We are not a boxed curriculum, textbook kind of educating family. I think the best way to describe what we have done has been related mostly to Charlotte Mason and Literature Based Homeschooling. My tutoring students do have a little more textbook type stuff than I did early on with Grace. I always thought the worst about companies like Abeka, Bob Jones, Christian Liberty, etc., because they had mostly boxed sets and textbooks. As the years have rolled by I have found myself using curriculum from some of the above mentioned companies. Last year we used Consumer Math from Bob Jones to help round out Grace's 10th grade math credit. Last year was also the first time I had ever tried Abeka readers. Here is where the love comes in.
The girls did very well with the Abeka readers and enjoyed some more than others this past year. I decided why fix something that isn't broke. So I was able to acquire, very cheaply I might add, used 5th and 6th grade readers. Another first but in the same realm of materials is the Speed & Comprehension Readers. The picture above is the 6th grade set. The student reads the assigned section and is timed. After completed the student is given a short one page comprehension quiz to complete. I plan on have the students do this once a week.
I was also blessed to receive a smaller set of 5th grade readers and Read & Comprehension Skill Sheets that are virtually the same as the 6th grade timed set. Three of my students will be using the 6th grade set and 1 the 5th grade set.
So in a nutshell, I shouldn't judge a book by it's company. Even though I had a preconceived idea in my head that all things Abeka equaled not using in my head - I did find something that really works for us.
1 comment:
Being open to the possibility is what makes homeschooling great. This year we are using more packaged curriculum than ever too - Apologia for science, Dave Raymond for history and One Year Adventure Novel for writing. I fear sometimes that #1 I don't have the energy for planning my own curriculum and #2 I want them to have comprehensive coverage of a subject at this stage in their education. We'll see how it goes. Usually when we get too planned, things go badly, but so far we finished lesson #1 in history and will do lesson #2 this weekend and the girls are both loving it.
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