Used LOE with my son 6 years ago and needed to be reminded about how great this program is for my daughter. Was considering AAR but think I'll stick with what I am familiar with. Thanks for the great review. You are a natural at sharing your experience on here, so subscribing :)
Wonderful review!! Thank you so much! I’ve been spending all summer trying to decide which LA curriculum to get for my daughter who’s starting K level. She’s such a kinesthetic learner and appreciates being able to learn through games, handling loose parts. But when it came to finding something for reading and phonics I was so overwhelmed by the options out there. I actually looked at LoE a while ago but the price put me off…but I have to say, I can understand why it’s priced higher than other curricula. It really does provide a deeper foundation for learning phonics. Before deciding to purchase LoE I wanted to go ahead and see if my daughter was receptive to learning that some letters actually make MORE than one sound. And even though she’s only 5 she is doing great! She knows that Aa makes 3 sounds and she can say all 3. She knows that Cc says /k/ AND sometimes it also says /s/. I know some parents might think these phonics rules are “too much” for a beginner, but I would argue that it’s actually easier for them to learn all the phonograms at the onset of their reading journey, rather than get into habits that then have to be adjusted/mended later down the line. Like you mentioned in the video when your daughter was trying to pronounce “salt” and was confused as to why the Aa sounded differently than she had previously been taught. I don’t want to have to always say “it’s an exception”. Because that’s not a true explanation. I want her to be able to know that it’s because some letters make multiple sounds.
It looks amazing, looks like it would be a great fit for my son - but being in Australia the currency conversion is a killer, I was prepared to pay that until it was going to be $110 purely for postage.
@@tuathadesidhe1530 Yeah, US shipping prices are always killer! We're in Taiwan, so I ended up paying about $200 to ship A-D here 😬. They do have an online option now, though. It wasn't available when we started, but it's likely a better option for those of us overseas.
This is such a great review, thank you! We're just starting TGTB kindergarten and now I feel like I have a second option if it isn't a great fit!! Thanks for the super in depth explanation and also for sharing the organizational stuff (boxes etc) from micheals. You rock!
My daughter is also crazy about LOE and this has been really working well for us. Yes, US, as I enjoy teaching it as well. We're about to finish B, and I was thinking of switching to AAR just because I'm curious. Just the other day, my daughter begged that we do a lesson on her "yellow book", then I realized there is no need to switch. We are sticking to LOE.
You're welcome! I hope you can find something that works well. It can be so hard trying to make the decision when to stick with something and when to try something new.
Thought I'd share. I have 7 kids and I also have tired all 3 you stated as well as Masterbooks phonics (newest) and BJU phonics. I 100% choose LOE. It only takes us 20-30mins a day and that is all of english done! I currently do it with 2 different levels. Build a better foundation to start, less they need moms help later. GREAT review!
This is such a great review! Thank you for making it! We absolutely love LOE, we are close to finishing C and we plan on continuing with Essentials after Foundations D 😊
This is helpful - I bought LOE A and am about 9 lessons in, and we're honestly NOT enjoying it (well, my 6yo and I don't like it, my 4yo does :P ) I've been thinking about switching to AAR, so it's helpful to hear what you DIDN'T like about it! Hmm... I actually didn't like the fact that LOE teaches all the sounds up front - it felt really overwhelming. I know AAR does teach them, maybe starting in Level 2, but after they have the basic sounds down and are have some reading under their belt. My intuition is that my 6yo needs to feel like he is actually reading in order to be motivated to keep learning, and it feels like a lot of details before he's actually reading interesting books. That was something I really liked about AAR, that the readers are actually interesting, despite being CVC. Ah...so hard to choose! I do kind of wish I'd tried AAR first, though, just because they have a 1 year guarantee, whereas LOE returns have to be in pristine condition, which mine aren't. Lots to think about - thank you for the review!
I think the beginning is a bit hard to get into, especially when you aren't doing full letter writing yet and just the little practice strokes. Unfortunately in A, there really aren't many readers, just those little books you put together. My daughter loved making them, though! In B, it really does pick up, so you'd have more to do in that. I have heard that some people use the AAR readers to supplement LOE. I'm not sure how all the phonograms would line up, but that might be an idea. Would your 6 year old want to go a bit faster? I think we finished A in about 4 or 5 months, but we weren't doing it every day, so you could probably go through it a bit quicker and get to the parts he's more interested in.
