Choose a Lit: Mosdos, Jr Great Books, or Lightning Lit?

[Carrousel]

Any reviews or recommendations among these 3?  This will be our first attempt at a lit curriculum, have just been reading whatever, whenever so far, and all over the place, so would like a little structure to lit as we move into upper elementary.

 

Trying to choose for a 3rd grader who reads anything he can get his hands on, but is writing-phobic.  He prefers to devour books instead of read a chapter a day.  Will pair it with EIW or CAP Fable for writing.  To be taught by a mom who likes efficient curriculum that's worth the time we spend on it, or I'll default to unschooling lit.

 

 

Mosdos-- looks good, but Teacher Edition at 500+ pages, don't think I'll wade thru it and use it.  Is this do-able with student book and workbook only?  Is it worth it?  The sample student workbook pages looked really dense-- we like clean pages (like SM standards for math).

 

Jr Great Books-- I like the story selections, not sure my student will.  Is there anywhere to see samples of teacher edition or student workbook?  Is teacher edition necessary?  

 

Lightning Lit-- is it "enough"?  This is my default option, simpler than the others.  Like the grammar included, but wouldn't use the composition element.  He would like the puzzles and colored pages.  I like that it's whole books and high interest selections, but feel like he reads lots out of this group anyway on his own.  Maybe that would help us implement and stick to a lit program?

 

Help, I'm paralyzed by all the choices!

[EKS]

You don't say the levels you're interested in, but we used the Mosdos 4th grade book and really liked the selections.  I had the TM, but for whatever reason didn't use it much.  We were excited to use the 5th grade book, but ended up not liking it as much and ditching it after a few weeks.

 

I've extensively reviewed the 3rd grade materials for Jr Great Books and was underwhelmed.  I didn't like the selections and the focus on writing wasn't what we were looking for.

 

I have LL8 and never used it.  I also have the LL materials for American lit, which I did use for about a month.  I was not impressed by the focus on "comprehension" (more like regurgitating details).  But I'm guessing that you are looking at the elementary materials, which I know nothing about.

[Carrousel]

Thanks, Kai, that was helpful.  I'm looking at elementary but open to different levels.  Sounds like Jr Great books 3 isn't a good fit because we will be using a separate writing program.  

[Guest]

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Edited June 25, 2016 by Guest

[cherimoya]

Using Mosdos here and we're on our second text.  No workbook or teacher's manual, just the text is sufficient for us as well.  

[SparrowsNest]

I just started Mosdos for 3rd & 5th. Can't help too much since I'm a Mosdos newbie, but so far I'm not overly wowed and tbh, I am looking longingly back towards CLE reading. I want to give Mosdos a fair shot, so at least a semester... Ask me in December? :)

[City Mouse]

Jr. Great Books is a classroom based program that my school uses as part of its GT program. Yes, you would need the teacher's guide and student journal workbook, but really it is a book discussion format that might be hard to translate to only one child as there is no one to have the discussions with. because the "teacher" is just supposed to facilitate the discussions and let the students come to their own conclusions.

[Targhee]

Jr Great Books is wonderful!!!! - for a group. Yes you need the teacher books ($$$), but more importantly you need a few more people for the shared inquiry discussions. You could do this with a small group who only met once a week or every other week (depending on your pace).

 

We used two of the primary books, 2nd grade, and 5th grade and they all worked at an age appropriate level to get kids thinking about literature. I would put this in a category with MCT. - intellectual, beautiful, respectful of the intelligence of the child.

 

When we left our umbrella school and I couldn't afford the teachet's books we stopped using the program. We continue to try and facilitate shared inquiry in our lit discussions.

[Haiku]

My dd really likes Lightning Lit. It covers a wide variety of topics, and based on what I learned about literature in middle school, I don't think it's light at all. We have a lot of fun discussions about literature using the discussion questions as a starter. We completely skip the comprehension questions, as my dd doesn't need them.