Language Arts

At this time, we do not have a formal language arts curriculum.  I have tried a few things and we use those from time to time or for a reference.  But here is how we approach teaching language arts.

Pre-K, Kindergarden

• Learn letters and sounds
• Leap Frog videos
• 100 Easy Lessons to Teach Your Child to Read
• Tracing and Copywork
• Learning to write their names and a few other words
• Reading LOTS of books to them, with them

Once they know how to read:

• Copywork and dictation - usually from a Bible verse, but also CC facts or a poem we want to learn
• Spelling lessons
• Have them read aloud with me, easy readers until they can read by themselves
• Assign them books to read (they also have a lot of choice in this)

I used to be concerned that we weren't writing enough, but other experienced homeschool moms encouraged me to just get them reading and the writing will come.  And it has proven true so far.  I know that we don't write near as much as maybe a public school student would at this age, but I am confident that we will catch up because we have a good foundation.

My daughter could not stand to write anything.  It would bring her to tears and so we backed off a bit.  She began reading at least one chapter book a week.  Six months later, I began having her write a few paragraphs about what she was reading.  This came with ease.  Her spelling improved.  She understood sentence structure and capitalization and punctuation rules much better without a lot of formal lessons.  And now when I do these lessons with her, or correct something, it makes much more sense to her.  Before it only caused frustration.

Materials we have used:

• A Reason for Spelling: A, B, & C
• Spell to Write and Read
• Various online lists of books for grade level