mindygz Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 I've looked into Phonics Road some but am wondering if there are other ones to consider. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmseB Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 We use McRuffy and like it a lot. I think it is considered pretty writing intensive though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Spalding and all of its spin-offs/lookalikes (LOE, Phonics Road, Spell to Write and Read) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slache Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 If I weren't sold on Spell to Write & Read I'd probably do Abeka. I like the look of their Language Arts all the way to 12th. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susie in MS Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 You could check out Learning Language Arts Through Literature Blue or Red (depending on where your child is in phonics). Blue at Rainbow Red at Rainbow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 I am finding that many are tied to a phonics program like A Beka or do not start until 2nd or 3rd. FLL and Shurley are options. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 sorry for double post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnMomof7 Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 We found CLE when my 2nd DD was at the end of 1st, but my 3rd DD is doing it from the beginning. So will my subsequent children :). If you do the entire program for first it teaches phonics, reading, printing, spelling, and simple grammar, punctuation, and usage. FWIW, we did try Phonics Road....not a fit for us. :(. I can't teach phonics with a video program, I need something printed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CafeDiem Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 With each of my kids I used something different. My favorite was Rod & Staff's Phonics/Reading program and it is the one I would definitely use again if I ever needed to. It combines both phonics and some sight word reading, which was great because with my older two kids I found myself making some flash cards for the words I just wished they would learn by sight. We added in the "God is Good" series of readers and my DD loved them. It is very Bible based and workbooky (so it may not work for everyone)... but that was great for my youngest. The teacher manuals are thorough and you can buy the flashcards and penmanship program to go with it. What I did was alternate days between the phonics lessons and the reader lessons. There is a lot of material to cover and you could spread it out over a year and a half to two years without falling behind in reading. The final units have some pretty advanced phonics/words for first grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 I am finding that many are tied to a phonics program like A Beka or do not start until 2nd or 3rd. FLL and Shurley are options. Phonics *is* "language arts." Grammar and composition generally start in 2nd or 3rd because the first year or two has been teaching the children to read. The components of "language arts" are phonics/reading/literature, spelling/vocabulary, penmanship, grammar, and composition. You could throw in speech. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 CLE, as mentioned up thread, might fit what you are looking for, as long as you don't mind Christian content. https://www.clp.org/store/by_grade/3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Phonics *is* "language arts." Grammar and composition generally start in 2nd or 3rd because the first year or two has been teaching the children to read. The components of "language arts" are phonics/reading/literature, spelling/vocabulary, penmanship, grammar, and composition. You could throw in speech. Yes, you are correct. I was implying more of a grammar program. Many grammar programs are tied to a phonics program. If I have a phonics program I like, but I want to incorporate more grammar than it provides in first grade as TWTM recommends, they are harder to find than in third grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Yes, you are correct. I was implying more of a grammar program. Many grammar programs are tied to a phonics program. If I have a phonics program I like, but I want to incorporate more grammar than it provides in first grade as TWTM recommends, they are harder to find than in third grade. Grammar is only "tied" to phonics if you're using materials published for classrooms. :-) Easy Grammar, Shurley English, Junior Analytical Grammar, FLL...I'm sure there are others, but I don't do grammar until the dc are reading well and writing fluently, so not until the dc are 9ish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindygz Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Thanks for the CLE suggestion. I like the look of it, and my little guy likes workbooks. How much Christian content is there? We are Christian, but I'm not a huge fan of religious content in our school books. I also like the look of LLATL...I'm going to look into both of those a bit more. Jennifer, the video instruction was a big drawback for me, too. One more step and I just don't think it would happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnMomof7 Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Thankfully CLE is open and go and comes with a TM. Soooo, if you don't want to fire up the DVD player and try to figure out the proper way to make a letter....you don't have to! It killed me. It just didn't connect with MY learning and teaching style at all. CLE is integrated, so it is for us, what I hoped Phonics Road would be, and more. The Christian content is definitely there, it's always heavier in the reading. You get cute stories about how obeying and being kind makes God happy. You also get stories about children playing tag, going to the lake, farm animals, etc. it isn't all religious and it is definitely non-denominational. Let me know if you need any other specifics. We are on our second time through. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 I found it easier NOT to use AIO curriculum for language arts. My kids tended to be at different places in reading versus writing and spelling. Instead, to keep LA from being overwhelming, take some tips from AIO type curriculum: They don't cover every aspect of LA every day. Some do units, some rotate days (I've even rotated focus by year--some years doing more focus on writing, some more on grammar). Start with phonics/learning to read and handwriting. When your child is ready for more, incrementally add on spelling, then grammar and writing. Here's an article about planning LA that you might find helpful as you think things through and make goals. (It references AAR/AAS but you can use a similar approach no matter what you use for LA.) HTH some! