Thank you!

Thank you! Would you mind comparing the Student Pages and Teacher's Guide for me? I have been eyeing the Teacher's Guide, but it is killing me that I cannot find a single sample online. What type of information is contained in each book? Is there enough information to reinforce the information in the readings?

What do you have your child(ren) do with the material? My fifth grader will be using volume 1 next year, and I would love to add a few comprehension-type questions. In an ideal world, I would love those questions to guide her toward the themes that are constantly repeated through history, but I don't have the time to create this myself. Are there any existing guides or comprehension questions? Also, is there any related map work or outlining assignments? I would love any advice and guidance. Thank you! ETA - In a perfect world, I am looking for something like a SOTW Activity Guide.

We did spelling and grammar daily. For spelling, our weekly schedule was as follows: Monday - Part A Tuesday - Part B Wednesday - Part C (this section was extremely short, and my son loved it!) Thursday - Study Friday - Test For grammar, we did one lesson daily unless we had co-op. Like a previous poster mentioned, it's a nice end of year bonus if we finish early. ETA - We actually used R&S Spelling 3 for second grade.

Thank you so much for the honest feedback! I never anticipated TYCTR to be our final reading program, but I wanted something quick and dirty (and cheap) to use over the summer while I sort through all of our options. My son is picking up blending very quickly, but I strongly dislike the orthography used in the book. I cannot imagine that it translates well to real books. To be honest, picking a solid phonics/reading program has been completely overwhelming. However, you reinforced that I need to do it sooner rather than later. It's what my gut has been telling me for the past few weeks. Thanks again!

She is nine but will be turning 10 in a few weeks. She will be in fifth grade next year.

what did you do when you were finished? Did you do any phonics instruction as you worked though the book? I am really struggling with what to do for my youngest son next year. He is reading CVC words, and we are currently working our way through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (TYCTR). While he is making progress with reading, he certainly doesn't love the method. I am not supplementing in any way. I want to get him reading fluently, and while I am trying to decide what program to use for him, I am moving forward with TYCTR. Does anyone have any advice? I am completely overwhelmed by finding a phonics/reading program for him! ETA - When your child was done with TYCTR, did you find your child was reading at a Kindy or first grade level?

I am not any help, but I really wish that there was a master K12 HO thread. I have found so many links in various threads, but I am having trouble finding everything when I need it. We just received our book last week, and DD read much of it on her own as pleasure reading. I am going to add a few activities, but the text is fine as is. I am really excited for history next year!

I don't buy the TMs, but I would definitely buy the answer keys. It saves so much time with respect to checking and grading work.

They normally ship within a couple of days, and they do not notify you when the item has shipped you. You can call to get a tracking number.

I have not used R&S 5, but I will be using it next school year. I used R&S 4 with my DD, who was in fourth grade, this past year. We completed R&S 4 in one school year, and I plan to do exactly the same thing next year with R&S 5. I do not use R&S as it is written. In my opinion, it would be way too much writing and too much repetition. I have DD write out about half of the problems. If she does not understand something, we go back and do the oral drill together. I am hoping to complete my lesson plans for R&S 5 in the next couple of weeks. It takes me a long time to go through lesson by lesson and pick out which problems I want DD to complete. However, I do that before every school year, and it makes my life (and hers) much easier when the actual school year begins. For what it is worth, I love R&S English. My DD's grammar foundation is exceptionally strong! ETA - I will post a sample of my DD's R&S 4 lesson plans. Her R&S 5 plans will be extremely similar.

Of course, one may be able to see the confusion on my part. You selectively quote part of my response and then proceed to say, "You're supposed to teach first." You end your response with a cute :-) Thanks for clearing up the confusion though. OP, sorry for deriding your thread, and good luck with your decision.

Are you actually serious with this comment? Are you really insinuating that after a year of doing phonics with my son that I don't know how to teach? Am I misreading what you wrote? Even AFTER teaching my son, many of the graphics are still confusing. In numerous threads, I see people asking whether the TMs are necessary. Aside from the "actual instruction" in the TM, I think that the questionable graphics are reason enough to buy the TM. With all due respect, all of the phonics instruction amounts to nothing if my son needs to find a word that begins with /f/, and he sees pictures of a stable, car, and park. Oh wait, that stable is actually a farm.

With respect to R&S phonics, I did not use the R&S reading program when I used it with my son. We had no problems doing the phonics portion by itself. While I liked the phonics program, I think that DS was unimpressed with black and white page after black and white page. In our case, I think that color graphics would have done wonders! I did, however, like the phonics instruction and toward the end of the year my son finally seemed to retain most of what he had learned. Like I said in my previous post, we plan to complete Phonics 2 next year. ETA - I would strongly recommend the TM since some of the graphics can be extremely confusing.

