I can't review RLTL, but a couple of notes: AAS also includes all of the modern Ayers list words (a few are more archaic words that aren't commonly used any more), plus words from other lists--over 3000 by the end of the series. AAS does teach rules, but doesn't only teach rules--it teaches 4 main spelling strategies (phonetic, rules-based, visual, and morphemic). RLTL combines reading and spelling, while AAS separates them. Here's an article explaining why. RLTL goes up through 3rd grade--AAS includes high school level words. Maybe Cathy Duffy's review of RLTL and review of AAS will help? HTH as you decide which one will meet your family's needs!

If he enjoys dictation and writing words, it sounds like he's ready! You don't have to line up individual lessons in any way, so just go through AAR and AAS at his pace for each program. Here's an article on AAS: The Right Time to Start.

Probably depends on the student. The stories get longer, and that may slow some down, while others may be ready for more. Here's a blog post that shows a mom going through AAR 2 with her daughter.

My daughter plays violin, and my son guitar and bass guitar. My daughter took a break from violin this spring--not sure if she'll continue. She's more interested in voice at this time. My son is heading to college in the fall and does plan to continue guitar and bass. I play violin also, but the choice was my dd's. I tried to interest my kids in piano actually, but it was a no-go!

Glad you found it :-) Looks like that link goes to a different page--I'd try this one for First Day Traditions.

I like the idea of it--it's the way my favorite college professor taught writing. But I didn't find BW particularly helpful when it came to trying to implement the ideas with my own reluctant writers. They've thrived with a more direct, incremental approach. I think my youngest would now enjoy a BW approach, after having a different kind of foundation. TWJ on it's own was just ideas and not enough "here's what to do with your kids" for me. Jot it Down and Partnership Writing weren't out when my kids were younger, so I haven't looked at those. Essentials in Writing is what ended up working well here.

We generally start near the end of July (like, next week!) and end at the end of May. We school 4.5 days per week (Friday afternoons are friend days), take off several days at Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks at Christmas, and a few days around Easter...whatever works to get our full days in. I don't schedule it exactly, I include wiggle room for sick days or impulse vacations :-). Sometimes we go away for a long weekend in September, or a week...depends on the year.

I agree, no need to add on a vocab. program, spelling & read-alouds/readers would be good to round things out. Here's a great article about teaching vocabulary. Have fun!

I think it might be hard to have a 6 yo and a 10 yo doing it at the same time--I imagine the 10 yo has more experience with reading and writing and would figure out the words more quickly and write more quickly, then be waiting for the 6 yo... So I guess it depends on how well they work together. If you really like AAS, though, I wouldn't change what's working. Maybe try it with your one that you think might like SS but continue AAS with the others. SS didn't work out for my kids--my oldest hated how it didn't tell him how to spell things and he felt set up to fail. He didn't make the connections they expected him to make (instead, he started thinking spelling was completely random). We found AAS after that though, and that's what ended up working here.

Yes, William Wilberforce is history at that point. And I agree, it's a bit odd to schedule it that way. Plains Indians and Gold Rush are more 1850's and William Wilberforce is more turn of the century. There are a couple of issues at play with the scheduling--one is that this is the 2nd of a 2-year US history--you are kind of starting in the middle, in other words. But the other is that Sonlight (and I'm guessing Bookshark) sometimes likes to set the stage for what life was like before jumping into a main spine. Think of all 3 of these books as setting a historical stage in different ways. What was our world like in the 1800s? WW is getting kids ready to read about our own Civil War/Slavery issues soon, and the other two books focus on two other prominent, cultural/political themes of the time. So you have Slavery, Indians, and the Gold Rush all sort of setting the stage for what life was like and understanding the prominent issues of the day. Let these set the backdrop for getting into the history and kind of "immerse" you in that time period. If some notebooking/lapbooking helps, certainly work on one. (You could even have your daughter do a combined one that showed various aspects of life in the 1850's. We might be inclined to think of life as life of a pioneer, or life in an Eastern city--but obviously, life was very different for people depending on their position in society or their goals in life etc...)

You can really do it any way you like. I typically do 30 minutes lit, 30 minutes composition for a "lit and comp" class, but you could do a semester focus on each, or do things in units (one year for an "English" credit I included more subjects--grammar, roots/vocab, lit, and comp--and called it "English 10" for the grade DS was in.) Aim for 150-180 hours and do what works well, then decide what to title your course.

