Choosing homeschool curriculum is not for the faint of heart. I am just amazed by how many products and companies are made available to homeschoolers nowadays to help guide us in our homeschool journey; it is quite bittersweet.
Choosing curriculum is seriously like a mental ping pong game in my head-- constantly! But sure enough when I stop stressing out over what I should choose, the answer becomes clear, or not so clear but then another product comes along that wasn't on my radar and it is exactly what I was looking for all along. Funny how that works!
Take my dilemma over what to use to help teach Little Sis learn how to read for example. I chose something completely different than what I had used with Big Brother-- not because it didn't work, but well because I wanted a program all laid out for me instead of piecing things together.
I had something else picked out for Little Sis, but while I was at a curriculum sale I was able to thumb through Logic of English Foundations A-- and I was immediately drawn to it.
I chose to go home without Foundations A that day, but the curriculum kept coming back to me, so I read through Logic of English's website and a few curriculum reviews and decided to get in touch with the company.
In exchange for a thorough product review, I was able to get my hands on the Foundations A Curriculum to use with Little Sis. I. was. thrilled!!!
I've used Logic of English Essentials and The Rhythm of Handwriting Cursive Program with Big Brother and was impressed with both products, so I was pretty sure I'd feel the same way about Foundations and that proved to be true.
Homeschool Reading Curriculum
It did take a little bit of a learning curve to get used to-- the information is all there and is super teacher friendly, but there's so much information it is easy to get overwhelmed. The program teaches "voiced" and "unvoiced" phonograms-- something I didn't learn until my speech classes in college!
The Teacher's Manual lays out a Scope & Sequence and Materials List. The Materials List includes things like NERF gun/ ball, chalk, scissors, tokens, etc. However, it is easy to improvise and/or skip the activity if you don't have the stated material. I realized Little Sis is kind of a "no-nonsense learner"-- just show her what she needs to do, and she'll do it. That said, we didn't do a lot of the extra hands-on activities. But man, how I wish I had this program with Big Brother!
It is a scripted program, but it isn't necessarily "open and go."
I definitely needed to read over the material before letting loose with Little Sis. That might just be common sense, but it'll flow better and make more sense if you take the time to read over the lesson the night before.
The Teacher's Manual includes:
- lesson prep
- guided scripts
- games and exercises
- optional tips and activities
- spelling and assessment charts
I loved that throughout the Teacher's manual, there were colored boxes that included activities and ideas to use for struggling students and/or students that need extra movement or tactile stimulation, various "Teacher tips," and/or an idea that posed more of a challenge. Those extra tips weren't necessary, but were a lot of fun!
Foundations A contains 40 lessons and 8 review lessons; every 6th lesson is review. I found it very helpful that the review lessons include a chart of what skills should be mastered and what skills can continue to be worked on and developed as you continue on with lessons.
Phonemic awareness and/or introducing a new phoneme, and handwriting skills are worked on every lesson, and beginning is lesson 21, your child begins learning how to spell simple CVC words.
Foundations A contains 40 lessons and 8 review lessons; every 6th lesson is review. I found it very helpful that the review lessons include a chart of what skills should be mastered and what skills can continue to be worked on and developed as you continue on with lessons.
Phonemic awareness and/or introducing a new phoneme, and handwriting skills are worked on every lesson, and beginning is lesson 21, your child begins learning how to spell simple CVC words.
I'm not sure how long each lesson took, but we blazed through Level A in just a few months. Level A sets the stage for your beginning reader. He/ she will learn to write and know sounds of letters a-z and decode simple three letter words.
We did the first couple of lessons in one sitting, but Little Sis got burned out shortly after the "newness" wore off. Our lessons seemed to work well when I set a timer for 10-15 minutes and we just worked through the lesson and stopped when the timer went off. We just picked up where we left off the day before.
We did the first couple of lessons in one sitting, but Little Sis got burned out shortly after the "newness" wore off. Our lessons seemed to work well when I set a timer for 10-15 minutes and we just worked through the lesson and stopped when the timer went off. We just picked up where we left off the day before.
Along with the Teachers Manual, there is a Student Workbook that provides further practice based on the lesson you completed in the teachers manual. The worksheets reinforced blending words, segmenting sounds, matching phonograms, reading words, etc. Games were also interspersed throughout the workbook-- my daughter loved phonogram bingo!
The worksheets are simple, yet colorful; eye catching but not too distracting.
Along with learning to read, Foundations A works on handwriting and spelling.
The student workbook includes handwriting worksheets in cursive or print. When purchasing the curriculum, you will have a choice to either purchase the Student Workbook with print or cursive handwriting practice sheets.
Logic of English encourages cursive first, so we chose to the Cursive student Workbook and learning cursive was Little Sis's favorite part of the program!
It is still a work in progress as she will write in a mix of cursive and print in one word, but I am so amazed at how well my 5 year old daughter loved learning cursive.
One of my favorite parts of Foundations A was the picture readers included in the back of the Student Workbook.
The workbook includes 6 readers that my daughter loved putting together. She had such a feeling of accomplishment putting together her own book together from cutting it out, reading the words, and gluing the correct picture to the page. We stapled it together, and she read her very first book!
Along with the Teacher's Manual and Student Workbook, you'll also need a copy of Doodling Dragons and these re-useable resources:
- Phonogram and Spelling Rule Quick Reference (cursive or manuscript)
- Rhythm of Handwriting Quick Reference Chart (cursive or manuscript)
- Rhythm of Handwriting Tactile Cards (cursive or manuscript)
- Phonogram Game Cards
- Student Whiteboard
- Basic Phonogram Flash Cards
- Phonogram Game Tiles
- Spelling Analysis Card
It has been great having Foundations part of that journey.