I will just tell you our experience with both types of programs. My son, age 10, was in the school system for years. They were doing the phonics approach. One teacher was able to make a little headway with this approach, but as soon as he moved on to a new teacher the next year, even though we practiced over the summer, all that information vanished for him. So, at age 10 we pulled him from the school and enrolled in a homeschool charter. That charter happened to have a very expensive sight reading program called PCI on hand that we took home and started using. He immediately was able to start reading sight words. He has trouble with words that are not nouns, so we have taken the program slowly, adding in our own high interest words, and making our own books along with those the program has. He learns high interest sight words extremely quickly. We started homeschooling in April last year, we practiced during the summer, but did not add many new words as our living situation was in limbo and all our stuff was packed. So, even with a break from learning new material over the summer, he has a sight word vocabulary of about 25 words. That is a huge deal! He is able to read books we make for him, and books that came with the program we are using from our charter. This year, the resource teacher with the charter happens to be the teacher who was able to get him using phonics to sound out cvc words, so we decided to start introducing that slowly. So far, he has learned 4 phonograms, and is abel to read the first B.O.B. book. He is much more intuitive about what in the heck is going on with sounding out sounds to make a word than he was a couple years ago, so time and maturity have helped. In the book "Teaching Reading to Children with Down Syndrome", the author supports doing what works for the child. If phonics are not working, do sight words. If phonics becomes appropriate, add that in. So, in a nut shell, that is what we are doing. Lots of trial and error and customizing our approach to give my son maximum success. I want him to want to work hard, so right now, we are not making things challenging, we are making them exciting. If that means half his sight words are the names of superheroes and Pokemon, that's okay. He is having success. I tried to add in a couple new phonics last week. That was too many, so I will back up and add in one, and we have started to combine our phonics words with sight words in our books. It is SLOW going, but it is pretty special that we are finally getting somewhere. :)

Man, I love Ellen McHenry stuff. Thanks for the heads up!

I do, but you have to be willing to slash things. For example, we do the Bible readings and the scheduled devotional, but we don't do any of the Bible stories suggested. We do the geography readings and the activities in Geography Through Art, but we don't do the geography curriculum spine at all, and we use the maps provided by Wayfarers on the same day they are scheduled, but we slowly work on the map that corresponds to our Geography novel rather than what is suggested. So, we just make it work for us. I'm a box checker, and I had to learn to also be a "crosser-outter" because Wayfarers is more like a Menu of coordinated suggestions rather than a list you have to accomplish, if that makes sense. For me, it saves lots of time, and it's enjoyable. :)

I have a sample of RLTL on my computer. I had AAR, and AAS on hand already, but RLTL is really speaking to me. AAR isn't working very well for us at the moment, but I paid a lot of money for it, so I kind of want to at least get one pass through it. It's definitely on my radar, though, especially as it is so much more affordable, and I already love everything else by the company.

Thank you for all the input. It is much appreciated! My child with Down syndrome is my 10 year old. It is our first full year homeschooling. :) We are enjoying ourselves very much. I really appreciate all your ideas and anecdotes. :) Great info.

One issue with have with teaching my son who has Down syndrome is that he needs an insane amount of repetition to commit some types of information to long term memory, which is essential for him given his degree of struggle with short term/working memory, and he gets WAY bored. Anyway, we have a few very simple, short, sweet academic IEP goals. The goals are doable, and I am in the process of making a list of ideas to address each goal that will mix it up a bit for my son so school time doesn't get tedious. I would appreciate if you would read over what we are working on, and let me know of activities that come to mind that I can add to my lists. Thank you!! Working on writing his last name. Currently he needs to trace it, and we are working toward writing it independently with a model to reference. Working on the sounds m, a, p, s, t (and will add more if we get these down) and blending to make words. Working on high frequency and/or high interest sight words. Working on counting to 20, especially getting through the teens. And working on counting by 5's and 10's to 100. He is able to count to 100 by 1's once he gets past those tricky teens. Working on learning his phone number, and being able to dial it on a keypad. This includes a numeral recognition component. He is still not 100% on that. We have other goals and things we are working on as well, but these are the things that are really hard for him. He learns life skills much more easily and naturally. The 3R's is where I need to have a lot of tools in my repertoire in order to help him succeed, and also keep boredom and frustration at bay. Thanks!