Truthfully...I wouldn't try to notebook the readers/read-alouds chapter by chapter for historical information. Really...it's just not like that. The literature component isn't there so they can mine historical facts--that's what the history spine is for. It's there so they can live that time period vicariously, so they can get a feel for what it might have been like for someone living at that time. Yes, there are times that they will learn something about history that perhaps wasn't in the spine. Often, though not always, there is an author's note, or sometimes an introduction, which can help you to see what was a real event or a real person, or in other ways separate out history. The literature brings history to life--it fleshes out facts. It's one thing to say that it was cold in Valley Forge and another thing to have a story help you live through it. Or to imagine what it would be like to travel by wagon across half the country and read factually that there were many hardships and people often got sick & died--versus reading a novel that lets you live that experience with those people. It's one thing to read that the Trail of Tears was unfair and so many Indians died--and another to really get to know them, sympathize with them, live the journey with them. We did sometimes write a response to a book or a section of a book, sometimes drew pictures...but I wasn't looking for them to tell me more historical facts. I was looking for them to have the time and freedom to sit with a book, to think about the people and what they went through, their joys and sorrows, hardships and triumphs--to consider what it was like to be them, to empathize and relate to them--to see how we are alike and how we are different. To learn from their mistakes and to build on their successes as we move forward in our own lives. We discussed books--why did the character do that? Would you have done that? What do you think will happen next? Have you experienced a time when you felt like that character? Would you have liked to live through this time/event? What would that have been like? And so on. The other thing is...Sonlight often has you read 1-2 chapters a night, and at that pace, a project as involved as the one you linked could easily make that reading become tedious. We loved the readers and read-alouds, they made us think. Not everything needs output, you know?

Core D was one of my absolute favorites!

Third grade is still so young, I wouldn't be overly concerned. She's still a baby writer. You are addressing her needs through VT (and that will make a difference in her frustration level with writing), and then you can look at dysgraphia this year. You are taking good, proactive steps. She'll make progress over time. Let her do some writing orally where she talks and you scribe, and then let her copy it into her own handwriting (gradually, over a few days, if it's something more than a few sentences). Let her build up stamina gradually by separating the process from having to generate thoughts and think about spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization etc... all at once. If spelling or other skills are a struggle for her, work on those separately as well. Many kids really aren't ready to put all of these skills together until about junior high. She has lots of years to work on this, so don't get discouraged.

If it makes a difference, there's not as much cutting for AAR 1, and you could always do some or all of the cutting for him.

Absolutely this can work! I've used Sonlight (another lit-based curriculum) for years, and I've done it all different ways: Stretched 1 year's work over 2 years (I really enjoyed this when my kids were young. It allowed us plenty of time for field trips, nature study, rabbit trails on interesting subjects, occasional products, or for me to just add in a book I heard about that sounded like fun--or books from my childhood that I wanted to add in etc...) As written--occasionally deciding to drop a few books we didn't get to Eclectic--switching out books, dropping books, adding in different books, stretching & adding things from different levels based on our needs etc... All 3 methods worked depending on our needs for that particular year. Sonlight has a daily schedule, and I often found that we might want to read more or that we might want to read less--I just checked it off as we did it instead of worrying what day we were on. Eventually I saw that they also had a 1-page yearly schedule that listed books in order by week of introduction. LOVE that page! I began following that and just checking books off when we did them, or dropping one occasionally--no guilt, I just drew a line through a book. When I eventually went eclectic, I made up my one 1-page yearly guide with a few optional books in case we got ahead, or again I'd draw a line through ones we might not get to. Remember that curriculum, schedules etc... are tools for you--they don't get to determine what you do for school, what's enough for your family, and so on. Enjoy great books together and don't worry about any you don't get to. Your kids might read them later. You might read them later. You might never read them. It's okay.

