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How Are You Enjoying English Lessons Through Literature?


Slache
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I'm very much enjoying ELTL.  I am happier with it than I've been of anything else.  Previously I've used FLL1/2 & 4, WWE 2 & 4, MCT Island and Town levels, and part of WWS1, in addition to Ambleside poetry, fable, & art appreciation.  With ELTL I've got everything I want for English more or less in one place.  My younger dd is also using the handwriting program and spelling (which is the reading program too but she's already reading), and I love that all the copywork is in the same font as our handwriting.  

 

My experience with FLL1/2 was that it was super slow and repetitive.  It seemed age-appropriate enough, but my daughter didn't need it to be so slow.  Using ELTL1 has been different from that in that there is some but not a lot of repetition, and it's very gentle.  Dd enjoys the fables, and the art, and sometimes she likes the poem.  I like that the literature is in the public domain, and that the examples and copywork come from that literature.

 

My older daughter was helping test out ELTL5, which Kathy Jo started writing last winter.  Before that we were in the middle of FLL4 and a couple weeks into WWS1.  Dd hated WWS1, but she has really enjoyed the writing parts of ELTL5.  She likes the example stories, and I like that there is literary analysis built into the program.  I love that she's continuing to learn more nuances about grammar, and that the program teaches diagramming.  She thinks the fables (Nasruddin, not Aesop like in ELTL1) are hilarious.  And I also love that, instead of copywork, the program has the student create a commonplace book, and has the child copy passages into it regularly.  

 

I am definitely planning on continuing with ELTL.  It really fit our needs and I've stopped shopping around.  I started my first grader in ELTL1 in the fall, and my older dd started ELTL5 when it was released last winter, so she's finishing it up soon and we'll start ELTL6 as soon as Kathy Jo has it written :). 

 

HTH!

Anabel

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We are doing ELTL1 with a first grader. I find it slow but nice. I love the literature approach and am realizing everyday how flexible it can be. For example, I realized today that our copy of Jungle book doesn't have two of the sections that the original version has. I like ours though because my son can read it to himself (has great pictures too) which can count as reading and English. So I'm sticking with our copy. I love that I can get the Librvox recording for the books that I don't want to read. For example, I hated reading Five Children and It but the grandma librvox recording was a success. We cuddled and listened instead.

 

The peoms, Aesop fables with picture narrations, and picture studies make me feel like we are doing a very full program. My son can handle more writing though so we pair it with WWE2. Without WWE2 my husband was complaining that he wasn't doing enough practice in handwriting/spelling.

 

I am going to use ELTL2/WWE3 next year for DS6 and use ELTL1 (it's in the same book which is great!)/WWE1 for DS4. I don't do a spelling or handwriting program because we like fewer subjects that cover more than one topic at this young age. Discussions of dictations cover a lot.

 

At first, I didn't realize how flexible this program was. I WAS a do everything, skip nothing, is the only way it works person.

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I am doing ELTL1 with a first grader right now.  Next year I will be doing 1 with a kindergartner, and 2 with a 2nd grader.  That was/is the right timing for both of them.  We add spelling through Logic of English, but ELTL never promised to include spelling.  It's a very complete program for what it promised to do- writing and grammar. 

 

We run ELTL a bit weird because we do it 5 days a week, instead of the recommended 3, and then take a break to choose our own book in between the ELTL books.  Since the ELTL selection serves as our read aloud that gives us a chance to pick our own books and poetry every now and then, and I just pull my own copywork sentences from the book and continue on with whatever grammar concepts we have been working on.     

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We have been using ELTL1 since the beginning of this academic year with my advanced Ker. Overall, I think that it is a great program if you are looking for something comprehensive but gentle in the early years. We recently switched over to WWE1 because WWE1 seemed slightly more accelerated than year 1 of ELTL (and I was pretty confident that my son would thrive with a bit more acceleration). I also wanted more freedom in the schedule to focus on the contemporary fiction that we enjoy. It's not that my son had issues with the CM/AO lit selections in ELTL, it's that I thought that he would enjoy contemporary selections more.

 

We may go back to ELTL, depending on how things play out with WWE. As this is our first official year homeschooling, I am still getting my bearings as a teacher and tinker quite a bit. 

