curriculum you thought was great but it ended up NOT being so great?

[razorbackmama]

Is there any curriculum you've used over the years that you THOUGHT was so great at the time, but then you discovered along the way somehow that it either taught stuff incorrectly or it did an inadequate job to prepare your student? You may have known that they weren't "perfect," but you didn't realize just how poorly a job they did.

 

I think perhaps an overall "method" might fall into this as well - classical, CM, unschooling, textbook, you name it.

 

What are those curriculums or methods?

 

ETA: I'm not talking about what "didn't fit" your child or your teaching style or whatever. I'm also not talking about something that you ended up not "liking" as you went along. I'm talking about a curriculum/method that you THOUGHT was working. You liked it, your kids liked it, they were doing well with it, etc. But then LATER you found out that your child was ill-prepared, due to that curriculum/method. Or there were gaps. Or they were behind in general. Etc.

Edited September 8, 2010 by razorbackmama
clarification

[Closeacademy]

For my family:

 

Singapore--I love it and I learned a lot from it but there is not enough practice even with all the various books and guides to juggle. Rod and Staff is a lot more simple and thorough.

 

Tapestry of Grace--great program but it burned us out on history for a long time. It would be best with older kids not for early elementary.

 

Sonlight--loved the idea but my kids don't like to read those kinds of books. They like twaddle.

 

:001_smile:

[AudreyTN]

My Father's World. - In theory, it really is a great program. I just could NOT get it to work for us. I don't know if it was the unit study approach, or if it's the fact that everything is already scheduled.

[SBP]

I don't remember ever thinking it was "great", but I thought that Growing With Grammar was serviceable and efficient and a good fit for us. By the second year, however, I was realizing just how little my DD was learning/retaining. She could fill in the worksheets for that chapter and then just let everything she knew about nouns (or whatever) fall right out of her head. It caught up with her on the diagramming, though, and that became a nightmare.

 

Looking back, I wish we'd either stuck with Shurley or, even better, discovered MCT earlier. We do much better looking at whole sentences rather than studying individual parts of speech in isolation.

 

SBP

[patchfire]

I don't remember ever thinking it was "great", but I thought that Growing With Grammar was serviceable and efficient and a good fit for us. By the second year, however, I was realizing just how little my DD was learning/retaining. She could fill in the worksheets for that chapter and then just let everything she knew about nouns (or whatever) fall right out of her head. It caught up with her on the diagramming, though, and that became a nightmare.

 

Looking back, I wish we'd either stuck with Shurley or, even better, discovered MCT earlier. We do much better looking at whole sentences rather than studying individual parts of speech in isolation.

 

:iagree:

 

Except for the part about Shurley (which we've never used), I could have written this word for word.

[razorbackmama]

I don't remember ever thinking it was "great", but I thought that Growing With Grammar was serviceable and efficient and a good fit for us. By the second year, however, I was realizing just how little my DD was learning/retaining. She could fill in the worksheets for that chapter and then just let everything she knew about nouns (or whatever) fall right out of her head. It caught up with her on the diagramming, though, and that became a nightmare.

 

Looking back, I wish we'd either stuck with Shurley or, even better, discovered MCT earlier. We do much better looking at whole sentences rather than studying individual parts of speech in isolation.

 

SBP

 

Yes, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Where it was working...OR SO YOU THOUGHT. I'm not talking about things you thought were going to be great or just didn't work for your children.

 

For example, my oldest LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES Easy Grammar. It worked (at least I thought it was working). It was easy for me. The methodology makes sense to me (get rid of the prepositional phrases). We used it for a year, when he was in 6th grade. When we got to the end of the year, he had no clue what a noun/verb/anything was.:001_huh:

[MissKNG]

Moving Beyond the Page didn't float my boat.

[Vanna]

Great thread!

 

Saxon Math - it's great, but like others said about other curricula, I just couldn't get it to work for my oldest child (we did Saxon Math 3 and bailed in the middle of 5/4).