I just finished up using Rod & Staff English 2 and Spelling 3 with my second grader. By way of background, Language Arts is not his strength. I love R&S for grammar. It was perfect for my son and was a fantastic introduction to parts of speech. Also as an extremely reluctant writer,he was able to write short paragraphs by the end of the year. Being able to write 3 or 4 sentences on the same topic was huge for him. With respect to the spelling program, I am really on the fence. He did fine with the exercises (even up one level from his "grade"), but his spelling in other subjects was still horrible. It was also a program that could be done independently. However, I am contemplating using another program next year because none of his exercises translated into better spelling for unknown words. We also used R&S Phonics 2. We are halfway through unit 4, and I plan to finish Phonics 2 next year. I liked the program well enough. In terms of whether or not R&S English is a complete program, my opinion is that composition needs to be added in the older grades. While R&S allows students to construct grammatically correct compositions, it is not complete enough to help kids write with style. It does not teach kids how to make their respective writings interesting.

I decided to order K12's HO. I had the chance to flip through it when it arrived, and I liked what I saw. However, the book soon disappeared as DD retreated to her room with it. She was still reading it at bedtime wanted to keep to make sure that it would be in her room in the morning. These are all positive signs! Now I just need to locate the recent thread that linked HO to SOTW 1. I found the link when I googled it: http://www.scribd.com/filfilksq/d/60373372-SOTW-and-Human-Odyssey I also thought that I would share a similar link lining up HO to OUP: http://nowisthebesttimeofourlives.blogspot.com/p/human-odyssey-vol-1-and-world-in.html

I am sure that I will have some specific questions in the near future, and thank you for the offer. I just PMed you about your non-consumables.

Thank you for the input. By the way, what does the sketchbook like? Is it literally blank on the top half with ruled lines below it? I am trying to figure out if I need the MP branded one? I am looked on the MP web site for the $12 PDF enrichment guide? It looks like that is only the lesson plan, and does not include the actual activities? Do you know if that is correct? I am leaning toward buying only parts of MP, but I am not sure which ones.

Thank you for the recommendations. I will be sure to look at those books. I wanted to share this Pinterest board I found: http://www.pinterest.com/kerryl32/5th-grade-ideas-language-arts/

I plan to hit Google and Pinterest tonight after the kids go to bed. I will report back tomorrow with my findings.

Thank you so much! I am going to call MP tomorrow to speak to them, but I am interested in a different opinion. For a child who knows all of his letters and sounds (but could use work on writing on them), do you think that there are any parts of the Kindy program that I could skip/omit? It's hard for me to figure out how all of the books fit together. Did you use all of the readers? Thank you again!!! I am 98% sure that I will be biting the bullet and ordering Kindy week. I am so excited. With respect to the my third grader, I am not sure that MP is the best fit.

I am going to change our approach to literary analysis a bit this upcoming school year. My daughter is a strong reader, and she comprehends very well. However, I would love to formally introduce her to various literary analytic tools - point of view, mood, climax/resolution, inference, etc. We studied poetry this past year, and she is very familiar with imagery, alliteration, personification, simile, metaphor, etc. What should I be sure to include? I would love if anyone has links or Pinterest boards to share!!!

Check out Heart of Dakota. They have an emerging reader (ER) set, which may be too young for you, or book packs to go along with Drawn Into the Heart of Reading (DITHOR). The books are fantastic, and there is one book from each genre. The first link is for the ER set, and the second link is for the level 2/3 book packs. http://www.heartofdakota.com/emerging-reader.php http://www.heartofdakota.com/drawn-into-optional.php ETA - The "Book Shop" link at the top has books sorted by genre, and each book includes its respective reading level. For the record, my son, who is an average reader, just finished second grade last week. I started him toward the end of the ER set last year (Unit 15), and we skipped the nature reader and Animal Adventures because our library did not carry those titles. He then read Stone Fox, Pioneer Cat, The Littles, The Storm, McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm, Amelia Earhart, and Treasure of Pelican Cove. All of those are great chapter books. He especially loved reading about Mr. McBroom!

If one thing jumps out at me, it is that you spend 2 hours every day reading aloud to your kids. That makes me exhausted just thinking about that! I would find a way to significantly reduce that time, and as many posters have already suggested, I would combine SL Cores. Good luck! We played around with our "gathering time" routine a few times this past year. We finally ended up breaking it up into two distinct times. We started our morning with prayer, Bible, and poetry.. around 10-15 minutes total. It allowed us to ease into our school day, and the kids could check off three boxes before the day really began. ;-) It gave them a sense of accomplishment before we hit our core subjects. After 90 minutes or so, the kids got tired of writing, and we took another break. During this break, the kids ate a quick snack if they wanted one, and we finished up circle time while they relaxed. As soon as that was over, they were refreshed and could give me another 30 to 45 minutes of work. By then, we were done with our 3 Rs and even our science/history readings on super productive days. We then took a very leisurely lunch break, and we completed our school day after that. I would say that we had no written work after lunch on 95% off our days. Most of the time I was reading to them.

what are your thoughts? I want to order a Kindy program for our youngest in the next couple of days, and MP looks like it fits the bill. I would love to hear any and all feedback. Thank you so much. ETA - If you started with MP and it did not work, why not and what did work?