Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Why I LOVE the Logic of English Curriculum And Our Experience So Far



Well, as promised, I am back with another Logic Of English review!  And, ladies and gents, my opinions have not changed!  In fact, I may be MORE in love with this program now than I was in June of last year when I first posted about it!  If you are a reader of my blog, you may remember that I wrote two separate posts last year: one on why I chose the Logic of English curriculum for my kids, and one on what I thought were the necessary items for Level A of the program.  So let me go back to that review and tell you our experience with the different products.






1.) The Teacher's Manual - this is MOST DEFINITELY a necessity! There's no getting around it.  You'll have no idea what they're supposed to do if you don't have the teacher's manual.  But it is also SO WORTH IT!  These books are an amazing wealth of knowledge.  And everything is written out basically in script form (with exactly what you need to say to the kid(s) and what type of response you are looking for from them in return.  It takes the panic and the guesswork out of teaching language arts!
2.) The Student Workbook - Another necessity!  This book is filled with lots of colorful activities, plus practice handwriting pages and fun games!
3.) Doodling Dragons (level A) and Whistling Whales (level B) books - I wouldn't call these a "necessity."  You can definitely do the program without them.  But they are helpful and fun for reinforcing the sounds of many of the phonograms. We have them and the kids enjoy them a lot.
4.) Basic Phonogram Flash Cards - I consider these a necessity!  We love them and use them every day with new phonograms and with phonogram review!  Could you get by without them?  I guess.  Could you make your own?  Yeh. But after the cost of paper, ink, time designing, and printing, and cutting, and laminating the 75 different phonograms, it is SO worth the $18 to buy them.  At least in my opinion.
Could you buy a cheaper set of phonogram cards?  Sure.  But here's why I don't recommend that:
a.) The cheaper set may not include all the phonograms that LOE teaches.
b.) Many phonogram cards only list one sound per card.  This can be confusing for kids (when you teach them A says "the short a sound, like in apple" and then they come across a word like "ate").
c.) Most phonogram cards have pictures.  For example, the phonogram card may have an A on it and a picture of an alligator eating an apple. Denise Eide, the creator of LOE, explains that this may lead to "phonemic confusion."  In other words, kids begin to associate the letter A with only the short sound.  This causes confusion and frustration when they learn the other 2 sounds the letter A makes.



5.) Phonogram Game Cards - Can you get by without these?  Maybe.  But they are SO USEFUL!  And the kids LOVE playing games with them!  All sorts of games, including go fish games and matching games.
6.) Phonogram Game Tiles - I'll be honest, I haven't used these very often.  But I need to use them more because the kids really do like them and they are a great, hands-on way to teach spelling!
7.) Phonogram and Spelling Quick Reference - I haven't used this much yet.  But we're still in level B.  I know that, as we go further in the program and my "mommy brain" has problems remembering things, I'm going to need this!  Haha!
8.) Spelling Analysis Card - I didn't use this much in level A, but I use it a lot now in level B to help myself remember all the parts of Spelling Analysis!  Its really helpful!  And it makes a great bookmark for my place in the teacher's manual!
9.) Student Whiteboard - I guess these aren't completely necessary.  But we use ours CONSTANTLY and the kids love them!  Its a fun change from writing on paper constantly.  And it's great for learning handwriting, and also for spelling practice!
10.) Handwriting Tactile Cards - these have really helped the kids with difficult letters.  They can run their finger over the letters to practice the proper way to for them.  And then they can look at them while they practice, to help them remember.
So, those are my thoughts on the products for levels A and B.  Now I'd like to tell you a little more about our Logic of English experience, now that we're halfway through level B.
Will we be continuing with Logic of English?  ABSOLUTELY!  YES!  I cannot stress that enough!  We LOVE this program!  I love that my kids are learning phonograms, handwriting, spelling rules, etc. all in one program!  I love that I only have ONE TEACHER'S MANUAL - instead of one for spelling and one for grammar, etc. I love that they're learning - at a very early age - what a syllable is and how many syllables a word has!  I love that they are learning how to analyze a word and put the spelling rules into practice to decide how a word should be spelled!  This is FAR BETTER than simply memorizing spelling words!  This is a tool that will help them for the rest of their lives!  I love that my kindergartener - who turned 6 less than a month ago - can write in cursive!  And not sloppy cursive, but beautiful cursive!  I love that my kids ENJOY learning with these books!




Is it always easy?  Of course not! Some days my kindergartener is not in the mood to read out loud.  Sometimes she's fussy or whiny.  (You know, a kindergartener!  Haha!)  But what's great about LOE is that you can go at your own pace!  We're doing levels A & B in kindergarten.  And we plan on doing Level C and starting level D in first grade.  Then we'll finish level D in 2nd grade. Some people do A in 5K, B in 1st grade, C in 2nd, and D in 3rd.  Some people do A & B in kindergarten and B & C in 1st grade.  It all depends on your child.   For now (because I like a schedule), I've scheduled 2 lessons a week - one on Tuesday and one on Thursday.  A lot of times we finish the entire lesson on Tuesday and then we play review games or practice handwriting on Wednesday.  Sometimes we're having a rough day and we use both days to finish the lesson.  There's a lot of freedom in the way it's put together and I love that!

Final thoughts:  I'm OVER THE MOON thrilled that I found this program.  I so wish I'd had it when I was teaching my oldest how to read! There's been MUCH less crying (on BOTH our parts) with this program (and my kindergartener is FAR MORE emotional and dramatic than my oldest child was at this age)! I don't know if its because it goes slowly and builds such a strong foundation or what, but it's been so much less of a struggle.  So in conclusion, would I recommend Logic of English Foundations curriculum?  ONE HUNDRED PERCENT YES!









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