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

[Devotional Soul]

We really liked MFW K. But then the next year, I realized some aspects of the phonics lessons that caused problems later. When we ventured into the world of letters that make more than one sound, my ds felt somewhat betrayed and discouraged to learn that the English language consists of more than short vowel cvc words and then there's silent letters and letters making the sounds of other letters.

 

If I could go back, I would have initially introduced all of the sounds of each letter right from the beginning to give a realistic foundation.

Edited September 9, 2010 by Devotional Soul

[scrappyhappymama]

THIS is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. When stuff is working, till you find out that it actually WASN'T.:tongue_smilie:

 

For us, this was Saxon 2. I loved and defended Saxon K. I loved and defended Saxon 1. I loved and defended Saxon 2... until the middle of the year when we hit the "oddball" addition facts and I said, "what?!" :001_huh::confused::001_huh::confused:

 

Up until that point, I thought that all the "doubles plus one" and "sums of ten" were teaching my son math the way I'd never learned- beyond simply memorizing the facts. But then we hit the oddballs, and he was just supposed to memorize them. It didn't work at all, and was especially annoying when I could see ways they could have been taught logically without just memorizing. So I started looking around, and eventually gave my son the Grade 1 end of year test for Math Mammoth, and I was able to see holes in his learning. This was all really frustrating, because my son is very math-intuitive, and I thought I was doing the best for him by using the rigorous Saxon math. I had refused to consider other maths, because I didn't want to "fix what was working." So when I discovered it really wasn't, I was annoyed to say the least.

 

We dropped Saxon and started MEP to fill in until I could order MM, and already my son is seeing math in a new light. And out of the blue, he recently brought up the Saxon "oddball" facts and said, "Mama, I know they said to just memorize the oddballs, but why didn't they just tell me to make a ten and then add the rest?" :D

[razorbackmama]

We really liked MFW K. But then the next year, I realized some aspects of the phonics lessons that caused problems later. When we ventured into the world of letters that make more than one sound, my ds felt somewhat betrayed and discouraged to learn that the English language consists of more than short vowel cvc words and then there's silent letters and letters making the sounds of other letters.

 

If I could go back, I would have initially introduced all of the sounds of each letter right from the beginning to give a realistic foundation.

 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh you just reminded me of another!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

BJU READING and word families in particular. Sigh. I had to reteach my child how to read from the FRONT of the word because he was looking at the end FIRST (because that's what word families are all about).

 

I specifically am frustrated now with BJU on DVD because they encourage you to NOT have the child sound out the word and to have the child pick up what the word might mean from context, etc. Now that I know more about phonics instruction, I know that this is the absolutely wrong approach to take. (And the more I learn about dyslexia, the more I see where this might encourage dyslexic tendencies in people who are wired that way.)

[Guest aquiverfull]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh you just reminded me of another!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

BJU READING and word families in particular. Sigh. I had to reteach my child how to read from the FRONT of the word because he was looking at the end FIRST (because that's what word families are all about).

 

 

This reminded me of our experience as well. We used BJU for beginning reading and the world families turned out to be a huge disaster for us as well. I also had to go back and remediate my dd with Reading Reflex.

 

Also we had the same exact experience with BJU English and Grammar which we used for 3 years. I thought my dd was doing fine, she could pass all the tests. When orally quizzing her she couldn't tell you what a verb, noun, adjective was...etc. I think she just got really great at learning how to fill in the blanks.

 

And I already answered in this thread but when I listed CLE LA and Horizons Math I was answering your original question. I thought both were going great while we were using them, but realized just how little my dd retained. CLE we used for only one year but Horizons was a 4 year deal.

 

Now we have been using CLE Math since last year and just started this years lightunits and I'm beginning to see the same problems we had with CLE LA. I think I'm about to jump ship from the math to something that will give my dd true understanding of the concepts being presented.

Edited September 9, 2010 by aquiverfull

[johnandtinagilbert]

My answer stays the same :)

 

Spelling Power --- A's on every test but after a year or two, I realized nothing translated.

 

MUS -- A's across the board, mostly 100% even, then when she picked up another program, she had no idea how to do any of the work...ditto with the then 1st grader.

 

100EZL was the worst for this. B/c they were reading, I thought all was well....that blew up in about the middle of 2nd grade for sure!