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindygz Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Goodness, the more I look into these different programs, the more I like all of them! These each look like they would fit the bill:SWR LLATL CLE McRuffy This is when I need a super curriculum guru who knows the ins and outs of ALL of them and also happens to know what my homeschool life looks like. :lol: That's not too much to ask of the universe, is it? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindygz Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 Oh Merry, that's a great read. And I think it's spot on, but I find myself just feeling like if there are too many things to juggle, things just slip through the cracks. I'm trying to figure out how to help my rising 8th grader get ready for high school work, working with my challenging personality 4th grader, and not let my (current) K-er fall through the cracks...and that's not even mentioning the twins. I guess I really just want something that WORKS that I can feel good about progressing through without feeling the need to shop around for more curriculum.... I thought by kid 3 I'd have all my favorites and "old reliables" figured out, but my older two have been so drastically different and this one is different from both of those two that I'm not feeling like I'm getting a lot of benefit even though I've been doing this for 8 years! When I started out homeschooling, I only had 2 kids...there was a LOT of time to do things. Now with 5, there is so much less time. I feel like I have to be efficient... ::sigh:: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slache Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 When you find this person please send them my way. SWR & Phonics Road are both Spalding spin offs by the way. If you like that style check out Reading Lessons Through Literature (which often gets paired with English Lessons Through Literature as a full LA program) and Logic of English. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rimk3 Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 My first graders (age 7) are doing Reading Lessons Through Literature, 2days a weeks. RLTL is a spalding spin off and has the Elson Readers included. It is easy to use, open and go. Then we do English Lessons Through Literature 3 days a week and review phonograms on those days. Those two cover phonics, reading, spelling, literature, grammer, narration, and copywork. With the bonus of poetry and picture study. We do additional reading: little bear, frog and toad, I see sam books, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slache Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 My first graders (age 7) are doing Reading Lessons Through Literature, 2days a weeks. RLTL is a spalding spin off and has the Elson Readers included. It is easy to use, open and go. Then we do English Lessons Through Literature 3 days a week and review phonograms on those days. Those two cover phonics, reading, spelling, literature, grammer, narration, and copywork. With the bonus of poetry and picture study. We do additional reading: little bear, frog and toad, I see sam books, etc. This sounds pleasantly simple. Do you think you'll finish one RLTL a year this way? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rimk3 Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 This sounds pleasantly simple. Do you think you'll finish one RLTL a year this way? It really is pleasantly simple and very effective. ELTL and RLTL meet my specific goals for early elementary. It has a very CMish vibe, but the classical writing/grammar shows up around level 3. There are 48 spelling lists and each list has 10 words in level 1. So, if your child was able to do all ten words in a single setting, then you could certainly finish in a year. However, when we started RLTL 1, my girls did three words a day, 4x a week. So we didn't get two lists done in a week. I gradually increased the word count as they became more comfortable with analyzing words, their reading skills became stronger, and their writing stamina increased. So, they can do one list in one setting now. We do one spelling list and read the corresponding reader two times a week. We will still finish around a year, though. I haven't looked lately to see where we are specifically. The author recommends this schedule of RLTL two days a week and ELTL three days a week in the Wayfarers guide. I'm pretty sure her intention was to finish a level of each component in a year. You can this schedule in her sample of Wayfarers, if that is helpful. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 Grammar is only "tied" to phonics if you're using materials published for classrooms. :-) Easy Grammar, Shurley English, Junior Analytical Grammar, FLL...I'm sure there are others, but I don't do grammar until the dc are reading well and writing fluently, so not until the dc are 9ish. I mentioned Shurley and FLL. Shurley does sentence parsing through jingles and a question and answer flow and does not do diagramming. FLL is oral lessons until third grade, and then they go into more detail with diagramming in third grade. Junior Analytical Grammar is designed for 4th or 5th grade. Easy Grammar does not start until 2nd, and neither does Rod and Staff. Many do not start formal grammar until second grade or later as phonics/reading are the most important first step, but if someone did want a more formal grammar program in first, they are harder to find than in third grade. If your phonics program or all in one program includes grammar with it, as some do, and you like it, you are set. But if you do not use an inclusive AIO program for language arts, and you like the phonics program you already use and don't want to change, it is harder to find a stand alone grammar program for first grade if you desire that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 I mentioned Shurley and FLL. Shurley does sentence parsing through jingles and a question and answer flow and does not do diagramming. FLL is oral lessons until third grade, and then they go into more detail with diagramming in third grade. Junior Analytical Grammar is designed for 4th or 5th grade. Easy Grammar does not start until 2nd, and neither does Rod and Staff. Many do not start formal grammar until second grade or later as phonics/reading are the most important first step, but if someone did want a more formal grammar program in first, they are harder to find than in third grade. If your phonics program or all in one program includes grammar with it, as some do, and you like it, you are set. But if you do not use an inclusive AIO program for language arts, and you like the phonics program you already use and don't want to change, it is harder to find a stand alone grammar program for first grade if you desire that. Um..ok... :huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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