 

Shiller Math Kit 2 - a *huge* disappointment. Kit 1 was fab up until the end. The work got so complicated (and different from traditional Math), we just couldn't wrap our heads around it. Kit 2 started out extremely complicated and non-traditional (doing patterns with letters and long numbers; doing division *vertically* like an addition problem, and with remainders!

 

Ex.

17

(symbol for divided by) 3

-----

 

Ditto for Math U See Gamma and Delta. MUS Gamma "rescued" us in the Math department after Shiller left us hanging. Delta had a "funky" way of teaching multi-digit multiplication and division that was just too diff. from traditional. I didn't understand it, ergo, I couldn't explain it to my kids when they didn't understand it.

[Love2Smile]

Sonlight! Too much reading and history was taking all day

[Hedgehog]

Unschooling.. I jumped on the bandwagon with enthusiasm at the beginning, and thoroughly enjoyed the freedom, but "woke up" after about 2 years realising that dc hadn't really learned anything at all. They'd had a blast playing a great deal, but didn't know much; it just hadn't worked for us as a method.

 

Last year I found out about the WTM and classical schooling, did masses of reading, decided it was for us and haven't looked back since. (It's rocky at times but I'm confident it works for us!) :001_smile:

[rootsong]

Ditto the unschooling method. Did not work for us. I too jumped right into "radical unschooling" for a few years with my oldest, realized she was bored out of her mind & had reached her teens without knowing the most basic of basics, then moved into very "relaxed schooling". Yeah, that didn't work either. There wasn't enough structure or consistency, my DD was bored & frustrated. :( She passed her GED & has been in college a few years now, but did have to start in remedial classes. She doesn't understand a lick of geography or history. But she IS a most awesome & wonderful DD. :D I just wish I'd done better with her schooling....

 

On another note, today was our 1st day of school. I was excited to begin History Odyssey ancients, level 2, with my 7th grader. I thought I had done my research, BUT -- there's no answer key. :001_huh::eek: How had I missed that crucial bit of information?! :banghead: Ack!

 

You guys are worrying me with your Growing with Grammar experiences!

[Abbysfriend]

Rocket Phonics...and we were so excited thinking it would rescue us from a rocky start with phonics! Good in theory but in the end it was kinda confusing to teach. Ended up scrapping all the gimmicky phonics and went with Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Duh! That's what happens: first time teaching reading and no confidence...now I can do it with no curriculum at all...

[Crimson Wife]

Right Start C. It's not a bad curriculum, just not right for my DD. We loved, loved, loved B so it was a disappointment that C wasn't a good "fit" for my DD.

[Satori]

Aw, we just started Growing with Grammar today, the first lesson just took 5 minutes. I already know it's not the most earth-shattering grammar program, but we wanted something to practice before we move into MCT. I think we'll be okay, because we're doing FLL 2 at the same time.

 

Starting out, I *almost* got into unschooling, but then found WTM. Whew!

 

As for curriculum that hasn't worked for us, I'd have to say my mistake of trying to use BFSU for almost an entire year and not getting any science done.

[jentancalann]

My Father's World. - In theory, it really is a great program. I just could NOT get it to work for us. I don't know if it was the unit study approach, or if it's the fact that everything is already scheduled.

 

 

Ditto

 

I LOVE MFW, but absolutely can't make it work (aside from K and 1st). I think I just can't teach all my children at the same time. I still think about going back to it often but haven't yet (again, aside from K and 1st- those I love!).

[KarenNC]

I don't remember ever thinking it was "great", but I thought that Growing With Grammar was serviceable and efficient and a good fit for us. By the second year, however, I was realizing just how little my DD was learning/retaining. She could fill in the worksheets for that chapter and then just let everything she knew about nouns (or whatever) fall right out of her head. It caught up with her on the diagramming, though, and that became a nightmare.

 

Looking back, I wish we'd either stuck with Shurley or, even better, discovered MCT earlier. We do much better looking at whole sentences rather than studying individual parts of speech in isolation.