This was so incredibly helpful to me! Thank you for sharing all your curriculum switching, makes me feel better 😃 My son had his consonant and short vowel letter sounds down pat by 3.5 and I have been struggling for the past 1.5 years to find a reading curriculum that works for both of us! All about reading was very dry to me and him and I also looked at tgatb and totally agree with what you were saying, it seemed random. We have done abeka the most but there is not much “why” at all in that curriculum and as we got deeper into different vowel sounds I felt insecure about teaching it properly to him! I now see how just memorizing all the sounds the letters make at first could be super helpful and not super confusing as I originally thought. I just ordered logic of english A and we are going to do the same thing you did- start at the beginning and learn all those extra sounds and play all the games we can! He is very active and I am terrible at creativity on my own. He reads Cvc and consonant blends very well and I’m really looking forward to seeing him progress while having fun! :)
@@kchapyful Sorry, just saw that this was from a month ago, so you probably ordered already, but I would do the workbooks, especially if you are doing cursive because there are lots of letter recognition activities in it.
@LonePine Bride I was thinking the same - I've been doing LOE for a bit and my 6yo really doesn't like it, so I've been considering AAR and one of things that draws me is all the games! Hmm...
This is sooooo helpful. I own AAR but haven’t used it cuz then I read about LOE and it was a big investment. But it seems to be such a critical topic and I feel my kid will love it best. I have BIG regrets that I didn’t do it for kinder at home as I planned but I can’t go back. I think thanks to your video I plan to get a and B even though she can read and she can go quickly through a but we want to be sure we don’t have any gaps. The way you explained the short in in the long eight with the word salt was super helpful to me. My daughter can read early reader books like some of the Osborne ones etc. but she’ll get to a word like look and I don’t know how to explain that all sound and how does she supposed to know if the air is short or long so she tries to sound it out both ways and I don’t know what the rules are myself because I was not good at this in school and so I feel like to make sure she gets the best education in this area the way you explained it and how happy and relieved you seem when you switched seems exactly like us so I appreciate your honest review very much and I’m excited to try it. Even though she’ll be starting first grade. I don’t care if it’s behind. She could have likely done it at 5 but I didn’t want to push it.
It's really so helpful knowing all these little rules. Honestly, I feel like I'm learning a lot with my daughter! When I was in school, it was mostly sight reading, so there are lots of things that I wasn't sure why I pronounce it like I do! I love the LOE explains all this. I totally wouldn't worry about her being behind! I think starting this in first grade is fine.
Absolutely loved your review! Well done. I am a mom of four. Even though it is a bit teacher intensive I have loved watching my kids grow and learn. I am so thankful for LOG.
There’s a lot of benefit to not curriculum hopping every year or even multiple times per year. Children really benefit from consistency in nearly every facet of life.
Great review! Really enjoyed it as my 4 yr old daughter is currently wanting to start a formal curriculum. I was looking for a comparison of TGTB and Logic of English and your video has really helped me out! Thank you so much😁
Thank you so much for making this review! Your video introduced me to this curriculum and I'm absolutely grateful. I feel a sense of relief after watching this being as I've been a little indecisive as well as confused about what I want to use for my two kids when I begin our homeschool journey. I feel like LOE will "click" with my kids after listening to your experience with the other curriculums I've been considering. I genuinely appreciate you sharing your experience with these different teaching methods so that overwhelmed moms like me feel a little less overwhelmed at the end of the day! 😊
Hey girl! Thank you for this video. We have been struggling with LA for awhile now. I just ordered LOE and was just watching videos to see how to organize all the components. I have to say I love how real you are, you are awesome and so relatable. Your awesome I subscribed hope you post more videos.
Aw thanks so much! I've been meaning to do some more reviews, but I actually had another baby in February, so things have been crazy around here 🤣. Hopefully soon, though!
Seriously can not thank you enough for taking the time to share all of this. We love LOE! & We equally love hearing all about others LOE experiences. 🙋♀️🤗💓
I love this! Thank you for making a video. I could have literally done a video word for word.. Except I haven't tried LOE yet! ( So you're hopefully like the "after" version of me😅). I,too, get frustrated they there is no "why" answers and I,too, have a child that learns the same type of way ( wiggly, unmotivated unless there is a game of some kind, etc). Excited to try this
I’m so glad you put this review together! AAR drives me crazy. I know it’s a very unpopular opinion. I love TG&TB, but not for learning to read. I’m a huge fan of LOE. I think you’ve convinced me to try cursive with my next child.
Fantastic review, I am totally switching. We have been doing Good and the Beautiful and my son just can't wait for it to be over. But with our Right Start math he LOVES the games.
This was very helpful as someone who uses those other curriculums with a very frustrated child! I’m going to get the cursive with my struggling 8 year old (older sister is dyslexic so I am sure he is too), but the manuscript I will plan to use with our 4 year old in September. I like they can use different “levels” of the same level for my older son. Thanks for dharing
So glad I found this! Im still going to test the free lesson samples of LOE and All About Reading beforw making a final choice but I am leaning towards LOE. Weve been doing TGTB and although its been a good fit otherwise, I think we need all the letter sounds and rules up front.
