Everyday Education, LLC (A Homeschool Crew Review)

Garrett hates reading and Garrett hates writing.  These are things been focused on specifically as we get full force into our third grade year. When we were given the opportunity to review Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting  a elementary curriculum from Everyday Education, LLC, I figured it was something worth trying.  After all, if I can combine both reading and writing into one, it might be less stressful on Garrett.  For this review, we were given an ebook digital copy of the book to use with both kids.

About Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting

Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting is the work of Caroline Joy Adams.  Janice Campbell,  a homeschooling mother, had in the past used the book in an earlier edition years before to teach her own children to read and write. However, when she tried to purchase a second copy of the book to use with her second child, she found that the book was out of print.   Through her own labor of love, she worked hard to bring Caroline Joy Adams original book (along with some of her own copywork sheets) by updating and re-releasing Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting to a new generation of homeschooling families.  

Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting can be used with a young child who is just learning to read and write, older students who are struggling with either, and even adults who would just like to improve on their handwriting skills. 

The beauty of the book is in it's simplicity.  Students are introduced to the "phonic method" where emphasis is placed upon blending letter sounds together to form words.  Then students are given a page of silly sentences to read and then to copy which both re-iterates the reading portion of the lesson as well as allows practice for handwriting.  Over the course of 60 lessons, students progress through the lessons, they also progress from using basic straight lettering often used by younger students, to slanted letters and on to joining letters as used in cursive style writings.  Also included in addition to the 60 lessons are various copywork sheets to use for handwriting practice.

How We Used It

I've been using Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting with both Garrett and Ashleigh for the last few weeks and we have managed to make it through to lesson 12.  The first lesson took a bit longer than others as it concentrates on teaching students to properly form the 26 letters of the alphabet. Starting with lesson 2, students are introduced to a particular letter sound or phonetic blend, such as Short A or ST.  Each of these lessons start by giving the student a list of words which uses the targeted phonetic sound.  

For each lesson, I would simply print out the two pages that correspond with the days lesson. The first page of words we would read aloud , concentrating on proper pronunciation.  so that they could understand and master the targeted blend. Earlier lessons focus more on basic CVC words such as "cat" and "hat" but they soon progressed to harder words such as "dwarf", "twin" and "wisely". Once the first page was read, we would move on to the second page where together we would read the silly sentences provided that used many of the words covered in the lesson along with words previously covered.  After the kids read this page, they would then work independently to write the sentences to the best of their abilities. 

I would love to say that Garrett's handwriting has improved leaps and bounds using this program.  There has been some improvement, especially in legibility, but there are still times that his writing leaves a lot to be desired.  That is to no fault of the book, however, and I think has more to do with the fact he's a 10 year old boy who rushes through writing just to get it over with.  However, I have seen a major improvement in his reading abilities just in the 12 lessons that we have completed so far.  I have seen far less of him simply trying to guess the word and instead he concentrates on actually reading the words and pronouncing them properly.  

Ashleigh is far ahead of Garrett in her reading abilities and she finds the reading to be quite easy but I have no doubt that she has benefited from the review of the phonics.  I have noticed a mark difference in her writing as she tries to properly form her letters exactly as they are shown in the book.  Her writing has become much more legible compared to the scribbled hen scratch she originally started with.   

We have really enjoyed using this curriculum.  Since Garrett does struggle so much with reading and the fact he absolutely loathes writing, we have used MANY other reading curriculum that are on the market and while we have had some degrees of improvement,  I can honestly say that using Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting has probably had the most impact with Garrett.  Where we use to have fights and tears anytime it was time to read, Garrett now quickly grabs his Forbrain and his pencil and is all smiles when it's time to do these lessons.  This book has been a game changer for us in our homeschooling day and I can understand why Janice Campbell wanted so badly to once again make this resource available for homeschooling parents everywhere. 

For more information on Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting and Everyday Education, please visit their website or one of their various social media pages. 

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/janicecampbell/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/janicepcampbell

FB page: https://www.facebook.com/excellenceinlit/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janicepcampbell

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JaniceCampbell

Twitter: https://twitter.com/everydayedu

Members of the crew were given the opportunity to review three different ebooks from Everyday Education, LLC. These books range in grade level and topics so be sure to click the banner below to read about the different products that were offered to us from Everyday Education, LLC. 

