'm a little overwhelmed, being more of a Humanities person myself. I am not mathematically illiterate, though, and would like to think that I can understand conceptually the differences between instructional models. If you would be so kind as to point me in the right direction so that I can read up on said differences, and which math instruction program fits which model, I'd appreciate it! Thank you! JoAnne

Okay, sorry I just realized I hijacked a "pro" board with my "anti" stance... sorry! For what it's worth, I have friends who are a professional physicist and a woman who could have been (was in the PhD program) and is now at home with her children. Both pretty darn intelligent people... and all five of their children have used Saxon math. She said that they've always preferred it to "creative" ways of doing math.

Hmm. I have two young sons, who are not yet doing any formal curriculum, but I have the Saxon K book and I have taught from Saxon 8/7 for a year while tutoring my homeschooled brother-in-law. Said brother was hopelessly and utterly lost using Saxon. Each lesson, as discussed by others, introduced a concept that wouldn't be covered again for ages. That really bugged me. I had the feeling that if he had a proper foundation in math, he would have been fine. I might have been fine using it as a student, I don't know...but he was most definitely not fine. I don't mind spiral in the review - in fact, I think that's a great idea. I think my ideal math program would have concepts that are introduced and developed sequentially until true mastery is achieved, but with a secondary portion of the lesson that does precisely what Saxon does, with review questions covering anything and everything previously discussed. Or perhaps this: Portion A of the lesson is the concept being discussed, which as I said would be followed the next day by a lesson tied to that, etc. Then portion B would alternate every day between a spiral review and a cool mind-bending puzzler that involves multiple forms of computation, all of which have been previously discussed. (So, essentially also a form of spiral review.) Does that program exist? If not, I may have to write it. :-P

Hmm. I suppose partly the question might be, how do I prevent sight reading in a 2 3/4 year old who is looking at the first letter and guessing the rest of the word? He does not yet show an ability to track left to right, and in general his gross and fine motor skills are on the slower side of normal. He didn't jump until about a year after his cousin, who is only four months older. Nothing to worry about, but he just doesn't seem "advanced" in other ways so I'm not sure how best to proceed.

Who has taught their child to read very early? What pitfalls can there be? What is too early? Any and all advice would be welcome. (It's not unsolicited if I ask for it! :>) JoAnne

This thread inspired me to spend even more money than I have lately on children's books... having recently bought most of the Sonlight P3/4 readers and some of the books listed on Ambleside Online and The Good Books program, I now also bought a set of 15 Roald Dahl books. It goes against my instinct, because I have been wanting to get hardcovers whenever possible, and to buy used if possible.... but $25 for 15 paperbacks can't really be beat. If you're a Costco member, keep your eyes peeled: the collection contains The Magic Finger Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Esio Trot Fantastic Mr. Fox Boy: Tales of Childhood Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator The Twits James and the Giant Peach Danny the Champion of the World George's Marvelous Medicine Going Solo The BFG Matilda The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me The Witches

I used to teach this, so I clicked on the link ... but I can't really offer any advice as to homeschool use. The sad bit is, four years on, I couldn't remember what the traits were. :(

I am writing this to ask those of you who have worked with / taught through Webster's Speller because I would love to know how many years it would take to teach through it properly. My husband and I are not quite on the same page about home schooling our boys. He has agreed to do so through Kindergarten, and I am trying to get him to agree to do so through all the elementary grades. Ironically, the years I am most qualified to teach* - middle and high school years - he would like them to be in a "public" environment, either a Christian school or a public charter like Glendale Prep. http://www.glendaleprep.org/ So, that being said, I have at worst three years and at best eight to get them as well-prepared as I can. My plan is to begin the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading (supplemented with Hooked on Phonics and other leveled readers) through Kindergarten, then beginning in 1st grade do a "reinforcement" of the rules of phonics and spelling through something like SWR or the Webster's Speller. Is 5 years enough to complete such a course of study with them? Ideally, I would also like to do the Latin Road before they begin a school, but that might not work out completely. JoAnne (*I was a middle school Language Arts teacher, and have a Bachelor's from Yale in the Humanities, aka Great Books)

For instance, you could take any of the free phonics books online (like those listed on Don Potter's web site) as your reading "spine," download these Language Arts materials, and then use Starfall and Progressive Phonics stuff to provide the "fun stuff" and readers. Voila.

Wow. I am becoming more and more convinced that a parent who reads up and does their research can educate their child (at least as far as Bible, Reading, Writing, and Mathematics are concerned) for free, with the internet, a printer, and a library. Of course you have to know what to keep and what to toss when it comes to these curricula, but even if they just provide you with ideas to jump off of, that's awesome.