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I guess I would give it...maybe 4 out of 5 starts...LOL.   It's not 100% meeting my expectations, but it's working out okay.  I picked ELTL 1 to be something that would fit my DS5 and DS7 together to some extent.  DS7 often claims to not want to listen to longer books, yet when I press him to do it, he almost always enjoys the book in the end.  I like the fact that ELTL keeps us moving through classic lit because its "assigned" so there is no argument about what to read.  The grammar points are quite gentle and understandable by my DS5, yet at the same time being things that DS7 has not mastered.  

 

The thing that is not working for us is the copywork.  DS5 is maybe just barely ready for it, but he is doing copywork in Logic of English Foundations.  DS7 has decided he hates copywork with a passion.  :glare:  After a number of days of fighting with him just to get him started, then watching him scrawl it as quickly as possibly to get done, I decided to drop it for now.  We are doing dictation sentences or paragraphs 2-3 days per week for spelling with the Dictation Resource Book by Susan C. Anthony.  The sentences are not as lovely, but I encourage DS7 to work on the same things as he would have in ELTL copywork (punctuation, capitalization, etc.).  It's a bit of a mystery to me as to why he hates copywork so much but doesn't mind dictation! 

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I'm using level 1 with my reluctant writer 2nd grader. This year we're using another source for writing, so I instead have him look at the copywork sentence and tell me about all the capitalization and punctuation in it. My K'er sits in because she loves the stories, picture study, poems, and fables. It's going well so far this year. I didn't enjoy reading The Five Children and It, mostly because the chapters were so long, so I used the libravox recording for that book.

 

Because my K'er has listened to all the lessons, I plan on trying to have my 1st and 3rd graders do level 2 together next school year. If it winds up being too much for my then 1st grader, I'll drop her from it and we'll pick it up again with her later.  I'm also going to switch my reluctant writer to the copywork in ELTL next year. He is not enjoying the writing work I'm having him do this year, so I gave him the choice, and he choose copywork. I might wind up dictating the sentences to him, as he (like kristenhill's son) does better with dictation than copywork.

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I'm doing level 1 with my 2nd grader (we started it partway through last year), and I'm really liking it. We're doing something else for literature, so we usually don't do the readings on the assigned days. Instead, we listen to the Librivox recordings ahead of time when we have time (like during long car trips, or during vacation when DS wants to listen to a read aloud while he plays). But we do the copywork, grammar, poetry and listen to the fable each day. 

 

I really like that it's quick and easy, and that it's covering things that I somehow never get around to teaching (like the months of the year in order), plus a gentle introduction to things like punctuation. I'm also enjoying the poetry - most days we just read it once and move on. But when there's a poem that one of us particularly likes, we'll read it another time or two, and maybe discuss it. No pressure, just exposure, which is perfect for us.

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I started level 2 with dd when she was 10 and we found it ideal (she was a 'late reader').

 

The narration gets done. The grammar gets done. The picture study gets done. The copywork gets done. Dd is exposed to literature that I probably wouldn't bother to read to her otherwise. It has enough variety to not feel dull and repetitive. It's gentle and quick to complete each day, but we've found it very effective.

 

We've tweaked it a little to suit. We found the poetry too twee and old-fashioned, so we pick a poem out of one our favourite books. We use audio books rather than read-alouds to save my time.

 

 

Some of the grammar towards the end of level 2 has been a bit excessive/unnecessary for our needs. There are no answers for this level (deliberately so) which has meant I've struggled occasionally to help my dd (I'm sure others would find it fine). As level 3 involves diagramming, I'm not sure yet how far we'll go with that.

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I've enjoyed it with my first grader this year. So far he is enjoying pretty much everything about it. I did not have him do a lot of writing his K year, just 4 spelling words a day. He always complained about writing. He has not ever complained about the copywork in ELTL. He enjoys that it comes from the stories we're reading. So I'm pleased that it is working so well for handwriting practice. The grammar has been gentle and less than what we've been doing in LOE D, so no issues there.

 

I do the reading at snack time. We've previously read the Beatrix Potter stories, Just So Stories, and Jungle Book. But he hasn't minded. He does usually enjoy all read alouds, though. The fables and poems have gone over well.

 

I like it a lot. I like that we are reading a story, fable, and poem everyday. I like the sentences used for copywork. I like that it progresses from picture narration, to oral and written and that this starts off slowly. Lastly I like the included picture studies. Personally, I'd include a bit more variety...but it gets done with very little effort on my part.

 

Overall, it combines a lot of little parts very nicely into an open and go format that's easy on Mom.

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