We didn't need one to teach manuscript either. I didn't teach my ds until he was 5, but he learned without any curriculum. I just explained how to form each letter. We practice while doing LA. I do plan on buyng a cursive program though. Cursive First (the one we're planning on buying) is inexpensive and might offer me a little help so I think it'll be a good buy.

Thanks, that really makes sense. I think I'll order both Singapore 1A and the Horizons wkbks next month.

Are you using it with boys? I would love to have a year of combined art and ettiquette, but I didn't even look at it because of the girly cover. :001_huh:

:lol:

I like that teaching philosophy. :thumbup:

Welcome! I have a K'er also. We just started school in June. I don't know either of the programs you asked about but we use Spell to Write and Read which is another verticle phonics program. It's intense and includes spelling, reading, writing, handwriting, and gentle grammer (up to 3rd grade). It's teacher intensive (no worksheets) and some find it hard to learn for the teacher, but I haven't had that experience. I think it depends on your personality. They do have a yahoo group where the author and several certified trainers answer any questions you have. We are starting our ninth week tomorrow and loving it. I've written several posts about it on my blog if you're interested. I think it is providing my ds with a strong foundation in LA.

I really like this idea. Can you give an example of which levels you use together? I'm planning on starting Singapore 1A when we finish Horizons K (probably in late September). Would you use Singpore 1A or 2A with Horizons 1 as review?

I'm buying Artistic Pursuits Preschool book soon (I hope). They say it's for 3-5 yos. It just looks so cool. I like that it celebrates the creativity in young children, but has definite projects to help me out. After that, I think I'll order their 1st K-3 book. You can check it out here.

This is my ds EXACTLY!! He is mathy/sciency kid and loves the logic of SWR. He wants to do more words because he loves to figure out the markings. List D is "his favorite list ever" because of all of the silent E markings! I'm sure list E will be come his favorite list when we get there if it contains more words with markings. LOL. I just wanted to emphasize what Elizabeth said for your 6yo. Wanda is pretty adamant in the book that they do not need to master the phonograms or words the first time around. He will have a lot of time to practice. We keep our enrichments fun and our spelling time stress-free. We'll start at list A again next year. While you're figuring out everything with your older dc, you could just work on handwriting and phonograms with your 6yo plus some of the preschool activities in Step 2. Then he'd be ready to start list A as soon as you are. No reason to rush. I also recommend the Phonogram Fun Packet by Beall's Learning Games. It has a board game that reinforces the phonograms and spelling rules which is completely customizable for each child playing (plus a lot of other phonogram games too). My boys (5yo and the 3yo) love it and my dh is learning the phonograms too ;).

I'm just really glad that my hard work can help someone else. :D Really no reason for you to recreate what I've already done.

LOL!! Were you able to download it okay? I just changed it so that you can download it as a Word document instead of a PDF if you want. That way you'd be able to change it to fit your needs without retyping the whole thing.

Glad I could help. The good thing about SWR is that you can change the speed to fit your needs. You can start your ds at a kindergarten pace with 10 words/week, but you can always add in more later on if he's ready for it. Have you joined the SWR yahoo group yet? It is so helpful! Wanda and the trainers can answer any questions you have. BTW, I taught handwriting before we started doing the spelling lists. Check out step 6. You teach the first 25 phonograms and how to form the letters at the same time. You can go as fast or slow as you need to. My ds wanted to cover them all the first day so we did. He already knew the sounds and we just needed to learn how to form the letters properly. We practiced that for 4 days and then moved on to the lists. Some kids might need to take a few weeks or a couple of months.

With what ages are you using it? I am a few months into it with my K'er. I have a schedule posted on my blog the covers the whole year. http://dins-family.blogspot.com/2009/08/swr-schedule.html. I found the schedules in the back of SWR to be very helpful when building my own (SWR p. 225). I also like the chart on pg. 64. It gave me a picture of how we should progress each year. We basically do what the previous poster did. Here's my basic template for a week of work. Monday: Review concepts/Play game Teach new reference pages (if necessary) Introduce new phonograms (if necessary) Tuesday: Read all phonograms (that have been introduced) Dictate new spelling words Wednesday: Enrichment Read words Quiz some phonograms Thursday: Enrichment Read words Read phonograms Friday: Tests new words and some phonograms/words for review This is the plan, but I'm flexible with moving activities to different days as needed. Hope that helps,

1. Why do you supplement? We supplement because my ds is gifted in math. He tested into Horizons 2 at 5yo without using a formal math curriculum before now. However, I prefer not to just whiz through math quickly because he can. So, we started in Horizons K (should've started in 1) and we're on Lesson 95 after 8 weeks of school. I decided to add Singapore so that he would get a good foundation of mental math in addition to the drill-type math that Horizons provides. This way he'll have a deep understanding of arithmetic before we start Algebra. 2. Would it just be a bad idea to do Horizons for now and a few years down the road try to supplement? Meaning, would we be so far behind in the OTHER program that we should supplement now if we want to stay on track? I'm too much of a newbie to answer that, but I don't see why you couldn't. You might just have to start him a 1/2-full grade level below because the programs are so different, but it's a supplement, so who cares? They have placement tests on their website, so you wouldn't have to guess where to start. 3. How does one supplement? We already spend a lot of time on math everyday. Are you actually doing two math programs at the same ) time? We're schooling year-round so we have a lot of time to finish two curricula. I'm planning on just doing Horizons, Singapore, Horizons. This might change later on as we slow down with math and I get some actual experience doing both. We may end up doing Horizons on schedule (1 lesson/day and add in a few Singapore lessons/week. Then, Singapore only until the school year's out. We'll see. I'm not too worried about it because Horizons is a solid program by itself. I should also mention that I have no problem skipping lessons or crossing out activities if my ds has mastered them. Since we'll never take too much of a break from math, he won't need much of the review that's included at the beginning of each level.