My daughter really thrived by having all the rules up front. I'm amazed at how well she can decode things now. She can figure out such difficult words with so much confidence. LOE has been amazing for her!
This is extremely helpful. Most people haven't done AAR and LOE. I'm on the fence because my son learns best with play and games. He didn't even find TGATB pre-k fun at all (which I understand, but it seems like most other little ones love it). But I worry he will be overwhelmed by ALL the rules, which is my main reason I would do AAR instead of LOE. I know you mentioned this, but could you share more about the review built in and share how different they are in terms of fun/games? Thanks!!
The review lessons are built in after every five regular lessons. In general, you'll run through the phonogram flash cards you've learned so far, practice writing the letters in the previous lessons, and then there will be some games. Sometimes they're card games, and sometimes they're matching activities in the workbook or words cards you cut out of the workbook and do an activity with. Just as an example, in my daughter's most recent assessment lesson, there was a page with a list of sentences on one page and on the next page were a bunch of pictures we had to cut out. Then, she had to put the pictures in order according to what the sentences said. I've definitely heard other people describe LOE as kind of overkill with the rules, and I was a bit nervous of overwhelming my daughter, but she's done really well with it. The new rules you learn are repeated often, and I was surprised how well my daughter could recognize why words were spelled certain ways without my prompting based on the previous rules she learned. I really think LOE does a great job of presenting things without being overwhelming. My daughter has never complained that it's too much, and she seems to have amazing recall of what we've already learned. As for the games, up to where we left AAR, all the games were just cutting out a printable and doing something with it. Maybe just read them or match them or something like that. LOE does have some printable games like that too (although I think with a bit more variety), but pretty much every lesson has more active games as well. Sometimes it's really simple stuff, like read the word and add a block to a tower or push a toy car as far as you can, but even these simple things make the lesson so much more engaging for my daughter! The other day we had one where I had to lay out a bunch of stuff, like a fork, hat, watch, car, ball, etc., and then she had to read directions and do those things, like "Put on the hat." or "Toss the ball." She loved it! Other things she's done is pretend to walk on a tightrope, and she gets to take one step forward for each phonogram card she reads correctly, another was closing her eyes and trying to write her letters without looking. Every lesson has different little activities like this that just make things more fun. And it's not similar activities in back to back lessons, so each lesson feels different from the previous one. And after completing A and most of B, I'm so happy that LOE has spelling and handwriting built in. It's so much easier for me not having to juggle more things, and our lessons flow really well. Hope that helps! If you have other questions, let me know!
This was so helpful, I’m getting ready to teach my 4th child to read, I have been debating between many curriculum choices, I have always been drawn to LOE but haven’t been able to make the investment yet...of all the samples and reviews your walkthrough has definitely opened my eyes to some points I hadn’t considered and I think I’ll be asking the grandparents to pitch in so we can get LOE at last, I hope you and your family are well and that you come make more RUclips videos I’m now very curious what you use for math lol
Thanks so much! It is a bit of an investment, but I do think it's totally worth it. The nice thing is that it covers everything, so at least you don't need extra spelling or anything. It also seems to have pretty good re-sale value on the Facebook group, so you might be able to get some of the cost back at the end. For math, we do Rightstart. Love, love, love it! It's very similar in style to LOE, in that it teaches a lot through games and the lessons are completely scripted. Super open and go! We're actually almost done with Rightstart B and will be moving onto C in about a month. It is a bit of an investment, too, because of all of the manipulatives you need to buy the first year, but I think it averages out ok if you use it for several years. They also do a Cyber Monday sale every year on gently used items (usually displays from conventions or returns), and you can get the manuals for 30% off. I always buy then! You just have to get up in time because they sell out fast!
@@courtneya9437 thank you for the Cyber Monday tip! We love Rightstart Math, as well! We use Timberdoodle for lots of STEAM/Thinking Skills, but may I ask what you use for Science/Health and for Social Studies/History? Thanks so much!
@@Lilc97Jax We're actually doing a few different things 🤣. I couldn't decide between History Quest and Curiosity Chronicles for ancient history, so I'm actually combing both. And for science, we're doing the Blossom and Root First Grade, which has a geology focus, and Elemental Science's Intro to Science, which has a bit of everything. And I've actually discovered Core Knowledge which is an amazing curriculum, and the PDFs are free! We've been supplementing our geology studies with the "History of the Earth" language arts unit, and for my youngest, we're doing the Kindergarten "Stories" LA unit. They have science and history, too, but I haven't tried them yet. I'm really impressed so far, though, so we might switch to more of Core Knowledge next year. www.coreknowledge.org/curriculum/
Thank you so much for the review and the comparisons! I love the boxes from Michael’s you use to store your cards. Do you by chance know the demensions so I can order them online?
