ELTL, what else?

[Elizabeth86]

Some of you have turned me on to the idea of using a curriculum such as ELTL for my 3rd grader.  I haven't settled on that yet.  If I choose ELTL what else do I need to add or is it really all in one?  I looked ELTL on christianbook and it seems there are 2 version maybe?? Some are labeled Level numbers and others Level letters.  What's the difference?  Which do I want? 

Also, can you give me some reassurance that if this plan doesn't work out for third, we can pick up on grade 4 of bju English the year after and be just fine??

Besides ELTL, what other curriculum would you all suggest I look at?  I have looked at Language Lessons for a Living Education, Language Lesson for Today, Cottage Press Language Lessons, Learning Language Arts Through Literature.  All of these are brand new to me, I have never even considered them.  Could you tell me what makes you like or dislike any of these or any major thing that I might want to know about any of these. I haven't had time to research them, only a glance at them. 

Edited January 21, 2019 by Elizabeth86

[HomeAgain]

The originals are labeled by numbers. 
The redone version is lettered.  They have been edited to be secular.  FWIW, we are secular, but used the original numbered version for level 3.  It was lovely and well done, without being preachy or having god-barf.  The poems were sometimes religious in nature (to the author, not lecturing), and there were bible pieces as potential copywork. Sometimes we did them, sometimes we skipped in favor of the copywork from the story only.

It really is mostly all in one.  It is not a reading program, but dictation-spelling, grammar, copywork, art study, narration, memory work, are all included. We only added the books, and because my kid preferred his own spelling program, we did that instead of the prepared dictation.  For most of the books I bought lovely illustrated versions so that my kid would want to go back and read them on his own.  Oh, and I added art cards.  My ipad died and I don't have a color printer so I wasn't willing to find colorized versions of the art.  Instead, I brought out our old art cards and we went through them little by little.
There is a reading program: RLTL.  I considered it, but chose not to use it.  We use the same readers (Elson) and I didn't want to add extra work. 

[Elizabeth86]

3 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

The originals are labeled by numbers. 
The redone version is lettered.  They have been edited to be secular.  FWIW, we are secular, but used the original numbered version for level 3.  It was lovely and well done, without being preachy or having god-barf.  The poems were sometimes religious in nature (to the author, not lecturing), and there were bible pieces as potential copywork. Sometimes we did them, sometimes we skipped in favor of the copywork from the story only.

It really is mostly all in one.  It is not a reading program, but dictation-spelling, grammar, copywork, art study, narration, memory work, are all included. We only added the books, and because my kid preferred his own spelling program, we did that instead of the prepared dictation.  For most of the books I bought lovely illustrated versions so that my kid would want to go back and read them on his own.  Oh, and I added art cards.  My ipad died and I don't have a color printer so I wasn't willing to find colorized versions of the art.  Instead, I brought out our old art cards and we went through them little by little.
There is a reading program: RLTL.  I considered it, but chose not to use it.  We use the same readers (Elson) and I didn't want to add extra work. 

Gotcha.  So on top of this, I might consider doing my own reading? Like....phonics? He is good on phonics or reading as in reading comprehension or what?  lol

[HomeAgain]

4 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Gotcha.  So on top of this, I might consider doing my own reading? Like....phonics? He is good on phonics or reading as in reading comprehension or what?  lol

If he is good on phonics, I would just have him read.  My whole reason for doing the Elson readers was exposure and slowly building up my kid's stamina for books with less pictures. LOL  It's a totally age appropriate thing, but I wanted to give him that nudge.

I saw your edit.  We did not enjoy LLATL.  I found it disjointed.  There is a two year writing program called Writing Tales that is progym based but adds in hands on activities.  We used the first book (grades 3-4) in 5th, but it's doable for a stronger writer in 3rd or 4th.




ETA: by stronger writer I mean someone not my oldest, lol.  He had a lot of trouble in this area and I'm sure my bumbling around wasn't much help.  WT was the program that got him solidly on track, though.

Edited January 21, 2019 by HomeAgain

[barnwife]

I am currently using ELTL level B. HomeAgain has described it well. FWIW, the author has colored versions of the art in a file on her website. At least, I think that's where I found them. SO I usually just pull them up there. My 8 yo is not a natural speller, so we also use Spelling Plus. As for doing your own reading, we I generally read the literature as a family RA. DS has to spend time reading something independently every day. Sometimes he chooses, sometimes I choose a book for him. He also reads aloud to me for 5-10 minutes every day. We recently added Wise Owl Polysyllables to this, as he needs more work on decoding longer words. (So he reads half a page or a whole page from there as part of his reading to me.)