Laurelwood Books (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

Once upon a time, there was no chance ever of me thinking about teaching the kids Latin.  My husband had learned Latin in High School and I had learned some Latin in my Medical Terminology class in College, but I just couldn't see myself teaching the kids Latin at such an early age. After all, it's considered one of those "Dead languages" that nobody speaks.  However, when I looked over Laurelwood Books  Latin curriculum for young children I thought it looked pretty interesting.  For the last few weeks, I've been using the Olim, Once Upon a Time Reader II as well as the accompanying Olim, Once Upon a Time Workbook II with Ashleigh and suddenly teaching Latin isn't such a scary endeavor anymore.

This Latin curriculum is targeted for students in 2nd through 5th grade and requires no previous Latin education. A very simple curriculum, it consists of a series paperback books - currently there are 6 readers and their companion workbook available on the Laurelwood website.  By using repetition and familiar stories and parables, students are gently introduced to Latin vocabulary using the readers and then focus on retention of the material with the workbooks.

The Reader II book contains three stories (The Lost Sheep, The Ant and the Chrysalis and the Good Samaritan) presented first in English and then again in Latin.

Similar illustrations are used on each page that help to trigger students to associate what is on the Latin page with what they have already seen in the English page.  The Latin pages also contain a gray sidebar that contains vocabulary used on the page to help students to find the English translation.

The Workbook includes activities involving the vocabulary found in the reader and the activities correspond with the pages found in the reader.  Students are directed to complete an exercise in the workbook at the bottom of pages in the reader.  These activities include translations both from Latin to English and English to Latin as well as matching Latin words to their meanings.

How Did We Use It?

Because we only had one consumable workbook (I opted not to order a 2nd workbook for Garrett), I decided to use this curriculum with Ashleigh.  Ash will be starting 3rd grade in a few weeks so she was in the lower targeted group for this curriculum. Because of this, we worked a bit slower through the curriculum than an older student might and we would work on 1-2 exercises per week. We found the easiest method for us was to work on reading through the Latin page and comparing it to the English on the first day, working through the workbook exercise on day 2, and then reviewing the rest of the week.

I also found it extremely helpful to made flashcards for each page.  This was very easy to do as the reference key on each Latin page provided the vocabulary necessary.  As we were introduced to more Latin words, I would include those flash cards into our stack.

I'd love to say that Ashleigh loves this curriculum. She was honestly pretty excited about learning Latin at the beginning but that enthusiasm has quickly waned.  The exercises are pretty cut and dry and not really something that holds her attention, even though she does really like reading the stories themselves. Ashleigh expects everything to be bright and colorful and those are two things this curriculum are not but she will get over it.   There are a few "Digging Deeper for Treasure" sections in the workbook that she really enjoys where additional vocabulary words are printed at the bottom of random pages which are then filled into a Fill in the Blank activity at the end of each stories section in the workbook.

However, just because Ashleigh isn't thrilled with this curriculum,  Mom is more than happy with it. Ashleigh has learned so much in the course of our lessons.   She is indeed retaining the information she's learning and she's impressed her dad by telling him what she's learning.  I have had to resort to making Ashleigh do "Workbook day" in my bedroom with the door closed to separate her from any and all distractions and then she seems to do much better - one of the perks of homeschooling rather than a classroom setting.

Overall, I really like this curriculum and I plan to stay with it and work our way though the series of books.   My only suggestions would be: 1.) Laurelwood Books might consider their own Flash cards to sell along with the books as I found them to be invaluable with Ashleigh and 2.) maybe include access to a webpage that would have audio clips of proper pronunciation of the Latin words covered.  While a printed pronunciation guide is included in the front of the reader (which was helpful), I did find myself either wishing I knew a definite pronunciation and looking online in hopes of finding an audio clip to listen to.  However, these are just slight annoyances and do not take away from this wonderful curriculum.

Members of the Crew were given the opportunity to review not only different copies of the Olim, Once Upon a Time Latin curriculum but also many of the other books Laurelwood Books publishes and sells. Be sure to click the banner below to check out what they thought.