 

SBP

 

Us, too. It looked like GWG was working but the retention was just not there. I'm hoping that MCT combined with Editor in Chief will help (we've just started Town level). For us, I don't know that it was the program as much as the student. I didn't see much better retention from FLL either. She has consistently scored poorly (comparatively) on capitalization and punctuation.

[Tree House Academy]

I really expected Calvert to work for us, but it didn't. It was way too much busy work for my ds and I wasn't able to put him "in the box" so to speak...even coming out of ps.

 

This won't be popular, but CLE LA also didn't work for my ds. I loved it and was a big supporter at first...but after a year with it, my son had no idea what he was doing in grammar (he was using CLE LA 3). It spirals and my son needs the more mastery approach of R&S. I admit, I prefer it too.

[Mandy in TN]

Easy Grammar. It worked (at least I thought it was working). It was easy for me. The methodology makes sense to me (get rid of the prepositional phrases). We used it for a year, when he was in 6th grade. When we got to the end of the year, he had no clue what a noun/verb/anything was.:001_huh:

 

This was also my experience with Easy Grammar with all 3 of my boys.

[~Tara~]

I'm beginning to see the same GwG issue with one of mine. My older two seem to be fine. Eldest is now in 8, having started in 3, he and the next one down are moving right along, no hang ups, no retention issues. The 9 yr old, on the other hand, he's just a different duck all together..but he seems to be having problems truly grasping and retaining anything. We're nearly finished with this book though and I've stepped in and been doing more with him lately, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe just maybe this is more of a 'just needed more time and personal attention' deal as opposed to a curriculum disagreement ;)

 

But I'm looking into a back up plan just in case.

 

I can't really think of anything else I thought was great but ended up being 'not so much'. A couple things I thought would be good, but turned out to not be, for us, but nothing else I thought worked...but in the end..didn't.

[Mosaicmind]

Our second year of home schooling had me trying out Weaver curriculum that A&O puts out now. I thought the concept of teaching all of my kids together at once doing the same period of history would be great. They just never really learned anything about history that year. There was no real structure to it and I felt that it was too confusing with each of them doing something different according to what grade they were in. There was never any good rich literature or biographies for them to sink their teeth into then. Essentially it was putting in information that didn't stick.

 

Sonlight has been great for us because my kids love to read just about anything. They also love to be read to. This year I am actually looking at WP for my ds/12 or possibly TOG but don't know yet.

[meet me in paris]

I also jumped on the unschooling bandwagon for a while. I thought the relaxed approach was going to make them love learning and let them follow their interests. 2 years later I'm still trying to pick up the pieces. I really, really wish I could get those years back.

[funschooler5]

 

You guys are worrying me with your Growing with Grammar experiences!

 

I haven't had this experience with GWG. There seems to be plenty of review throughout, and my kids are retaining quite a bit. This is our second year of it, and so far so good. :001_smile:

 

As far as programs that haven't worked for us....we've been lucky this year. Most things are going well (so far). We are in our third week of school.

 

Having said that, Artistic Pursuits isn't as great as I thought it would be, but I'm sticking with it and hoping it gets better. I think it's just because we've only done Unit 1 so far. I thought there would be more tips on technique, but maybe that comes later.

[Carol in Cal.]

All American History. The vocabulary was too advanced for my advanced reader 5th grader. And the format--starting with backgrounds of all these characters and boring you out of your mind before you got to the 'story'--was deadly for DD. I can see where this would be good if you used it as a jumping off point for lectures, but as a textbook it was lousy, and horribly disappointing compared with Story of the World. I think it would have been fine for maybe 7th grade, though.

[mjpeter]

I know this is going to be an unpopular answer, but Apologia elementary science just didn't work for us. I tried to teach it with all the kids at once, and I had a hard time not losing my youngest son or making it too simple for my older ones.

 

Also, my youngest son (7) has scientific interests all over the place, so he got bored with the same subject after a while. "Can we talk about penguins today instead of space?"

 

I think they are fantastic books, but I couldn't figure out a way to implement them to engage each child. I'm doing much better with a grade specific curriculum.

 

We will use them to supplement the BJU Science we are doing now.

