Sonlight Users . . .

[MamaT]

Do any of you use Sonlight's Language Arts? If you do, are you pleased?

[KellyGirl]

This is our first year using SL LA. We previously used ABeka. They are very different. I'm using LA 3 with my 4th grader, just because we are doing core 3. I'd say it's much more gentle than ABeka and not as grammar rule intesive.

 

I would have to say that yes, I am happy with SL LA because my son had made HUGE strides in his writing. You can check out my blog to see the research paper my son just wrote. At the begining of the year it was like pulling teeth to get him to write more than two sentences about anything, but Sonlight really helped us through the writing process.

 

They give you lots of extra dictation to use if you want, and every Monday, dication is all you do for the lesson (besides spelling and optional workbooks). I purchased Word Study and Wordly Wise, and would recommend at least Word Study if not both books.

 

If you want lots of grammar and structured language stuff, you probably won't like it. I may go back to ABeka next year, but SL has offered a nice change of pace for us.

[ilovemy4kids]

I am using Core 3+4 with 5th and 7th grade students. We use the Sonlight 3+4 LA also. We love it! It is easy to use, very well written, and provides great instruction. I use the Wordly Wise 3000 books also, at the appropriate levels. Sonlight uses these, but at the 3+4 level they use book 4, I just bought the ones for my kids levels. We also add grammar, but not the Sonlight recommended Grammar Ace or Winston. I use Growing with Grammar 5 for my 5th and All in One English with my 7th. He is finishing this and will begin Analytical Grammar next month. In addition, I use Write at Home for composition for the 7th and the pay per paper option for the 5th grader as recommended by Sonlight. Overall, I am very pleased. We do every dictation assignment and every writing assignment. Blessings

Sandra

[MamaSheep]

How writing intensive is SL language arts? How much writing would a student be doing in a given day including history, literature, and language arts? Also, how much of the written work could be done orally instead, or typed, as opposed to worksheets or whatever where you just have to write by hand?

[Annie Laurie]

How writing intensive is SL language arts? How much writing would a student be doing in a given day including history, literature, and language arts? Also, how much of the written work could be done orally instead, or typed, as opposed to worksheets or whatever where you just have to write by hand?

 

I would say that there is a lot of writing. SL emphasizes creative writing and seems to be of the "kids should write something everyday" mentality. When my son did LA 6, there was a creative writing assignment nearly everyday. They gave only a day or two to write an entire paper. There was also a research paper every year. There is copywork (early levels) or dictation once a week.

 

You could easily type the papers and writing assignments, anything done right on the worksheet was brainstorming or a short usage exercise, something without a lot of writing. I don't know how easy it would be to do orally- LA 6 would have been hard to do that way, but I did a lot orally with my younger ds when we did LA 2. We would talk about onomatopoeia, or whatever the topic was, and then brainstorm together and I'd write his sentence for him. I don't know what the LA is like for LA 3 or 4 which I'm assuming you're looking at, so can't help with specifics there.

[Annie Laurie]

I love SL's history cores but do not like their LA at all. I have tried LA K, 1, 2 and 6. It's not systematic and they throw in a lot of unnecessary things at the wrong ages. There is too much creative writing.

[Hen]

I just started LA 2 with my 3 youngest students, this is our very first week, so the jury is still out...but so far, into day 3...I love it.

 

I love that it has us doing something everyday, and that the dictation model is taken from their reading. The first day, there was a quick activity to do for compound words- I had to write the halves of the compound words on flashcards and then have the kids put them together- they loved it. It was simple, the kind of thing I like to do, but don't usually get to because I have no plan. Today they are doing prewriting on their activity sheet in preparation for writing a paragraph later. I really, really am pleased.

 

that saying, it does look gentle, and not soo...I don't know, no frills-comprehensive/intensive? I am thinking that for the older grades I will do sonlight and Growing with grammar. There is something good to be said about be able to diagram a sentence.

[momschicklets]

We're another family using Core 3+4 here--for my 12yo twins and we also use the language arts. I absolutely love it and will definitely use it again next year. I was a bit worried because of some reviews, but I have found it to be just the right amount of work for my kids. And I have found that Sonlight really guides me through the process so I can teach the kids. Just this morning I was flipping through the kids' composition notebook and it's filled with several essays, a much longer research paper, a compare/contrast essay, poems they wrote, book reviews, character analysis, etc. Good stuff!

 

There's generally one or two writing projects a week. For example, maybe this week you'll work on a compare/contrast essay. The project is divided up into bite-sized pieces throughout the week. One day you'll do pre-write planning and organization, another day you'll write your essay, the next day you'll edit and do the final draft. I love the step-by-step approach. The research paper was a 4-week deal! I feel as if I have a lot of help throughout the program.

 

There's not much grammar--almost none really. But that's not a problem for us because I use copywork, dictation and an occasional worksheet to fill in that gap.

 

Anyway, it gets a big :thumbup: from us!