A good friend of mine started Phonics Road last year with her kindergardener, and had great success. And her son had no previous phonics instruction. She's not on this forum, but I'll see if I can get her to come on and tell her experience. She's been very pleased so far. -hth

Thank you so much. You have all saved me a lot of money!

Sorry, I know the abbreviations can be confusing sometimes. My son is interested, and up until recently I thought I was going to be able to teach him to write without a fancy curriculum. But he has started confusing his bow-hold (he's takes a Suzuki violin class) with the proper pencil hold, which he had almost perfectly down. We have had so many battles about it lately that I thought I need to try something that goes about it a bit more gently and it seems like HWT does that. Hence, the name, right? We don't do a lot of school work, yet, but I'm trying to prevent him from developing bad habits. It's something I've read lots of moms on here say time and again--to try to nip certain bad habits in the bud when they are young. So, I'm trying. I know he won't have the perfect textbook hold, but the bow-hold on a pencil looks so uncomfortable. One of the things I did to help him develop fine motor skills was have him work with lacing cards and things like that for a while. BTW, I have 2 yo daughter, too.

Thank you! This is exactly the kind of information I needed.

I'm looking at this curriculum for my 4 yo DS. There seems like there is a lot of manipulatives that go with it, which is great, but I'm just trying to figure out which ones are essential for the program to work and would love recommendations from those who have used it. Thank you in advance!

I guess my main concern has more to do with the fact that these books are written for children who are still learning proper grammar. I do understand appreciating these books if it is what gets your child to read. I remember reading The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease and he wrote that teachers of ESL classes would use books like Sweet Valley High to improve reading skills--and it worked! I know Charlotte Mason is against "twaddle", which I agree with in principle, but, sometimes, if a little twaddle gets someone reading than I think there's a place for it. IMHO

Andrew Campbell's Living Memory has a good guide in the introduction for doing poetry and memory work in general.

Has anyone else noticed this? A friend of mine said something to me about it the other day. I picked one up and it took about 2 seconds for me to find a "sentence" that had no subject. How do you have a sentence with no subject? My DS4 is just beginning to read, but I'm glad she alerted me to this fact before I bought any.

Classical Academic Press just came out with Song School Greek. I haven't used it, yet, but if it's anything like Song School Latin, I'm sure it's a lot of fun. -Nancy-- if you find your kids are moving through SSL faster than expected, I've found Minimus to be a great bridge between SSL and Latin for Children. I've barely begun homeschooling my own kids, but I'm the Latin teacher at our local co-op. One of the things I've learned so far is that it's a pretty big leap from SSL to LFC. I don't know if CAP plans to fill this gap. -hth

The layout looks similar to MOTH. Is that what you used? I love that she makes you think what each child is doing at each time.

You could go the route of teaching spelling by using a program that incorporates the phonics rules. Some programs like this teach reading by teaching spelling. This is how programs like AAS, SWR, and The Writing Road to Reading work. I love this concept because you are killing two birds with one stone.

I would love to know about this, too. I love the idea of combining RightStart and Singapore.

I was trying to use AAS for teaching reading, but found it to be more complex for that purpose than was necessary. I recently bought Alpha Phonics and I don't think I've seen a phonics curriculum that is so simple and easy to use and my son is actually starting to read;-) I do think AAS is a great curriculum and look forward to using it for spelling. I love that it will help reinforce the phonics rules and teach spelling at the same time.

I teach Latin at our co-op, and use Song School Latin. Yes, some of the songs are a bit annoying, but at least with Song School you know they're designed to be silly. Maybe Prima Latina is, too; I haven't used that one. My son actually requests the songs in the car. I do think Song School Latin makes a great introduction to Latin for young children, and it's inexpensive.

I am very new to homeschooling, so I have no pictures, but I love history and am slated to teach the history component of our co-op next year. I love the template from Tanglewood because of the flexibility that you mentioned and think it's worth checking out: http://www.tanglewoodeducation.com/orderT.htm Scroll down to the bottom to the "Book of Centuries". It's inexpensive, you can reuse it as often as you want/need, and it's perfect for using in page protectors. I hadn't thought of having different paper color for the different periods, but I think that's a great idea. Good luck!

I have the new edition of WTM and it is not listed in the sources or the index. I'd love to know what she thinks of it, too.

I went to PS and I don't remember, although I don't think it was necessarily true. A few years ago when I was working at a PS I know teachers could choose whichever curriculum they liked from some state approved curriculum. I'm someone who always did really well in math, even in college, but the thing that always made math understandable was not the textbook but the teacher. I remember so many times looking at the next topic and thinking I would never be able to figure it out then the teacher would get up and walk us through the problems and everything would make perfect sense (and if they were really good they would show more than one way to do the problems--which is probably why more than one curriculum might be good). Just my thoughts on the subject.

I wonder this, too. I'm new to this group, but have really appreciated it, so far.

I haven't read Ruth Beechick's book, so I can only speak from personal experience here. As someone who grew up in our wonderful public schools, I never really understood English grammar until I went to college and started studying Greek and Latin. It made me far more aware of how English worked than I had ever been before. hth

Lisa: When you say you want to get all the phonogram cards, does that mean that the curriculum doesn't come with all of them? Thank you for all the information. I definitely want to try doing it this way, if I can. Mainly because I've already begun teaching my DS his phonograms using the cards that I bought from the Spalding company. I've decided not to use the Spalding method for a variety of reasons, but I still very much like the philosophy--which is why I want to use AAS. I was looking at other phonics curriculums, but find it confusing that many of them teach the different sounds a phonogram make separately (first focussing on the short a, instead of all the sounds a can make) Heather: Thanks for the info on the reading forum; I will definitely check it out. I do like the idea of a spelling program that reinforces reading skills, even if the child is already reading.

I taught Latin in our co-op using Song School Latin with first graders without a problem. In fact, I had students that were as young as four and still learning to read. It is very low key and a great way for kids to get their feet wet. I think Minimus makes a great bridge between Song School Latin and Latin for Children. hth

Cathy Duffy says that AAS is also a reading program. Have any of you use it like this? If so, how did it work?

Remember that for most books on Amazon, when you spend more than $25 you get FREE shipping. That might be a good reason for getting the new one.

Your daughter's desire to learn Greek reminds of something one of my college Greek professors once said: The only reason to learn Latin is because it helps you learn Greek. I don't entirely agree, but I remember thinking that was pretty funny. On another note, one of things I like about Classical Academic Press is that they give the option of Classical or Ecclesiastical pronunciation. However, I do think it's a pretty big leap from Song School Latin to Latin for Children. Minimus looks like a good curriculum to use in between. Plus, Minimus adds a nice "fun" factor that kids may need sometimes when learning Latin.

Ditto!! I love getting used books for that reason. If you can't start with pen or highlighters--start with a nice pencil. It won't seem quite as abrasive while you're getting your feet wet.