[KarenNC]

Singapore Math was another one for us. I loved it, my girlfriend had had great experience with it, everyone I read on the boards said it was the only thing to do for bright/gifted kids. Unfortunately no one told my daughter she was supposed to love it and thrive with:001_huh:. We finally switched to Saxon this year and it's going really well. So, great curriculum, not great for us.

 

Powerspeak French---(this is the online version of Powerglide). Spent a summer and a not inconsiderable amount of money on it and basically no retention. I think it was a combo of a poor instructional fit and lack of wanting to learn French---it turns out she really wanted to learn Spanish.

[zantoc]

MUS...total bust here!

Rod and Staff English... just too dry for us.

[nd293]

Horizons Maths - I loved the idea of the spiral approach (still do, actually), and loved how colourful it was, but when I stopped to compare, found it not "mathsy" enough, with not enough complex reasoning required. We dropped that one after 1.5 years when she couldn't even vaguely complete a same-grade test from Singapore.

 

Writing Strands - It sounded great, but in practice I could not follow the rationale of the lessons - I couldn't see what she was achieving by completing them, and we dropped it after half a dozen lessons.

 

I think that's the sort of thing that the OP was asking about. FLL also didn't work for us, but that was because I hadn't stopped to think about whether I liked scripted lessons or not. I think that's a pretty big issue in choosing a curriculum in some subjects.

[Jilly]

Singapore Math was another one for us. I loved it, my girlfriend had had great experience with it, everyone I read on the boards said it was the only thing to do for bright/gifted kids. Unfortunately no one told my daughter she was supposed to love it and thrive with:001_huh:. We finally switched to Saxon this year and it's going really well. So, great curriculum, not great for us.

 

:iagree:I could have written this about my eldest son. We also switched to Saxon this year.

[DragonflyAcademy]

Horizons Math.. for the same reasons as nd293 stated.. also MUS.. just not filling in those gaps..

 

I wasn't thrilled with Learning Language Arts Through Literature either.. I felt like it just dipped it's toes into things but never really got into what DS needed to know..

 

I thought WWE was a fantastic program and still do.. but it WWE3 burnt us out last year.. toasty fried...

[johnandtinagilbert]

MUS...I started out in love with it, but as time went on, I realized dd wasn't retaining anything old b/c there wasn't enough review. The dc were bored to tears with the same kind of work daily and the manipulatives were actually a distraction for my now 2nd grader (they worked great for other dc). We did love our "Fractions boot camp" using MUS -- and we like the shortcuts, but otherwise, it's now a supplement and I regret spending so much money in one school year for it. I am Really happy it had great resale.

 

Writing Strands was just boring and never worked for us.

 

Handwriting without Tears oddly didn't fit the bill for us. It got the job done, but after using other programs or areas of study to practice handwriting, it turns out we were doing a lot of work for handwriting that I could have done otherwise. I enjoyed the little rhymes, though.

 

Anything Abeka never gave us any retention.

 

Spelling has been an issue in the past: Spelling Power, Abeka, Rod & Staff --- nothing worked for ds until Phonics Road.

 

Apologia Elem. Sciences we love, but only b/c I tweak them. For the same reasons as an earlier poster, we finish one book in 20 weeks and have to pull out a larger variety of exercises in order to serve our varied ages. Enjoy the reading and easy activities, but it doesn't exactly fit the bill....I haven't found a science yet that pleases me entirely.

[Lori D.]

Easy Grammar, Daily Grams, and Spelling Workout

Thought they'd be simple, and encourage independent working. At the end of the year, discovered there had been absolutely no retention.

 

Artistic Pursuits

Thought this would be the answer to my attempts to do both some art and some art appreciation all in one. Very expensive bust -- so little specific art instruction as to be useless, and the art appreciation portion was too simplistic; in all fairness, if we had used the next level up, it might have been a bit more of a match...

[Guest momk2000]

All American History. I was so excited about using AAH this year, but it only lasted 2 days for us. It's a great curriculum, just better suited for 7th/8th grade.

