FLL3 vs. R&S vs. CLE

[3monkeys]

We are doing FLL2 right now and considering switching to R&S or CLE next year. Can someone with experience of both explain to me the big differences with these programs? Pros & Cons?

[Bloggermom]

I don't have experience with R&S, but my kids love CLE. I don't think you could go wrong with it.

[boscopup]

My experience is with FLL3 and R&S3...

 

I used R&S3 last summer, doing the first unit with my newly 2nd grade son (who understands grammar easily). It went a bit slow for him still, and I had to combine some lessons because the topics being taught didn't require 2-3 lessons for him to understand. One was enough. I do like R&S3 much better than R&S2. Diagramming is introduced in lesson 6, IIRC. The diagramming stays simple. They use skeleton diagrams, so if the sentence is more complex, you're still only finding certain parts (simple subject, simple predicate, compound subject, compound predicate). I prefer to move a little quicker with the diagramming. There are plenty of exercises if your child doesn't understand, and if you have a child that struggles with grammar, I think R&S can be an excellent choice because it is slow and gentle. Note that the review is in the TM. There is daily oral review in each lesson that is not in the student text. It is a spiral review. At the end of the unit, we were still reviewing dictionary details learned in the first couple lessons, but it was ALL in that oral review that is only in the TM.

 

Since my son didn't need slow and gentle (quite the opposite), I switched over to FLL3 and have been very pleased. It covers more grammar topics than R&S3 does. It is still gentle, but not quite as slow. Diagramming is likewise taught fairly early, but whole sentences are diagrammed. The sentences are just short and only have the parts of speech that the student has learned to diagram. You aren't stuck diagramming just simple subject and simple predicate for weeks and weeks. You learn adjectives, adverbs, predicate nominatives, predicate adjectives, etc. fairly quickly. There is plenty of review of past topics, and she doesn't throw the child in the deep end with the new topics. She eases them into it. For example, she might start with "The dog barked." and have the child fill out the basic diagram, then do "The brown dog barked." with the diagram already filled in except for the word "brown". Then she'd have "The brown dog barked loudly." with the space for "loudly" being the only open space on the diagram. At first I thought this might make it too easy to just fill in the blanks, but my son has been able to easily pick things out without having the crutch of the partially filled diagram, so I think it is effective, at least for him. :) There are also occasional lessons that have an element of fun to them, such as standing up or sitting down for proper vs. common nouns as you read a list of nouns. My son LOVED that exercise and asked the next day if we could do that lesson again. :lol: There have been other exercises where the child is to do silly things like dancing around the room or jumping like a kangaroo, etc. He really likes those. They're not every day, but they're in there. I also like that FLL has actual poetry. The R&S poem at the end of each unit is usually something you've never heard of (probably written by the textbook authors?). My son has really enjoyed the FLL poetry.

 

I haven't used CLE, but my friend has used it for grades 3 and 4 so far. She's planning to switch next year, I think. She has not been happy with it, because she doesn't need the handwriting or spelling, the writing instruction is not that great, and the grammar seems to move much slower than R&S or FLL or really any program she's compared it to. She's actually a bit confused because people usually say CLE and R&S are equivalent, but she's not seeing it. Perhaps that's only in the upper levels though? Again, I have not seen CLE myself. I'm only passing on 2nd hand information that you would need to verify yourself before believing. ;)

 

As far as R&S and FLL go, I prefer FLL3, but I do think R&S is an excellent program. I may end up using it for 5th or 6th grade and up. We'll see. I was looking forward to using ALL later, but now that that's on hold, I'll have to find something else.

[warneral]

My 2nd and 3rd graders enjoy FLL3. I' have heard that FLL1 and FLL2 are pretty slow, but I think FLL3 has just the right amount of review + new material.