bnwhitaker Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 Please help give me opinions on this program?? I've seen some good things said about it and actaully none bad. I would love to hear more of users thoughts! Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BugsMama Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 Want me to be your bad? :glare: LOL. I used this with a 5 almost 6 year old emergent reader who could already form letters, and a 4 year old who can not form letters, but does know the basic phonic sounds. Reading- It's an "okay" program If you like file folder games, and sight words. For us, it was too much memorizing words, and too much "crud" all over the house with the file folder games. The phonics were not strong. Too expensive for what reading was. Writing is divided into three seconds, the first teaches letter formation in a really weird sort of way (letter stories, but the letters aren't standard.... I wish I could be more specific but I didn't pay much attention once I realized the style wasn't what I wanted). The second section is copywork, but not from quality anything. The third section is a really good intro into TWSS, but If you are going to do IEW, you would be better off getting the TWSS and skipping the cost of PAL. I returned the whole shebang. I loved ASS, but we switched to LOE this year. I'm considering buying TWSS. The GOOD thing is IEW is SO good with their return policy that if you get it and hate it, they will give you a full refund, no questions asked. I will buy from them again because their customer service left such a good impression. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manamana Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 (edited) We used PAL Reading this past year with dd7 who is also an emerging reader. We did not use the writing component and we did add AAS midway through the year. Cons The cut and paste worksheets got a little boring after awhile. The student is supposed to follow an agenda each day written out with tasks for them to complete independently; we never got in the groove with this. The child is to supposed to work independently playing games for 30 minutes but my 7 yr old did not often work independently with the games. We were ready to practice reading more books earlier in the program (which we did) than it recommended. Some of the phonics connections were difficult to teach (the sheep "a" always follows shepherd "w" saying "aw, I don't want to go home."). Lots of flash cards and memorization of words. Reviewing the Phonics Farm sticker chart daily wasn't a huge hit for me (but it did help!) The teacher guidebook contains consumable materials so you cannot resell it. Additionally the student work pages and extra reading practice pages have to be printed from the CD which costs an additional $15+. The program is not inexpensive. Pros The poetry was fun and helpful in teaching sounds and words. Many of the file folder games were fun and helpful (I would preassemble most of them to save time even though they say to have the child help!) Very little (if any!) writing is required in the PAL reading program. Nicely fit my daughter's temperament and "socialable sue" learning style. Scripted lesson plans were very helpful (but the format was a little awkward to follow.) Extra reading practice pages were helpful in reinforcing lessons. Edited July 11, 2012 by Manamana Added more info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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