We have some friends who are missionaries in Zambia visiting, and we've been discussing their work, much of which is centered around educating the young people of their town and others like it. They already have a decent reading curriculum, though we'll be looking at it to see what we could add/improve, and they are looking for a good math curriculum, free if at all possible. They don't want to have to reinvent the wheel. ;) So instead of invention, we are looking at adaptation. I thought perhaps some of the old (and in the public domain) works like Ray's and others might be ideally suited to their circumstances. They want to set it up so that it is more scripted, though, as the math primers we've found online were all intended to be used by skilled teachers, and they'll be working with those who are enthusiastic to help, but not well trained. (Teacher training is a whole other matter.) Do you know of anyone who has adapted these works for classrooms already? I don't mean the Mott Workbooks series - I don't think there will be funds for workbooks, at least not consumable ones. The students will have paper and black boards, so we're hoping to make a math curriculum that could still function even if all they had were teacher's guides. Thoughts? Suggestions? Other works to look at/incorporate beyond Ray's? Thank you in advance! JoAnne

Elizabeth, I am planning to begin teaching my son to read using the Ordinary Parent's Guide and supplementing with various other sources (HOP, BOB books, etc.) ... and then later on, during 1st or 2nd grade when we do spelling, going back and "re-teaching" phonics using the syllable method, essentially to teach spelling and re-inforce phonics. Does that make any sense, or should I just stick to one method and then rehash that later? JoAnne

Fantastic! How old was Jenna when you began?

Fantastic! I just downloaded Kindle for Mac. I knew I could get them for free, but reading them in Adobe Acrobat Reader was ... meh. I would still prefer to have everything in lovely hard covers, but until then, this will do. ;)

Zaner-Bloser has their own font online, and you can create any number of things, from spelling or vocab pages to copywork: http://www.zaner-bloser.com/educator/products/handwriting/index.aspx?id=4296

I balk at the thought of spending a great deal of money on a spelling curriculum. I wonder if I could work Webster's, or something else. I've also found these "practice sheets" for the Zaner-Bloser spelling curriculum online, which just happen to give all the words that they work with. http://www.zaner-bloser.com/spellingconnections/practice-pages.html Beyond the list and basic techniques for teaching words, what really do the various spelling curricula offer that makes them so very different from one another? Worksheets? JoAnne

I've always assumed that if we read them, we'd follow this order, as put out by the folks at the Great Books Academy ("Good Books" Reading List). http://www.greatbooksacademy.org/curriculum/good-books-list/

Wow, that's definitely a glowing recommendation! I do think we'll keep it, if only because I want to have more leveled readers for my son than just the Bob books we currently own. Also, though I could probably teach reading with just OPG and Bob books and my own past experience, my sister-in-law wants to home school but needs a more out-of-the box curriculum, so I can let her son and daughter use it, too, when we aren't using it. All said, I paid $65 including taxes for it. The newer version of it, with CDs instead of tapes, is between $165 and $199, though the more expensive one has a free "fun pack" with more books and such that would be awesome to have. Ah, well.

Yet another question (sorry!) ... this edition has audio tapes, not CDs. Do newer ones have CDs, or do they still have tapes? And how important are the tapes? Could I just read the text to my son?

Also, what level does HOP take students to? I know OPG is about a 4th grade level.

How did you combine it with the Ordinary Parent's Guide? I was wondering how the scope and sequence works together, but I didn't want to open the books to find out, in case I did decide to resell it. It did seem as though there were a lot of "helper" (aka sight) words in the HOP program.

I took that test... in 1987!! I'm not sure how much it has changed since then, but a great deal of it was non-verbal, including spatial reasoning and symbolic logic, as well as cool numbers-related tasks. I wonder if an overview of "test-taking English" might be the best use of her time?

What was your experience with the program? I totally just bought a complete Pre-K - 2nd grade package as an impulse buy at our local Kid to Kid (resale store). It is new, with shrink-wrapped books and such, though it looks as though the box has been opened. It seemed like a good enough deal that I could always resell it if we decided against it. What do you think? If nothing else, I now have the 30 leveled readers.

Hello there, I haven't as yet begun home schooling, at least not in any specific levels, but my 2 1/2 year-old son is showing remarkable prowess not only in phonics but mathematics. As a former Reading/English teacher I think I have a fairly good understanding of the different varieties of Language instruction. My biggest pet peeve with curricula is not being able to see more of them, but I assume that with a combination of reviews and perhaps a homeschool convention, I will feel better about our choices when the time comes. (For now, I have 100EZ and OPGTR, as well as Bob Books. We haven't started any of them, I'm just doing some research ... and because I would LOVE to buy all the MCP readers but can't justify spending all that dough, I've decided to try my hand at writing our own readers.) When it comes to Mathematics, though, I'm a little stumped. I grew up partially in Germany and partially in the U.S. I moved to the U.S. halfway through 2nd grade and recall being terribly bored by math. Everything seemed way to slow. I had fantastic math grades (rarely less than 100%) all the way through 9th grade, at which point we moved back to Germany. Let's just say that grades 10-13 in Germany were...ahem...rather more challenging. I'm not sure exactly what type of math was taught where, but I know that Germany had trained my brain in one way that left me "ahead" for the U.S., but I was paid back years later. I hung on by a thread, but by the time I graduated, after two years of calculus-level math, I was desperately clinging to a "pass." I have two little sons thus far, and what I want for them is... the best of both worlds, I guess? I don't quite know how to conceptualize the differences between the two styles, but I would like to do so and find a way to combine them. Is there such a thing as Math synthesis? Perhaps MEP with some drilling on times tables, etc. from Ray's? Has anyone succeeded in doing this? Or is it just too confusing for the wee brains? Help! JoAnne