Thanks for sharing!! I've been reading Uncovering the Logic of English and want to stick with a program that teaches all of the sounds and rules. Was going to say it seems to be the phonics/reading equivalent to RightStart, but saw in the comments that you use that as well :) We're loving RS level B, and will move to level C this fall. My son seems to learn like your daughter does. What will you use after LOE level B? Is it still Foundations or a different LOE program?
Haha. I think it's like the Rightstart of phonics, too! Both programs are so fantastic! We're almost done with Rightstart B, and we'll start C after. We've actually already finished LOE Foundations B and are in the middle of C already. I can't believe how quickly we've gotten through it! At the moment, my plan is to stick to Foundations through D and then do LOE essentials. The program just works so well for my daughter, I haven't really looked at anything else once we made the switch 😁.
I loved this video, I can tell that you really love homeschooling! I’m wondering if you would use this program with a child who is already reading by sight fairly well? My 5 year old has taught himself to read by sight and can read some pretty impressive words, but he hasn’t had any formal phonics instruction, which makes me a bit nervous. The only words he can sound out (or at least that I’ve heard him sound out) are CVC words. But he has such a good memory and is just naturally word smart that he learns sight words really quickly, so once I tell him what a word is, he almost always remembers it the next time it pops up.
Thanks so much! That's a really good question! My daughter wasn't reading more than simple CVC words when we started. She knew all the basic letter sounds, but that was about it. I actually really wanted to go with a whole phonics approach originally because I thought it would be better in the long run for spelling. I basically taught myself to read just with sight words as a kid, and my spelling is so ridiculously bad. Sometimes the spell check on my phone doesn't even know what I'm trying to write, it's so bad 🤣. So from that side of it, I would say that it's still really worth it to have phonics reading instruction, even if the sight reading is strong. And honestly, I'm amazed by how well my daughter can figure out new words by learning to read this way. I rarely have to prompt or give clues. We're half-way through C now, and she flies through the readers without really stopping now. She never looks to me to remind her of something; she just uses the rules she's learned and figures everything out. It's pretty amazing! Maybe you should look into starting right in at Foundations B? I think they have the first five lessons for free to try on their website, so maybe let your son try one and see what he thinks?
I’m switching from all about reading right now because of the same exact reason 😅 she just isn’t engaged hates those pages full of words & honestly so do I.
Yes! Still loving it! We're actually a little over halfway through Foundations C, and my daughter's reading ability has really picked up more quickly than I expected. She's actually started doing some of those Scholastic Acorn books on her own!
This is great thank you! My daughter gets frustrated when she has a sound down and then now there is a new way for that sound so I think teaching all the sounds makes sense. Been debating what program to do but I keep coming back to this. But she is almost at second grade level would it be fine to go straight to level c?
Thank you so much for your review, it is so helpful. I have all the levels of AAR and have used it with my oldest and on the last level with her. However for my so it seems like LOE might be a better fit because of all the games. I just don't know if I can bring myself to purchase another curriculum. It's also a little expensive. Do you think it's possible to find LOE used?
Yes! Have you joined the Logic of English Family User Group on Facebook? I see used sets on there a lot. The company also has scratch and dent sales occasionally.
So helpful thank you!! I had thought about this program so many times but my 5yo flew threw both k and level 1 of TGTB and I seriously wanted to try logic of English but I don’t know if we can start at level c since he is doing level 2 of TGTB now.
Ah, good question! I know on the LOE website they say to start in A or B, but I'm not sure exactly why they prefer not to start in C. I suppose it's because of how they schedule their multi-letter phonograms across B and C. If you just started in C, you would miss the some. Perhaps there's a list of which multi-letter phonograms are taught in which level on their site? Maybe in a teacher's guide sample? Or maybe if you can look at a copy of Whistling Whales? They'd all be in there. Then you could match and see if he knows all the covered phonograms in B already. The only other issue I could see is being unfamiliar with the spelling marks they use, but I think you could pick it up fine. Denise Eide has some videos up explaining her finger spelling methods that I've watched before, so I imagine she would have some with her marking methods up as well. We just started C this month, and the structure is basically the same as B. The lesson starts with a new phonogram, has some activities, spelling practice, handwriting practice, and reading from a reader. We've started with all the /er/ phonograms so far - ur, ir, er, and ear.
Thank you so much for your video! I'm looking around, and LOE is a top contender. I'm wondering, how does it handle blending? You know that really important jump where kids take single letters and are able to put them together to read words. I'm curious how LOE approaches this.
There are lots of exercises in A and B as part of the lessons. You do some work with flash cards first, I think, saying one and then the other closer and closer together. I'm doing B again now with my son, and there are some reading lift-the-flap worksheets, where you say the blend, then lift the flap and read the word under it. There's also lots of segmenting work before you even get to the blends. Both the child segmenting the words and the teacher doing it and the child putting the sounds together.