[Guest Cindie2dds]

I have a lot to list, mostly because we were still very new and getting our feet wet. In order by biggest flop. ;)

 

Winter Promise (Disjointed and random, good book list but nothing went together, not professional)

Artistic Pursuits (Never liked it from day one. Not a lot of instruction for a novice.)

Apologia Science (didn't like the layout and realized I needed secular science)

RightStart Math (way too scripted, felt forced)

Sonlight (In theory, love it. Didn't care for about a quarter of the books, so too much tweaking)

HOD (loved the book selection, but the Faith instruction felt unnatural and too much tweaking)

[Guest aquiverfull]

This won't be popular, but CLE LA also didn't work for my ds. I loved it and was a big supporter at first...but after a year with it, my son had no idea what he was doing in grammar (he was using CLE LA 3).

 

:iagree: We had almost the same exact experience with CLE Language Arts.

 

Also Horizons Math- we used it for 4 years and finally just let it go. It moved too fast for my dd.

[creekmom]

Spelling Power- I was so excited to use it thinking it would work for all my kids at their different stages. It was so time consuming, and I got so tired of all the different spelling activity suggestions that never seemed to work anyway. I also didn't "get" the spelling rules - the text would say something along the lines of -"long a sound can be spelled... " and then it would list a zillion different ways with examples- sooo not helpful. -I love AAS, though.

 

Sequential Spelling - I read in the Sonlight catalog rave reviews about this program. The spelling words given were so weird and uncommon- the program made absolutely no sense to me. I couldn't stand that program!!

 

OPGTR - sorry Jesse, I really didn't like this one. I NEED color- and so do my kids. Also, my son was totally confused when the book showed a capital I like a lower case l. He kept making the L sound instead of the I sound.

 

Writing Strands - I know SWB likes it, but I tried a couple of the books and was bored to tears.

 

Rod and Staff- I wanted to like this one, but every time I opened the book and saw all those little words on every page, I was totally overstimulated.

- Same reason I don't care for Usborne books - too many words and sidenotes to follow.. yuck! I need pages that are clean and inviting- not ones that stress me out!

[i.love.lucy]

CLE Math. I was a big supporter at first, but then realized that dd was just filling in the blanks and was not getting any conceptual understanding at all. We moved on to MM and have had major lightbulbs and retention.

[Guest aquiverfull]

CLE Math. I was a big supporter at first, but then realized that dd was just filling in the blanks and was not getting any conceptual understanding at all. We moved on to MM and have had major lightbulbs and retention.

 

I'm finding this to be true for us as well. We had a really rough day today with CLE Math. I'm about ready to drop it, because I know it is not helping my dd to get true understanding.

[Barb_]

Minimus Latin. I've picked this up repeatedly to use with my elementary aged kids. We do 1/2 of book one or thereabouts and then I slowly realize it's mostly about projects and coloring and fun stuff but they aren't actually learning any Latin. I continually make the same mistake because it's so darned cute! Maybe I should just sell it and get it over with.

 

Barb

[Joker]

CLE - the first time I held the Language Arts lightunits in my hand I knew they weren't going to work. I thought the math would be good. We're working our way through it this year but I am doing a lot of instruction/explanation on my own. There just doesn't seem to be "enough" there. I have the TE's too and its not that much more than what the students get. R&S for English is what we went back to and it is awesome. Math is hard because it seems they get too "used" to one curriculum. They learn how to do it for that one and sometimes the crossover is hard. I don't like to stick with one math for too long.

[razorbackmama]

I have to admit, what sparked this thread iss my experience with MUS. :blushing: I really liked it at first, my kids were doing well with it, they like it, etc. But my 5th grader cannot tell time, and my 6th grader can barely measure. And neither one of them have any concept of what multiplication is except as a rectangle. I had already decided to switch, but today when I gave the MM placement tests, I realized just how many gaps MUS is leaving. My 5th grader is placing into MM 2 (and I will need to touch on the 1st grade time unit), and my BRIGHT in math 6th grader is placing into MM 3. Sigh.

