Flash Kids books...anybody use them?

[Sue G in PA]

I've heard them spoken of before on the boards and just checked them out today at B&N. Wow! I looked at the LA, Math, All-in-One's, etc. They are cheap and look very comprehensive. The small books are like $5.95 and the All-in-one grade curriculums are $19.95! Has anybody used these before? Was it a stand-alone curriculum choice for you or a review book? I'm looking at the 6th grade math as a review for my dd11 for the rest of the summer.

[elegantlion]

I haven't used the math, but we did the phonics books. We had to review phonics for ds and I liked them. The teaching was basic, but it was all that we needed and nothing more.

[AngieW in Texas]

I had my youngest use Flashkids Spelling at 1st-3rd grade levels. I started her in Sequential Spelling and Megawords once she finished Flashkids Spelling 3.

 

My youngest has also done Flashkids LA for grades 2 and 3. I'm trying out Winston Grammar for her right now and that seems to be a better fit for her.

 

My middle dd has done Flashkids LA for grades 5-7. It worked much better for her than Easy Grammar ever did. I'm thinking about doing something different for this year. Stewart Grammar sounds intriguing. She is also working through Fix-it Grammar and enjoys it.

[Mom to Aly]

I think these are wonderful! When we got sick of Saxon in both 2nd & 3rd grade (so horribly tedious it is amazing, but I had already shelled out for the programs!) we went and bought these books, and my daughter got it quicker, and liked it so much more!

 

She reads at a really high level, and also has spelling, vocab & grammar years ahead, but I have to teach her the terms for grammar, so I get these books for that (the language arts ones), and they are as good as the other, $20 ones (sorry Evan-Moor, usually my fave), for $6 instead of $20. I have never looked at the reading or spelling, and I like the Evan-Moor for Creative Writing, so I have stuck with that, but I haven't looked at these, because our B&N doesn't carry them.

 

When she was in K I bought a whole curriculum similar to this, and we did a lot, but it ended up being not a lot of what we wanted personally (not enough with lit, etc.), so my only recommendation would be to think about what you want exactly and be careful of that. But, as far as we've gone with these, I think they are wonderful!

[TundraAcademy]

We used Flashkids Language Arts 2, Spelling 3, and a little bit of the Reading Comprehension 3 last year. They worked great for us because the exercises were fairly short and it was easy to follow. The LA was a nice introduction to grammar for my son. He seemed to learn quite a bit and the best thing was that he didn't get frustrated. We just did a little bit every day. The spelling had about 4 pages per lesson. We did two pages per day. We did a few of the Reading lessons to beef up for the state testing.

 

I think these workbooks are great if you are looking for an easy way to get grammar and spelling to fit in your schedule. I wanted to spend more of our time on writing (we used Just Write) and reading fluency. I figure we will be hitting grammar year after year, so I wasn't looking for a mastery approach curriculum.

 

It was also nice to give my son something he can do independently. I think that was one of the reasons he liked them.

 

HTH!

Wendy :001_smile:

[KarenNC]

I used the 3rd grade flash skills reading comprehension and problem solving workbooks and found them a nice addition to what we were doing. These are smaller than the other books (run less than $4, I picked mine up at the thrift store used).

[Quad Shot Academy]

We use them when kids are struggling with a concept and need extra practice.