Your review was SO helpful! Made me feel confident in my decision to go with LOE. I'm just not sure where I want to start my son. He is in Kindergarten now and we have 8 lessons left in "How to teach you child to read in 100 easy lessons". So he is reading and is doing well but definitely has signs of dyslexia. Fluency could be better. Because I'm seeing these signs and I struggled with reading as a child I want to build strong reading skills with my son. So I want to start LOE for 1st grade and want to do cursive. Do you think LOE A is too easy for a 1st grader who is reading? "100 easy lessons" doesn't teach all the sounds "A" makes like LOE, just short and long. So I'm on the fence if I should skip LOE A and go straight to B. Your advice is really appreciated.
He might feel a little bored with A if he's reading well, but if he has no experience with cursive, the newness of that might make up for it. When we started A, my daughter knew all the basic sounds of each letter, but not the additional sounds, and we hadn't really done much writing at all, and she was fine starting with A. I think we went through it pretty fast. Maybe about three months? She was five and a half at the time. In B, there is an intro lesson for those who didn't complete A that goes over all the additional letter sounds. So if you feel like A would be too easy, those extras would be covered in B. Writing-wise, A does all lowercase and B does all uppercase, so if you think you'll need the help teaching the cursive, you might want to start with A. Another alternative would be doing Rhythm of Handwriting, which teaches cursive the LOE way independently from Foundations.
I am really considering LOE for my boys and teaching them together. My question is, if we do the cursive workbook and all of that, what about when they are reading the readers and such which aren't in cursive. Is there confusion on the letters and such or do they teach everything in bookcase and then just the handwriting is cursive. I just don't want to overwhelm them with not only numerous sounds but then differentiating between the cursive versus bookcase letters if that makes sense. Thanks for the review.
My daughter never had any issue going back and forth between the print and cursive. All the phonogram cards are in bookface, so when they first are introduced to the letters, they see them like how they are in the readers. There's lots of practice built in to help them recognize the print and cursive version of each letter. The workbook has some matching activities, and you'll play some games like memory and go fish with the decks of both cards, so they'll get lots of practice seeing both forms together. My daughter had a bit of print writing practice before we started this, so I was worried about confusing her, too, but she actually told me she thought the cursive was easier to write. If you do run into problems with the cursive, though, it actually wouldn't be too hard to just switch to using print in the same workbooks. Mostly you would just need to rewrite the Bingo boards and copywork parts. You could also order a set of the manuscript game cards, too, so you'd have all three types. I actually really like switching between bookface and manuscript with the cursive cards in games so my daughter can see all the different types.
My daughter has also loved LOE and sounds very similar to yours. (She also loved stacking blocks, which I almost skipped too). I'd love to know what other programs you used for other subjects with a child with an active learning style?
For math, Rightstart has been a great fit for her. We started at A, and we're just finishing C now. I love that it's really handson, with few worksheets, and they teach everything using a variety of manipulatives. For history/social studies, I'm just using units from Core Knowledge. It's not perfect, but they're short and she has better recall of what we learn in them than she did with History Quest or Curiosity Chronicles.
Does AAR teach all the different sounds a letter can make like LOE? Does LOE include comprehensive grammar like First Language Lessons? Does LOE teach homphones? Is it thorough like the All About Homophones program?
We only did half of the first level of AAR, so I can't say how it is later, but in the parts we did, it taught the first sound of each letter only. I'm not sure when the other sounds are added. I haven't used First Language Lessons, but we've been doing a little basic grammar in LOE. In C, we've done a bit with sentence structure, comparatives, making lists, and capitalization. I'm not sure how much more will come up in D yet, though. I believe most of the grammar work comes up in Essentials. We're almost done with C, and nothing about homophones yet that I recall. It might be in D, though. I'll try to go through the D teacher's manual to check for you.
I checked D and I don't see a homophones section listed. There is a grammar section in every lesson, though, so that's something extra added that wasn't in earlier levels. There is a bunch on sentence structure, like fragments and subject-verb agreement, as well as punctuation and different parts of speech. Hope that helps!
Would you recommend starting with A even if you have finished AAR 1? Or would it be ok to start with B? Thank you for this review! I have been trying to decide what I wanted to use.
Ooh, good question. We only got about 10 lessons into AAR1, so we went ahead and started in A. I'm not sure what all ends up getting taught in AAR1, but I think the biggest issue might be that LOE teaches all the sounds a letter makes at once, so if AAR1 hasn't taught, for example, the two sounds of "g" and the four sounds of "i", you might need to work a bit on that when you start B. I just pulled out my LOE B manual to check, and there is one review lesson at the beginning of the book for those starting Foundations at B. It has a bunch of game ideas and focuses on the different sounds each vowel makes. So, if your child is feeling confident with everything done in AAR1, I think you should be OK. You might just need to spend some time on those extra sounds. The only other big difference would be the handwriting component. LOE A does all the lowercase letters, and then you do all the uppercase letters in B. If you were thinking about doing cursive, you could always get their separate "Rhythm of Handwriting" program just to teach that, unless you are using some other program already.