 

R&S English is another one that they haven't learned that much with, but I think that's more of a learning style issue rather than actual gaps in the curriculum.

[Plucky]

I haven't had this experience with GWG. There seems to be plenty of review throughout, and my kids are retaining quite a bit. This is our second year of it, and so far so good. :001_smile:

 

As far as programs that haven't worked for us....we've been lucky this year. Most things are going well (so far). We are in our third week of school.

 

Having said that, Artistic Pursuits isn't as great as I thought it would be, but I'm sticking with it and hoping it gets better. I think it's just because we've only done Unit 1 so far. I thought there would be more tips on technique, but maybe that comes later.

 

Yes, we love GWG and retention is definitely not a problem here. I switched to CLE for math and LA a few years ago based on reviews here and hated it.

[Cindyz]

I have to admit, what sparked this thread iss my experience with MUS. :blushing: I really liked it at first, my kids were doing well with it, they like it, etc. But my 5th grader cannot tell time, and my 6th grader can barely measure. And neither one of them have any concept of what multiplication is except as a rectangle. I had already decided to switch, but today when I gave the MM placement tests, I realized just how many gaps MUS is leaving. My 5th grader is placing into MM 2 (and I will need to touch on the 1st grade time unit), and my BRIGHT in math 6th grader is placing into MM 3. Sigh.

 

This is one of the reasons I supplement. In my very short career of homeschooling, I haven't found a curriculum that I thought was out of this world and could stand on its own. I am open minded though and something could eventually bloom. My guess is that it's good for kids to look at the same thing from different angles in order for it to sink in. It doesn't always have to be multiple full curriculums, but one main and a second supplemental.

[ElizabethB]

MUS.

 

My daughter wasn't really learning much with it, although I had friends who liked it and it seemed to work for them. This was for Primer and Alpha, I didn't really think it mattered, I'm fairly good at math and thought that just about anything should work for teaching basic addition as long as it wasn't fuzzy math.

 

She's learned so much more with Singapore and my mom is now a homeschool fan and wants the children's old Singapore books so she can finally learn math!

 

I also taught whole language for a month with my first tutoring student in 1994, but I never really thought that was working all that well, she learned 3 words in a month. They sure made it sound great, though, I was sold until I saw the actual results with an actual student.

[Tress]

BFSU and Math on the Level.

 

Both of these programs are really open ended and are more teachers resources than actual programs. Being very science/math minded I thought I could easily do this.....uhm, no :001_huh:. Apparently I need more help, sigh. We use Singapore PM and a Dutch science curriculum now, both are working great.

[mazakaal]

I had the same problems with Growing With Grammar and Easy Grammar that others have posted - no retention.

 

I also eventually rejected Latina Christina because it was sooooo boring and just didn't seem to have enough teaching and practice of the concepts. About all ds seemed to get from it was the vocabulary.

 

And I wasn't happy with Classical Writing either, but that may have just been that it didn't agree with my boys. They couldn't stand it and I didn't like it very much either.

[mamakelly]

Gosh I can't even remember the name now, it's that Spelling Program that's on cd that Veritas Press sells. My kids hated it, and no one learned how to spell, LOL!

[Alphabetika]

Memoria Press Latin.

 

My dd went on to taking Latin online, doing wonderfully, and loving Latin. But our beginning was a bit rocky. ;)

[sassenach]

Sonlight. I really love the books, but after 3 years, dd retained little more than happy feelings. It's a LOT of time spent, for not much gained. That said, we loved most of the books. A complete program, it is not.

 

MUS is actually one that I had fears about, and now that my dd is in public school I am realizing that it did a pretty good job. Even though I heard repeatedly that the mus pre algebra was weak, she is doing great in Algebra 1 this year. And she is not a mathy kid.

[tuesdayschild]

Writing Tales

 

Apologia Astronomy

 

(shall I duck and run? ;))

[Laura Corin]

Trail Guide to World Geography. I wanted to like it, but too many of the questions did not correspond to the text books that were recommended. I was looking for an easy, open and go course, but I couldn't get it to work like that.

 

Laura