Teaching to read again: IEW Primary Arts of Language

With 3 children I am realizing that learning the process of teaching to read is one I will have the opportunity to refine. With our oldest child Lily we used a variety of tactics. First and foremost reading to children is essential. It peaks their interest and introduces them to the written word. Second, using a curriculum - and I discovered what a weakness I have in choosing which curriculum is best. As you can imagine having your first child you may try many. We used a book called Teaching Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons - sometimes the stories were strange and the book was dry but it worked [but I would probably still say it was tedious], we used Veritas Press' Phonics Museum - my favorite part was the primer books and the Museum story, we used BOB books - nice small readable and building one on the other books.


Now I am teaching another child to read and having the luxury of looking back 6.5 years and seeing what worked well I have come to a different place. First, we have seen the amazing benefits of using a curriculum from a company called the Institute for Excellence in Writing. Lily started using their curriculum via Classical Conversations Essentials program. She has used various books over the past 4 years and it has greatly shaped her writing. That led me to looking more closely at their new release last year of the Primary Arts of Language: Reading and Writing curriculum. It is a blended sound-sight program approach.  Wilder is still technically in preschool but we have started this program and she is loving it. She just asked me yesterday when she can do it again. I said on Monday because I wanted the weekend break but I loved that she was excited about it. I think what is drawing me to it is that it combines copy work, learning how to read, writing, grammar, poetry and recitation, spelling & spelling rules, games [educational games that are clear and concise and not long winded] ALL in one program. I should say at this moment that I am not paid to say such nice things about IEW but when you have a kid begging to do her school work - you raise your hands and shout hallelujah. Since Wilder is K4 I am taking it slowly but this has worked in so nicely to our schedule and has been so thoroughly touching on all these key areas that I can't help but be very pleased. Some of the program are consumable notebooks but I made an extra copy for Atticus so that it can be used twice. Here is a review written by another homeschooler on the curriculum.

I am sure that I will be able to continue to hone and customize Wilder's curriculum as we move along but I am happy to have found something that she and I both enjoy. For now I am freaking happy with the ease of one stop curriculum for a group of subjects by a program that I have seen as a crucial building block to Lily's good writing skills. God is good. Carpe diem.