Do you need to get level A to have everything you need in the next level and so on? I’m homeschooling for the first time this year and my son has dyslexia so I’m looking for a program to help him keep exercising the skills that were being taught to him with a specialist. I’m looking to use this on top of his curriculum and am wondering also if it would be too much or would it be something that could be used a few times a week as supplemental? Appreciate you sharing your video and hope to get your opinion.
If you get the whole Level A package then you'll have all the cards and things you'll need for A through D. Then you'll just need to buy the Teacher's Guides and Workbooks for each level and the level's readers. For D, there are a few regular children's books assigned, but I actually just borrow them from the library to save some money! I'm not sure if combining two curriculums would be too much or not. I know other people do that with other programs. I guess the main thing I would look for in the order in which the phonograms are taught. If your other program teaches with sight words, you might need to move things around a bit to fit because some phonograms used in common sight words are taught until Level C.
Is it okay just to buy Level A at first? I just ordered level A. I’ll be using it for 2 kids so I added a extra workbook. Should I have bought a extra of anything else to be able to use it for 2?
If you'll teach them at the same time, you'll probably want an extra primary ruled whiteboard. You can buy one on Amazon if that's easier or photocopy the one you get and put the paper in a plastic sleeve.
No, we're still doing some Blossom and Root, too! We actually completed our first year of homeschooling in April, and we finished Logic of English Foundations A, Rightstart Level A, and Blossom and Root's Kindergarten. Then, we started our second year with LOE B, Rightstart B, Torchlight's Kindergarten for my daughter, and Blossom and Root's Early Years Volume 1 for my son 😄.
@@courtneya9437 Thanks so much for sharing and updating on your progress! This was very helpful. I see you do so many programs together, which is my style too! Would love to see/ hear more about how you combine programs. Maybe a day in the life or a typical schedule? It's awesome to see homeschool done so well. :)
Foundations A starts at the very beginning with cursive. The first few lessons, you just do common strokes, like curves and dips, and then move into letters. You'll just do lowercase in A, then uppercase in B.
How does LOE do fluency? I know that AAR does the fluency sheets and flash cards and I feel like my son is similar to your daughters (very ACTIVE and loves games!!!). I can just see my son absolutely hating the fluency sheets from AAR and I'm like you... not good at coming up with games that aren't given to me haha!
The focus is really on the readers and playing phonogram games. I think the games build so much confidence that it really does work well in building recognition and fluency. When you get to level C, there are actually two sets of readers. The Young Artist series is a bit longer and more challenging than the regular readers, so they really get to practice a lot of what they've learned going through them. I do know some choose to do those readers on a separate day because of their length, too.
I just checked and it looks like Michaels isn't carrying them anymore! At least not on their website. The boxes are made by Really Useful Products. The new brand they have on there with similar boxes seems to be a bit smaller, so I don't think they'll fit.
You could check with them to make sure, but I believe the reason for that is that they start teaching two letter phonograms in B. So if you start in C, you'll miss some of them.
I would check the scope and sequence to make sure she knows all the phonograms introduced in B. Another option at that age would be to try Essentials instead. That might be a better fit, and you could start right at level A.
I did. But I actually haven't used it yet. I was a bit overwhelmed by how much was in it, so I kind of set it aside. I need to get back to it, especially now that my son is starting to learn his letters too.
I never really paid attention to the manuscript version because we're doing cursive, but it looks like the student book would have the bookface and manuscript on the writing pages, so maybe just don't use the tactile cards and have them trace in the book instead?
Used LOE with my son 6 years ago and needed to be reminded about how great this program is for my daughter. Was considering AAR but think I'll stick with what I am familiar with. Thanks for the great review. You are a natural at sharing your experience on here, so subscribing :)
So glad it was helpful!
Wonderful review!! Thank you so much! I’ve been spending all summer trying to decide which LA curriculum to get for my daughter who’s starting K level. She’s such a kinesthetic learner and appreciates being able to learn through games, handling loose parts. But when it came to finding something for reading and phonics I was so overwhelmed by the options out there. I actually looked at LoE a while ago but the price put me off…but I have to say, I can understand why it’s priced higher than other curricula. It really does provide a deeper foundation for learning phonics. Before deciding to purchase LoE I wanted to go ahead and see if my daughter was receptive to learning that some letters actually make MORE than one sound. And even though she’s only 5 she is doing great! She knows that Aa makes 3 sounds and she can say all 3. She knows that Cc says /k/ AND sometimes it also says /s/. I know some parents might think these phonics rules are “too much” for a beginner, but I would argue that it’s actually easier for them to learn all the phonograms at the onset of their reading journey, rather than get into habits that then have to be adjusted/mended later down the line. Like you mentioned in the video when your daughter was trying to pronounce “salt” and was confused as to why the Aa sounded differently than she had previously been taught. I don’t want to have to always say “it’s an exception”. Because that’s not a true explanation. I want her to be able to know that it’s because some letters make multiple sounds.