I'm loving reading this. Just confirmation that each family is so unique, and what works for one doesn't work for another at all. I think it would be so interesting to also somehow get a sense of each families philosophy of education, unique family dynamics, and especially the teaching/learning style of the main homeschooling parent. It all factors in so much to what works and what doesn't. I have personally found that if a curriculum is a "fit" for me, it will work for my students, but if it is not a good fit for me, even if it is engaging to my students, in the long run it goes by the wayside. Anyway, loves and hates for this year: LOVES Wayfarers Curriculum Guide - not a curriculum per se, but more of a menu that coordinates options for me so I don't have to be a genius and finding and scheduling quality classical education books, curriculum, etc, and so far, I LOVE what I am getting out of this. Very easy to pick and choose and customize. Keeps my life simple. I need simple. Math-U-See - Should have gone with my gut about this when we started homeschooling, but went with the "new, best thing". This program really works for me and my family. So Solid. Simple. Story of the World - Part of Wayfarers. Simple, solid, engaging, easy to go deeper with activities and additional reading. Quark Chronicles - Part of Wayfarers. I love it, the kids beg for it. Great way to tie in different levels of science. English Lessons Through Literature - Writing and grammar program in one. Simple, doable. Love it. Handwriting Without Tears - Simple, works. Dislikes All About Reading - I like All About Spelling, so I assumed I would like AAR, but it goes too fast for us, the books and much of the material has really small font for a new beginner, and there is not much in the way of supplemental material for a child who needs to take it slower. Not loving this one. It is a great program, but not working for us.

I was going to suggest studied dictation as well. It has been a big help to my son, who does well with other parts of our program similar to WWE, but struggles with dictation. I give him a smaller portion of the dictation, and I have him study that portion before hand very intently for a few minutes. Then we proceed with the exercise. Much better results.

That is such great feedback! MUS is so doable in our homeschool day compared to the other math we tried, that is is easy for me to think it can't possibly be enough, yet as you have found, my children's knowledge in math is very solid.

We are falling in love with good old Math U See this year for that very reason. Simple, straightforward, not a huge long lesson, but effective.

I like ELTL much better than FLL. Just a delightful, gentle, yet smart and comprehensive approach. With FLL we had to add other programs as well to get a full program, but with ELTL you get to stop juggling like that.

Did you e-mail the author your questions? She is really responsive and helpful. We are doing ELTL 3. We have the workbook, and it aligns perfectly with what we have. We do do the reading. I have my son read the chapter on his own before we start, and I have him keep me abreast of what is happening in the story, which works on comprehension and narration skills in a practical, natural way. We do not have a reading program, as I feel ELTL addresses that. My son does, however, chaos other books beside the ELTL book to read. We do use All About Spelling, and we use it on Tuesday and Thursday, and we do ELTL on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. This is how it is scheduled in the Wayfarers curriculum planner from the same publisher. Perhaps you are using it too many times a week? In Wayfarers, ELTL is 3 days a week and spelling work is 2 days a week. I am a huge ELTL fan as I feel it is comprehensive in itself, and very straightforward for me. If we hadn't already been accustom to AAS, I would be using prepared dictation as outlined in the ELTL manual for our spelling work as well.

I had that idea this summer, too. We ordered IEW through our charter, and we just started ELTL a couple weeks back. This is for our 3rd grader who was struggling in writing last year--extremely bright child, but writing is not happening with the same ease. IEW has not arrived yet, but I am kind of regretting purchasing it as ELTL is working so very nicely for him. Not sure I am even going to crack open the IEW, and if I do, I'm not totally sure how to work it in. Maybe as a special assignment once and a while, as ELTL looks as though you can skip a lesson here or there and not loose too much ground.

Check out English Lessons Through Literature. Love it.

Yes, the Van Cleave--at least so far. We are new at this. :)

We have lightly started our year, and at the moment just having individual sheets of paper, includings from accompanying notebooks, but I am debating how to organize it all. I might put completed work in file folders, but I also really love the idea of a study main lesson book and just having the kids do their work in that. Anyway, interested to see if others have ideas. It is such an enjoyable program.

Yep, this. Money has not been an issue, thankfully, but time sure it!

Man, I have spent so many months on working through these questions for my group of kiddos. We used to use Sonlight happily last year when we had just one kiddo homeschooling. When we decided to add both our other children, I knew we would need something that would not have me doing several Sonlight cores at once. In the spring we set aside Sonlight and tried TOG for our unit on Rome. That did not work for us at all, and now we are enthusiastically using Wayfarers for a month now. I have not used Biblioplan, but it was a strong contender for a while! :) Anyway, here is my rundown of the two programs I have used: TOG is way expensive, and for what it was for us, way, way, way too complicated and involved for me to feel like I was getting a break from simply doing three completely different sets of history. We only used one unit, and I only hung with it for a few weeks. I know so many families love it, and we did enjoy the literature selections very much, but as far as curriculum, it didn't work us. I need simple, and TOG was overwhelming. Wayfarers is what we are using this year, and I am so thrilled with it. So thrilled. It fits my needs for something well laid out, comprehensive yet simply presented, affordable, easy to accommodate my levels of kids, easy to switch-up and customize, yet the backbone of the program keeps me organized and moving in a general direction. As a bonus, it also keeps the kids together in studies of science, music, and art. The author seems to have budget in mind, and a lot of the books are easily found at the library, or public domain. If you sign up for her newsletter, you get a free e-book she wrote called "A Walk in the Park", which was helpful for me to understand where she is coming from, and how she intended a homeschool day to look with the Wayfarers guide. I just found myself saying "Amen" to her philosophy, experience, and ideas. I think what is important to understand between Wayfarers, and Biblioplan, TOG, and others, is Wayfarers does not do the teaching--it does have some discussion focus, lovely art to study, and plenty of advice or guidance, but it is really intended as a planner that guides your choice of literature (sort of like TOG), and then schedules them for you so the literature reinforce the geography, history, and science spines. It also schedules special activities, experiments, and electives like art and music. You can do all of it, some of it, change it around. It is really adaptable, and the outline, as I'm sure you have seen, is delightfully simple. Very easy for this mom to use. It is Classical and Charlotte Mason all at once (win, win in my book). Every family is different, but this is what works for us to combine our kids for our content subjects. The other curriculum offered by Barefoot Curriculum is also excellent and affordable. :) We use ELTL and the Handwriting curriculum.