9th for Mockingbird

Hard to say how he would do in her class. I think I'd show her a piece of his writing and express your concerns to her. Find out how she would handle him in class, and how she could ensure that he's not lost, and also that it would be a good environment for him. Evaluate what she says. For a program you could do on your own, I'd check out Essentials in Writing, which really helped my struggling writer/spellers. As for AAS, how far did you get? I found that my kids' spelling in their outside writing didn't start to improve until after level 3. That's the point at which they have mastered 1000 basic words, and they also have a lot more experience with writing and editing through the dictations and writing station activities. You have to get to level 5 before all of the phonograms are introduced, and then it accelerates quickly as far as getting up to grade level. That's because they have all the foundation at that point in the basic rules and how the syllables work, and they have some experience with analyzing words, and now they learn how to analyze longer words. Advanced phonograms and more rules come in the last two levels, along with Greek and Latin roots in level 7 (which includes high school level words). You really can make great progress, but it takes time to lay that foundation and build up. I found that the gradual progression of writing activities through dictation and the writing station helped my kids be prepared for more outside writing, but again, when you have a student who really struggles, it's going to take time (a few years) to build all that up. Personally, I wouldn't even work on much formal writing until you get through AAS 3. It's just too difficult for kids to put all that together. But if you don't mind scribing for him, I do think that's helpful for working on organizing thoughts, creativity, and other communication skills. We even did revision orally for awhile. Keep reading aloud to him and building up his knowledge of language.

I bought laminated US and World Maps back when we first started Sonlight. We would find and mark things on their fairly often, and it was fun to map out journeys for explorers, or for stories about going around the world, or to find various countries etc... I think it's nice to have a large map you can refer to and write on, but I'm not sure the markable map is best for that. I think paper maps make more sense for drawing out rivers and mountains and labeling things. So...we never did get a markable map.

That's awful! I'd be disappointed too. Can you get them to mark the package "Educational Materials" or something like that to see if it will go through customs better? Ugh.

This doesn't sound that bad for beginning 2nd grade. I think a lot of kids might be at this point. I'd work more on reversals--they can be considered normal until age 8 but I'd want to try to make progress there. This article on reversals includes tactile ideas, activities using large arm movements, and analogies. I'd also work more on blending with her. Guessing is very common still at this age, but you want her to start recognizing that she has to look at the whole word. Here's an article on how to break the word-guessing habit with a blending procedure you can work on with her.

Does he like Star Wars? My son loved the Star Wars Jedi Quest series. He read them in upper elementary, and he was about a grade level behind in reading. They’re for 8-12 year-olds. If you look on Amazon under Star Wars Jedi Quest, you can see inside some of the books. What about the Magic Treehouse series? We really enjoyed Sonlight readers, and you may be able to find something there that could work. The Sword in the Tree from the Level 2 readers might be a good fit interest-wise, and I'd look through the Sonlight 3 and 4-5 readers--they have some good boy selections too–Riding the Pony Express, Viking Adventure, Toothpaste Millionaire (12 yo boy makes a million dollars selling toothpaste at 15 cents a tube) etc.... Does he like Magic Schoolbus?

He is beyond Pre-reading if he's blending and reading words already. If you switch to AAR after 100 EZ, use the placement tests--some kids do still need work in level 1, but some might able to go on to level 2.

Years ago, before I found AAS, I took a copywork class and one of the things they had us do was to have a child copy a passage and say what they were thinking as they copied. My son had some practice with segmenting/saying sounds as he wrote, so I thought he'd do that. Instead, he started by saying letter names. Then he briefly tried saying sounds, then words, then he went back to letter names. He had the word "from" twice, and this is a word he used to have a lot of trouble with--he would write form instead. The first time he had the word was during the "saying sounds" portion, and he spelled it correctly and easily right away. The second time he had it was during the last "saying letter names" portion of the assignment. He started, stopped, erased and started again three times! Each time he wrote f-o-r. Finally on the fourth try he wrote from. At the end I asked how he finally remembered, and he said he'd gotten it wrong so many times, that that's what finally helped him remember how to spell it. I found this process fascinating! When he was focusing on the letter names, he couldn't even access what he knew so easily when he segmented and focused on sounds! Instead he had to rely on a negative experience to trigger the memory of the word. When I pointed out the two words and two different experiences with spelling it, he was surprised too, and he could see that what felt unnatural and stupid to him (who wants to say sounds while writing when they are a cool 11 yo boy?!) actually had benefit. The teacher I was working with (a language therapist) said that while some kids think in sounds naturally, others have to be taught--and it can take 2-3 years of practicing this technique before it becomes "natural" to kids who struggle with it. Soon after we found AAS, which also reinforced using this strategy, but I did find that it took a few years for my son to use it without prompting. Every time he misspelled his AAS words and the error was one this strategy solves, I had him read *exactly* what he wrote. This helped him start to watch for those missing sounds, extra letters thrown in, etc...

If his addition skills are suspect, I'd start with book 1. Book 2 will get into longer addition problems & you want him solid on easier problems first. It's a spiral program so it keeps coming back to certain topics but spiraling deeper.