We are so happy you joined the LOE Family! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Thank you! We really enjoy it so much!
It looks amazing, looks like it would be a great fit for my son - but being in Australia the currency conversion is a killer, I was prepared to pay that until it was going to be $110 purely for postage.
@@tuathadesidhe1530 Yeah, US shipping prices are always killer! We're in Taiwan, so I ended up paying about $200 to ship A-D here 😬. They do have an online option now, though. It wasn't available when we started, but it's likely a better option for those of us overseas.
This is such a great review, thank you! We're just starting TGTB kindergarten and now I feel like I have a second option if it isn't a great fit!! Thanks for the super in depth explanation and also for sharing the organizational stuff (boxes etc) from micheals. You rock!
Thanks so much! Glad it was helpful!
My daughter is also crazy about LOE and this has been really working well for us. Yes, US, as I enjoy teaching it as well. We're about to finish B, and I was thinking of switching to AAR just because I'm curious.
Just the other day, my daughter begged that we do a lesson on her "yellow book", then I realized there is no need to switch. We are sticking to LOE.
This is a great review, thank you! We are still trucking along in AAR and thinking it's time for a change. Struggling kiddo with suspected dyslexia.
You're welcome! I hope you can find something that works well. It can be so hard trying to make the decision when to stick with something and when to try something new.
Logic of English is great for children who have dyslexia. My granddaughter is on level b on foundation and doing great.
Thought I'd share. I have 7 kids and I also have tired all 3 you stated as well as Masterbooks phonics (newest) and BJU phonics. I 100% choose LOE. It only takes us 20-30mins a day and that is all of english done! I currently do it with 2 different levels. Build a better foundation to start, less they need moms help later. GREAT review!
Thanks! That's great to know about the timing, too! I will likely have my daughter doing Essentials when my son is starting Foundations.
This was so so helpful! I’ve been looking everywhere for these types of differences between AAR and LOE! Thank you!!
You're welcome!
Thanks for your review I was between all of these for my kindergartner and learning all the sounds for each letter/combination sealed it for me!!!
Glad I could help!
This is such a great review! Thank you for making it! We absolutely love LOE, we are close to finishing C and we plan on continuing with Essentials after Foundations D 😊
We have 5 more lessons in C and then moving on to D!
Some here
This is helpful - I bought LOE A and am about 9 lessons in, and we're honestly NOT enjoying it (well, my 6yo and I don't like it, my 4yo does :P ) I've been thinking about switching to AAR, so it's helpful to hear what you DIDN'T like about it! Hmm... I actually didn't like the fact that LOE teaches all the sounds up front - it felt really overwhelming. I know AAR does teach them, maybe starting in Level 2, but after they have the basic sounds down and are have some reading under their belt. My intuition is that my 6yo needs to feel like he is actually reading in order to be motivated to keep learning, and it feels like a lot of details before he's actually reading interesting books. That was something I really liked about AAR, that the readers are actually interesting, despite being CVC. Ah...so hard to choose! I do kind of wish I'd tried AAR first, though, just because they have a 1 year guarantee, whereas LOE returns have to be in pristine condition, which mine aren't. Lots to think about - thank you for the review!
I think the beginning is a bit hard to get into, especially when you aren't doing full letter writing yet and just the little practice strokes. Unfortunately in A, there really aren't many readers, just those little books you put together. My daughter loved making them, though! In B, it really does pick up, so you'd have more to do in that. I have heard that some people use the AAR readers to supplement LOE. I'm not sure how all the phonograms would line up, but that might be an idea. Would your 6 year old want to go a bit faster? I think we finished A in about 4 or 5 months, but we weren't doing it every day, so you could probably go through it a bit quicker and get to the parts he's more interested in.
This was so incredibly helpful to me! Thank you for sharing all your curriculum switching, makes me feel better 😃 My son had his consonant and short vowel letter sounds down pat by 3.5 and I have been struggling for the past 1.5 years to find a reading curriculum that works for both of us! All about reading was very dry to me and him and I also looked at tgatb and totally agree with what you were saying, it seemed random. We have done abeka the most but there is not much “why” at all in that curriculum and as we got deeper into different vowel sounds I felt insecure about teaching it properly to him! I now see how just memorizing all the sounds the letters make at first could be super helpful and not super confusing as I originally thought. I just ordered logic of english A and we are going to do the same thing you did- start at the beginning and learn all those extra sounds and play all the games we can! He is very active and I am terrible at creativity on my own. He reads Cvc and consonant blends very well and I’m really looking forward to seeing him progress while having fun! :)
Also do you find the workbook necessary for A based on what I described?
