Language Arts | Curriculum
Language arts curriculum includes materials used to teach reading, writing, spelling and comprehension. It may include literature and poetry in the upper elementary years as well.
Language Arts
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Five in a Row | Homeschool Curriculum Review | Literature Based | Pre-K, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Grade
If you are looking for a literature-based unit study approach for your young children, Five In A Row is a great curriculum to use. Using picture books as the literature, FIAR (Five in a Row) derives lessons from the stories. The picture book is read five days in a row and each day a new lesson and activity are covered. The FIAR curriculum comes with 4 volumes covering a total of 70 books. Each volume can be used in any order, but the 4th volume is more advanced. This curriculum is very well priced, and since you can borrow the books from the library, you can keep your costs very low. There are additional resources at the back of the curriculum for the convenience of the parent, but additional materials are suggested to supplement the lessons.
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Beyond Five in a Row | Homeschool Curriculum REVIEW | 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th Grade Curriculum
If you are looking for a literature-based unit study approach for your elementary aged children, Beyond Five In A Row is a great curriculum. Using quality chapter books as the literature, Beyond Five in a Row derives lessons from the stories. The 3 volume series contains secular books and lessons (though the books have been chosen with a Christian worldview) with the 4th volume being a Christian supplement resource.
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Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading
We’ve worked through the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise and Susan Buffington twice! I didn’t use this curriculum with my oldest child, but I used it with my second and third child and am undecided on whether I’ll use it with my fourth one. Since we use a Waldorf curriculum, I want to clarify that the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading is not a Waldorf or Waldorf inspired curriculum.
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Literature Based Curriculum Review | 5th & 6th Grade
I love the concept behind these language arts workbooks. They are paired with popular and classic novel to help students learn vocabulary, reading comprehension and literary analysis in a fun and engaging way. I'm just sad it didn't work well for two of my children, but there's hope for my last student!
Five in a Row | Curriculum Review | Literature Based
If you are looking for a literature-based unit study approach for your young children, Five In A Row is a great curriculum to use. Using picture books as the literature, FIAR (Five in a Row) derives lessons from the stories. The picture book is read five days in a row and each day a new lesson and activity are covered. The FIAR curriculum comes with 4 volumes covering a total of 70 books. Each volume can be used in any order, but the 4th volume is more advanced. This curriculum is very well priced, and since you can borrow the books from the library, you can keep your costs very low. There are additional resources at the back of the curriculum for the convenience of the parent, but additional materials are suggested to supplement the lessons. I walk you through a lesson at 11:28. You can find more information about Five In A Row here.
Beyond Five in a Row | 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th Grade
If you are looking for a literature-based unit study approach for your elementary aged children, Beyond Five In A Row is a great curriculum. Using quality chapter books as the literature, Beyond Five in a Row derives lessons from the stories. The 3 volume series contains secular books and lessons (though the books have been chosen with a Christian worldview) with the 4th volume being a Christian supplement resource. Each volume features two fiction and two nonfiction books. Lessons are derived from the chapter's content in a unit study approach. This curriculum is very well priced, and since you can borrow the books from the library, you can keep your costs very low. There are additional resources at the back of the curriculum for the convenience of the parent, but additional materials are suggested to supplement the lessons. You can find more information about Five In A Row here.
Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading
We’ve worked through the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise and Susan Buffington twice! I didn’t use this curriculum with my oldest child, but I used it with my second and third child and am undecided on whether I’ll use it with my fourth one. Since we use a Waldorf curriculum, I want to clarify that the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading is not a Waldorf or Waldorf inspired curriculum. In fact it’s quite the opposite of how a Waldorf curriculum teaches reading. In a Waldorf curriculum reading is taught through writing in a holistic imaginative way in which the words are born within the child and written on paper. Then the child reads what she has written and in this way, readers are made by the child. As beautiful as this process is, it didn’t work as I imagined.
Enter the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Reading (OPGR). This curriculum is very complete, easy to use and yields results. You child will know how to decode words, learn how to read and establish a good foundation for spelling. Written is a scripted manner, the OPGR takes the guesswork out of how to teach reading. It’s written in an authentic voice so that anyone who reads sounds natural. I changed very little of the script, finding it easy to read as it was written. This is an oral curriculum; there is nothing the child needs to write down.
There are 230 lessons beginning very easy with each letter of the alphabet and its sound taking one lesson. The lessons quickly accelerate and become longer, or at least more time consuming, and increase in difficulty disproportionately. Each lesson comes with a built-in review of the previous lesson, but it is advised to review previous lessons before moving forward. This curriculum takes two years to complete if you do four lessons a week. I wouldn’t advise doubling up on lessons to progress faster, but on one occasion, we simply didn’t finish the book because midway through my child learned to read on his own and accelerated very quickly in his reading ability. I do think the curriculum is extremely valuable in laying a good foundation for spelling, so even if your child has already learned to read or learns in the course of doing this curriculum, it’s still of value to complete the course.
The only things you’ll need to supplement this curriculum with are some index cards and a pen to write the letters of the alphabet for the first several lessons. You may write the two-letter blends as well. I chose to write directly in the book.
Have you used this curriculum? Did you like it? Let me know below!
Literature Based Curriculum Review | 5th & 6th Grade
I love the concept behind these language arts workbooks. They are paired with popular and classic novel to help students learn vocabulary, reading comprehension and literary analysis in a fun and engaging way. I'm just sad it didn't work well for two of my children, but there's hope for my last student!
What's curious is that while my two boys (who did this workbook in 6th or 7th grade), it didn't seem like they really liked it or were into it. Admittedly, I had assigned these lessons as 'filler lessons' or 'busy work'. While I can't devote undivided attention to each student in our homeschool, I choose some work that they can do independently that has some academic value. It seemed like this was a win, win, win. Independent work, academic value and best of all, based on a book they love. The problem was the last part. Because it was based on a book they loved, having to deconstruct in an academic way took the pleasure out of the reading process and the enjoyment out of the book. My children could talk for hours about a book they love, but asking direct question to test reading comprehension or vocabulary simply took the spirit out of the book. What's interesting is that looking back, the boys said they did like these lessons! Go figure...I guess you don't really know what's going on in their heads, or rather, maybe they don't! It's possible in retrospect, they remember the aspects they enjoyed about the lessons, and not the parts that they didn't. Overall, I think the concept is spot on and creative. Maybe it will work better with my girl.