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1st Grade
2nd Grade
3rd
Grade 4th Grade
3rd
Grade
My quick overview of the Story of the World program:
SOTW is world history in story-book format. Reading this together is much
more engaging than reading history text with lots of dates and names that
children most likely will not remember. Older kids could read it on their
own, or you can use as a “read aloud” and include multiple ages.
My thoughts on how it worked for us:
We were first introduced to SOTW when we used
Biblioplan for 2nd grade; SOTW was one of the history spines.
At first I did not like the story format at all; I did not feel it gave
enough dates and figures to give a true picture of historical facts.
However, after some review (2 years later), I was informed by some friends
that I simply wasn’t using it to my full advantage. Using SOTW combined with
encyclopedias and other historical books it would have been better.
My quick overview of the Spelling Power program:
Spelling Power is a program that teaches spelling using lists of most
frequently used words. The book builds on the assumption that phonics
instruction alone isn’t sufficient to produce a good speller. Rule-based
spelling has to be combined with the teaching of “visual spelling” –
recognizing when a word is spelled correctly.
My thoughts on how it worked for us:
It did not take many spelling tests to realize that I had a child who could
not handle failure. Although she was not supposed to know the words before
we tested (they only study the ones they miss), she was in tears after each
morning’s drill. Not worth it. This is a great program, it just wasn’t going
to work for us (see Grade 5 for more information on Spelling Wisdom).
My quick overview of the Abeka Language 3 program:
Abeka Language 3 covers Grammar, Creative Writing and Dictionary Skills. The
teacher’s manual has information for each lesson as well as the answers for
the student workbook.
My thoughts on how it worked for us:
This was an excellent introduction to formal grammar. Everything was
presented in a manner that both my daughter and I knew what to do. It is in
workbook format and that won’t work for everyone, but it worked well for us
and I felt my daughter was given a great introduction to proper writing
skills.
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Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW)
www.writing-edu.com
My quick overview of the IEW program:
There is no possible way to give a “brief” overview of this program, and I
do not yet claim to really understand it all myself, but it is well worth
the money considering you can use it from early elementary through college!
My thoughts on how it worked for us:
We started with IEW by having my girls verbally give me key words from text
we read together. I wrote those down in an outline and then they reworded
the sentences to be new paragraphs. This exercise really helped them to pick
out key words from what they heard or read.
My quick overview of the Singapore program:
Lessons are done with your child from the Home Educator’s Manual. It tells
you what to say and do. Then parent and child go through the Textbook
examples together. Once the child demonstrates that they understand the
concepts, the Textbook points you to the correct lesson in the workbook.
My thoughts on how it worked for us:
One word – fabulous. After printing and having my daughter take the
placement test from their website, we purchased the Home Educator’s Guide,
student text and student workbook for the 1st semester. This was
relatively inexpensive compared to some other math programs we checked out.
My oldest daughter took well to this program and we proceeded to use it with
our middle daughter when she began 1st grade. Be aware that the
program is generally considered to be a year ahead of grade level so it is
not uncommon to have a child in 4th grade place in level 3
(especially if you are coming over from another math program and may not
have covered the same concepts covered earlier by Singapore). We had a
friend use Singapore from 1st grade through 5th with
her oldest daughter and at the end of 5th grade the girl took an
Iowa Skills Test and scored in the 10th grade math. I think we’ll
stick with it a while J.
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