Our plan is to focus on prayer and a devotion for a few minutes, then do our readings (living books) for Geography, and/or History, and/or Science... Whatever is scheduled for us in our Wayfarers curriculum. Projects for those subjects will be completed after lunch time. For my house, if Morning Basket is going to be "a thing", it can't require that I put down my coffee cup at all, thus a focus on reading, discussing, and prayer. ;)

I have a couple lists I really like gathered: the list in our Wayfarers curriculum, and a Sonlight Catalogue. From those couple lists, I choose books that look appealing to my family, that fit with what we are studying, or that are just highly esteemed by people I admire. The year we did Sonlight, I really appreciated how they go back and forth between books of different genres, settings, and tone, and just sort of break it up that way so you don't end up with book after book of very deep topics or difficult reading. There are lots of lighter subjects, humorous books, and easy reads as well. We tend to do a LOT of books, so I have also started getting the lighter topic books as audiobooks, as I don't anticipate having to stop to explain or discuss much along the way.

I've been checking out Wayfarers by Barefoot Ragamuffin Curricula for similar reasons. It has science (light on experiments!), History, and Geography combine for all age groups. It is a schedule, complete with all subjects, that you can pick and choose what you want to "plug in" to it for your group. The schedules are inexpensive, and then you will need to purchase or check out the books you want to use with it. Barefoot Ragamuffin is the same publisher that puts out ELTL that so many people love. It looks really neat, you can pick and choose what your want, and you can find materials based on what you have available at the library, or what is interesting to you.

My 10yo son has Down syndrome. Awesome kid. Learning to read this year! Math is SO hard for him. Still working on counting and recognizing numbers past 20. He is learning to use a calculator to add. Currently I am using the book "Teaching Math to People with Down Syndrome". It's okay. I will stick with it if I can't find something better. I would like a math system for him that is highly visual, extremely repetitive in ways that mix it up a bit so it doesn't get boring, and moves toward functional math skills quickly. Man, I wish MUS had such a program. I can't go with them because we need something that really just focuses on basics of getting by in life, otherwise that approach with manipulatives, the videos (my son LOVES Steve Demme), and lots of practice is great. Any ideas for me?

My son is 10 and has Down syndrome. Until March of this year he was in a self contained special education classroom, which about an hour at the end of the day integrated in a general education classroom. The approach taken by the school was to teach phonics. Unfortunately, my son has a lot of problems with retaining learning, especially of abstract concepts, so he was basically still working on learning the alphabet at age 10. We pulled him from school for a variety of reasons, and I decided to teach him sight reading because of what is recommended in the book "Teaching Reading to Children with Down Syndrome". Well, I will tell you, that has been successful. He still does not know all the letters of the alphabet, but he is learning whole words. He is most successful with nouns (concrete representation), and especially with high interest words. We are using a program called PCI Reading Program, in addition to adding high interest words. We are making a lot of books, and he is reading them. If he can't remember a word (for example, "this" and "the") we teach him the sign language for that word and sign it together when he gets to the difficult words, and that helps him have a concrete representation of that word and it becomes easier to remember. We do not master a new word completely before moving onto a new one, and we cannot go more than two days without reviewing his word list and reading his books or he starts to loose words. BUT, it is amazing to me that he is making progress. My feeling is that as he becomes more and more accustom to the practice of reading, and he matures, he may eventually be able to be taught to decode words, but I think we are a long time off from that, and we need to take what we can get!

Thank you for the suggestions. And, too bad we aren't neighbors, we would have so much to talk about. Congratulations on your adoption! <3 <3

We used Life of Fred exclusively last year (our first year homeschooling) and that was fun, but by the end of 2nd grade I realized we had not touched on a lot of math topics considered part of the standards for our state. I want to continue LOF as supplement material next year, but want a backbone program to keep us closer to the standards (doesn't have to be exact). I also will have a Kindergartener next year who is "high needs" and my oldest who has Down syndrome, so I can't have a program that will take a lot of prep or a lot of one-on-one time with my 3rd grader. He's a math guy, and very independent, but even so, I'm reluctant to do TT or other internet based program as our main curriculum. I'm drawn toward Beast Academy, but am concerned it might fall under the same issues we had with LOF as a stand alone. Anyway, thank you for your ideas and input!