Language Arts 3 2012 Version

by Angela O on 2011-10-21

by Jesica T on 2011-01-26
I agree that the one worksheet is not enough for language arts. You have to do all of the activities that are listed and then make up some of your own for a child to get the concept. We introduce it with Sonlight and do the Sonlight activity and then I make up an extra worksheet depending on what part he doesn't understand. This does need to be more than it is at the early grade levels. For older children it might work better.

by ANDRA S on 2010-06-16
I really love Sonlight. In a perfect world I would only ever use everything they sell and never ever stray. Sadly I've had to pack up their Language Arts and I hope I never ever ever have to use it again. I bought the Core 1 LA for my son and we both hated it. The readers are so annoying. They are just so hard to read aloud. I thought maybe it's just my boy...he's a bit of a late reader. Then my baby came along and she taught herself to read so I figured why buy something else I already have everything I need. She HATED it too! She can't read the books aloud either. I also tried the Core 2 intermediate this year.I either really love Sonlight or I enjoy punishing myself and my son. We liked the Diamond Notes. They were helpful for learning how to gather your thoughts on paper. When it came time to write a more lengthy paragraph I quickly realized something was missing. It was my son's ability to work beyond the 4-5 sentences the Diamond Notes bases provide. Sonlight's IG's have example paragraphs so you can get an idea of what they expect your child's writing lo be like. LOL! Most adults couldn't put that together let alone an 8 year old boy! I also found the paragraph a week to be tedious and tear inducing for both of us. The spelling portion introduces the rule and lists the 10 words, sometimes the words would be super easy and the next week so hard even I had difficulty. Instead of making the words more challenging as the year goes on it's just a hodge podge of spelling rules and word lists. Most disappointing of all was my son's test results this year. While his reading comp score blew me away his language mechanics score was below the 23rd stanine . I attribute this to Sonlight's approach to grammar which is to introduce the concept , for example capitalization, one time. How can your child master this after seeing it once and answering a couple of questions on half of worksheet? They are selling this as an all in one LA program but trust me, it isn't. We've switched to 1st Language Lessons and both kids are LOVING it.I'm going to continue to use it for the summer and the rest of the next school year. My son will also use Switched on School House when we start back in August. I like what I've seen from SOS so far. It appears to be a well rounded program.