I like that ELTL is gentle. And fwiw, DS looks forward to hearing his poem and fable every day.

[nixpix5]

14 minutes ago, OKBud said:

 

Oh yes. Third graders are quite young, all told. Additionally, it tends to be a year of tremendous academic growth (with accompanying contractions), regardless of what specific curriculum you use. The ticket for third grade is to get up every day and do some work. That's always true to a certain extent, but for my two oldest, it has been doubly true in third grade.

I second this.

Also, because BJU English spirals back around to the same topics each year, you can skip 3 and go on to 4 with very little issue. It is alot like Rod and Staff in that respect.

Also, one thing we have done because we school year round is take the 8 writing units in BJU and do 6 of them in the summer. We throw out the poetry unit since they get that in other curriculum and we fold the chapter 16 research report into the school year in science or history. In this way they do all of BJU English writing (we don't need the grammar since we have another program). This way it leaves me able to spend the school year doing the progym in a settled way without feeling like I am missing something. 

[Elizabeth86]

1 more thing.  The book list, does he read that independently, do I read the book to him or what?  Does the lesson tell you what chapters to read when?

[HomeAgain]

1 hour ago, Elizabeth86 said:

1 more thing.  The book list, does he read that independently, do I read the book to him or what?  Does the lesson tell you what chapters to read when?

You read it to him.  Actually, we found the books to vary somewhat, so when my kid felt comfortable reading it, he did, but we used a lot of them as snuggle time books.  In some, the vocabulary and sentence structure can be more complex than a book you would normally expect a 2nd-3rd grader to read.  Each lesson will tell you which chapter.  The program is really 3-4 days a week, so we did it 3 days and spread the work out over 4. On busy days we didn't want to have to cram in a reading.  I could do it at bedtime and have him do the copywork from it the next day.

[barnwife]

1 hour ago, Elizabeth86 said:

1 more thing.  The book list, does he read that independently, do I read the book to him or what?  Does the lesson tell you what chapters to read when?

I usually use the current literature as a family RA. I am sure some kids read them independently (or listen to an audio version). Some families probably buddy read them (parent reads a page, child reads a page). Whichever way you choose is just fine. Heck, you could choose to do it differently every day (or every book). In Level A there were some stories that were not our favorite. I just choose a different RA. We still did the copywork and exercises that were in ELTL, as I am too lazy to prepare that myself. Was it ideal? No, but it worked and I don't think it affected DS's retention.

Yes, each lesson says what to read.

Again, the flexibility and gentleness are two of the things I really like about ELTL.

[Elizabeth86]

On 1/21/2019 at 12:18 PM, nixpix5 said:

I second this.

Also, because BJU English spirals back around to the same topics each year, you can skip 3 and go on to 4 with very little issue. It is alot like Rod and Staff in that respect.

Also, one thing we have done because we school year round is take the 8 writing units in BJU and do 6 of them in the summer. We throw out the poetry unit since they get that in other curriculum and we fold the chapter 16 research report into the school year in science or history. In this way they do all of BJU English writing (we don't need the grammar since we have another program). This way it leaves me able to spend the school year doing the progym in a settled way without feeling like I am missing something. 

This gave me an idea!! I think I have scrapped ELTL, but I was thinking of giving Writing and Rhetoric a try. I have seen anything for grammar that stood out to me, so I was leaning toward bju still.  Here is what I was rhinking.  I could use W & R Fables and the BJU 3 grammar chapters for the first semester.  If W & R is a hit I will buy the next book for the second half of the year, if it doesn't work out I will buy BJU English distance  learning during the $99 sale and just go back with the writing chapters.  I just get hung  up on teaching writing, it was the hardest thing for me in school.  

[nixpix5]

1 hour ago, Elizabeth86 said:

This gave me an idea!! I think I have scrapped ELTL, but I was thinking of giving Writing and Rhetoric a try. I have seen anything for grammar that stood out to me, so I was leaning toward bju still.  Here is what I was rhinking.  I could use W & R Fables and the BJU 3 grammar chapters for the first semester.  If W & R is a hit I will buy the next book for the second half of the year, if it doesn't work out I will buy BJU English distance  learning during the $99 sale and just go back with the writing chapters.  I just get hung  up on teaching writing, it was the hardest thing for me in school.  

That is great 🙂 I think we can really make curriculum work for us when we are willing to stretch a bit outside the rigidity of it. This sounds like a solid plan 👍