Thanks, this makes sense to me. I was concerned that I'd overlooked something. SM looks perfect for my ds, but I don't have it in my hands yet.

I understand the concept of it functioning as a vowel in a digraph, but I think it could be confusing to a beginning reader. We teach digraphs, but since a 'w' is always positioned with a vowel, is there are reason to call attention to it as a semivowels?

I also plan on teaching my dc formal manners. I think it is important. I haven't done any reasearch into curricula yet. Are there any books out there for boys?

Never heard that one. I would have some issues teaching it that way to a beginning reader.

Okay, so we're only doing K (on lesson 96), so my experience is limited, but ITA. There really isn't any jumping around. The topics are revisited systematically and increase in difficulty. So far we give Horizons a :thumbup1:. BTW, is Singapore spiral or mastery? There seem to be some differing opinions in this thread. I was under the impression that it is spiral. My ds is also one that could not handle a mastery program. He picks up concepts very quickly and gets bored. I'm planning on starting Singapore PM 1A soon.

Would mind explaining why? I haven't used any of them, but I'm thinking about using FLL and WWE in the future.

No problem! Just pm me your e-mail address.

Happy, I have a schedule on my blog for using SWR with my 5yo. It might help if you really want to use SWR instead of switching to another program. It is really SLOW and we've been doing great. I am using the program as written, but I think it looks a lot different for a 5yo than an 8yo. KWIM? My main goal was for him to start getting the jist of the program, but not spend too much time on it or make it stressful. We don't follow it exactly, but it keeps me moving throughout the week. My ds already knew the first 26 phonograms and picked up how to write them very quickly, so we didn't spend much time on that. The first four days of my schedule could be spread out over a few weeks as Wanda suggests in the book. I wouldn't be able to use AAS for the same reasons so I understand where you're coming from. I like the concept, but it wouldn't work for us.

My blog is in my siggy. Mine is mostly about education, but I'm not a classical purist...more eclectic with a heavy classical influence. I started to show our family what hsing looks like in our house. We're the first (and only) ones to hs and we live far away. I just want to keep them informed. I like to visit blogs to see what others are doing too.

Good idea! I think I'll have to create something like that for my blog. We have so many favorite picture books that I'm not sure I could list them all. My 3yos current favorites are Harold and the Purple Crayon and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We read them everyday. We are pretty attached classic authors like McCloskey, Burton, Steig, etc. but Laura Numeroff books are a huge hit in our house!

Did you feel it was a complete phonics program? Absolutely. I like that it teaches the phonograms quickly. It isn't about mastering them the first time around, but showing the child the tools to read. My 5yo wanted to know what some Transformers' names were yesterday and I informed him that he could sound it out. We've only covered 45 phonograms, but the names only contained those. He was excited about that. It's cool when you can sound out "Blackarachnia." What is it missing for you? If you want your child reading leveled readers quickly, SWR might be problematic. They could do it, but that's not how the program is set up. I like the delayed reading because we're building a solid foundation. Did your dc get confused with the different sounds the phonograms make when they try to transfer it over to reading? (How do they know which sound to choose?) I thought my ds would get confused, but he hasn't. We're only on list D, but he is learning that the phonogram sounds are set up so that the first sound is the most common one. The key is the dictation method. You tell them which phonogram to use for a particular sound. For example, I told him to use /ch/, /k/, /sh/ for the /k/ in school. The enrichments during the week will help him remember which phonogram we use for a particular sound. I really like working with the phonograms. It explains a lot about our language and makes it easier for my ds since there aren't many exceptions. He is a very logical child, so the rules are right up his alley. It is definitely harder for me since I wasn't taught to read this way, but I'm learning. I'm going to teach my sister (30yo) to spell using this method. She has always been an atrocious speller and I think SWR could help her. I think we could do it in a couple of months. She's excited about it. Do they understand the markings? The markings are my ds's favorite part of the program. We started on List A and only do 10 words a week (because he's 5) so we haven't gotten marking overload. In fact, he wants more words/week just so he can mark them. Because we're going so slow, he's had a chance to understand them. And my biggest question: did you have them fill in the reference pages, and if so, how did that go? We are going through all of the reference pages as they are scheduled. We have the primary log book so there isn't much writing for him. I wrote out the Consonant/Vowel page for him (as we talked about it), but he's done the rest. One thing that has helped us is that my ds likes to "teach" the reference pages to his little brother and my dh after we're done. If he were still having trouble with writing, I wouldn't have any problem writing the pages for him. Wanda recommends that in the book. In short, I'm dong SWR as written. It's my first time, so I want to make sure I'm doing it right. I don't feel like I'm experienced enough to make any modifications. However, we are enjoying the program so I don't think we'll be making any major changes.