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R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish - Initial Review


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I'm glad you are enjoying it, as we are. One thing we are doing with the vocabulary cards is to put the Spanish on one side and an illustration on the other rather than the English. My husband (who is the one leading this part of homeschooling) wants to encourage our daughter to bypass the translating as much as possible and make the direct connections to the concepts to hopefully speed up her ability to use it without first translating it in her head. It doesn't hurt that my daughter loves to draw, so that's an extra incentive to make the vocabulary cards.;)

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I'm glad you are enjoying it, as we are. One thing we are doing with the vocabulary cards is to put the Spanish on one side and an illustration on the other rather than the English. My husband (who is the one leading this part of homeschooling) wants to encourage our daughter to bypass the translating as much as possible and make the direct connections to the concepts to hopefully speed up her ability to use it without first translating it in her head. It doesn't hurt that my daughter loves to draw, so that's an extra incentive to make the vocabulary cards.;)

 

Great idea, I had planned to do that with the words as much as possible. Good to know it makes sense as well. :)

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I'm glad you are enjoying it, as we are. One thing we are doing with the vocabulary cards is to put the Spanish on one side and an illustration on the other rather than the English. My husband (who is the one leading this part of homeschooling) wants to encourage our daughter to bypass the translating as much as possible and make the direct connections to the concepts to hopefully speed up her ability to use it without first translating it in her head. It doesn't hurt that my daughter loves to draw, so that's an extra incentive to make the vocabulary cards.;)

 

This is a good idea in general although I have to tell you I have had students for whom having the English word worked better than the pictures. Not only did they translate in their head regardless of the ilustration, but also got the meaning wrong *even with pictures I thought were impossible to be misunderstood*....

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This is a good idea in general although I have to tell you I have had students for whom having the English word worked better than the pictures. Not only did they translate in their head regardless of the ilustration, but also got the meaning wrong *even with pictures I thought were impossible to be misunderstood*....

 

Since we are having her draw the pictures, hopefully that will lessen the risk. She's very visual, so I think it may work well for her. I, on the other hand, would do better with the word, but then, I don't get pictures of stories and such in my head when I read---I see the words printed on the page.:) Visual in a different way, perhaps?

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Doh, yes! I was in bed last night, should have been asleep. elementary spanish.

 

I'm going to be combining REAL Homeschool Spanish with the Discovery Streaming middle school program next year, since we'll have DS for the first time. I think they are by the same folks, so I'm hoping they work well together.:)

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Elementary Spanish is so easy to use, and since we already have the Discovery Education Streaming subscription, I intend to keep using the entire program. Some of the vocabulary will be nicely reinforced.

 

I hope to also use Getting Started with Spanish for the grammar work now and then.

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Would you say this program is more of a parts-to-whole or whole-to-parts type program?

 

My understanding & an example:

Latina Christiana is parts-to-whole (learn vocab & grammar, then put it together in the form of prayers/songs or Latin sayings).

 

Minimus is whole-to-parts (give sentences first in context, then add some key words of vocab & grammar as necessary to understand the conversations).

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I haven't used either of those programs, so I'm not really sure which one it is, but I can try to explain again.

 

REAL Homeschool Spanish presents a vocabulary list and phrases to use with the new words. It's that simple. Minimal grammar is presented. Focus is on conversational speaking fluency.

 

I intend to use another program along with it that is more grammar-focused. The author thinks that will "bog down" the student, but I don't think it will for us.

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Would you say this program is more of a parts-to-whole or whole-to-parts type program?

 

My understanding & an example:

Latina Christiana is parts-to-whole (learn vocab & grammar, then put it together in the form of prayers/songs or Latin sayings).

 

Minimus is whole-to-parts (give sentences first in context, then add some key words of vocab & grammar as necessary to understand the conversations).

 

I'm of the parts-to-whole camp, so Minimus didn't work for us. I think this program would work really well with a grammar-focused course, like GSWS if you prefer something very simple, or SfC for the next level up. So even if it's immersion, I think it's fine for kids (not for me because I'm not a little kid and can't absorb a language just like that) but I would add in some grammar just so that the kid can get a better picture of how this language works.

 

I don't think this immersion method would be good for Latin, but that's another topic.

 

I think we still need 15 more people to buy to get 40% off :D!

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I thought it said within 10 days? It usually isn't instant because the company that sells the curriculum sends the download link, so HSBC will send them the data, and they'll use that data to send out a link.

 

Thanks, as long as I'm not the odd-man out. When I ordered Arrow, it was really quick.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I wanted to thank you for posting your review of this! I ordered it a couple days ago from HSBC, and can't wait until I can download it next week! :001_smile: For anyone interested, you have until 11:59PM Pacific time on Sunday to order the digital version for $29.97!

 

Now I just need to figure out if it will be worth it to have this one printed at Office Depot or somewhere or print it myself. :001_smile:

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