@@kchapyful Sorry, just saw that this was from a month ago, so you probably ordered already, but I would do the workbooks, especially if you are doing cursive because there are lots of letter recognition activities in it.
I love that she calls it Dragon school. I might adopt that.
Super helpful thank you! I was leaning AAR, but my daughter needs games and fun and verity. This sounds great and engaging. Thanks for your time!
So glad it was helpful! My daughter really loves it, so I hope it works just as well for you guys 😄
@LonePine Bride I was thinking the same - I've been doing LOE for a bit and my 6yo really doesn't like it, so I've been considering AAR and one of things that draws me is all the games! Hmm...
This is sooooo helpful. I own AAR but haven’t used it cuz then I read about LOE and it was a big investment. But it seems to be such a critical topic and I feel my kid will love it best. I have BIG regrets that I didn’t do it for kinder at home as I planned but I can’t go back. I think thanks to your video I plan to get a and B even though she can read and she can go quickly through a but we want to be sure we don’t have any gaps. The way you explained the short in in the long eight with the word salt was super helpful to me. My daughter can read early reader books like some of the Osborne ones etc. but she’ll get to a word like look and I don’t know how to explain that all sound and how does she supposed to know if the air is short or long so she tries to sound it out both ways and I don’t know what the rules are myself because I was not good at this in school and so I feel like to make sure she gets the best education in this area the way you explained it and how happy and relieved you seem when you switched seems exactly like us so I appreciate your honest review very much and I’m excited to try it. Even though she’ll be starting first grade. I don’t care if it’s behind. She could have likely done it at 5 but I didn’t want to push it.
It's really so helpful knowing all these little rules. Honestly, I feel like I'm learning a lot with my daughter! When I was in school, it was mostly sight reading, so there are lots of things that I wasn't sure why I pronounce it like I do! I love the LOE explains all this. I totally wouldn't worry about her being behind! I think starting this in first grade is fine.
Absolutely loved your review! Well done. I am a mom of four. Even though it is a bit teacher intensive I have loved watching my kids grow and learn. I am so thankful for LOG.
Me, too! Such a game changer for us! We just finished Foundations B this week, and I can't wait to start C. ❤️
There’s a lot of benefit to not curriculum hopping every year or even multiple times per year. Children really benefit from consistency in nearly every facet of life.
Great review! Really enjoyed it as my 4 yr old daughter is currently wanting to start a formal curriculum.
I was looking for a comparison of TGTB and Logic of English and your video has really helped me out! Thank you so much😁
You’re welcome! Glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much for making this review! Your video introduced me to this curriculum and I'm absolutely grateful. I feel a sense of relief after watching this being as I've been a little indecisive as well as confused about what I want to use for my two kids when I begin our homeschool journey. I feel like LOE will "click" with my kids after listening to your experience with the other curriculums I've been considering.
I genuinely appreciate you sharing your experience with these different teaching methods so that overwhelmed moms like me feel a little less overwhelmed at the end of the day! 😊
That's so lovely! Thank you! ❤️ I'm really so glad I could help.
Hey girl! Thank you for this video. We have been struggling with LA for awhile now. I just ordered LOE and was just watching videos to see how to organize all the components. I have to say I love how real you are, you are awesome and so relatable. Your awesome I subscribed hope you post more videos.
Aw thanks so much! I've been meaning to do some more reviews, but I actually had another baby in February, so things have been crazy around here 🤣. Hopefully soon, though!
Seriously can not thank you enough for taking the time to share all of this. We love LOE! & We equally love hearing all about others LOE experiences. 🙋♀️🤗💓
I'm so glad you liked it! We totally love LOE, too. Can't say enough good things about it!
I love this! Thank you for making a video. I could have literally done a video word for word.. Except I haven't tried LOE yet! ( So you're hopefully like the "after" version of me😅). I,too, get frustrated they there is no "why" answers and I,too, have a child that learns the same type of way ( wiggly, unmotivated unless there is a game of some kind, etc). Excited to try this
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this comprehensive review!!! This is exactly what I’d been searching for!!
You're welcome!
Gosh I could sob. I wish I had found this review last year when I was in the fence. I love it and would have done it for k.
This very helpful as a mom who’s looking for LA courses after TGATB kinder prep and is trying to decide between AAR and LOE.
So glad it was helpful!
Thanks for this review - just what I needed. Appreciate your thoughts on why the other program did not work for your daughter and her learning style!
8:28 That's genius! It prevents guessing based on pictures!
I’m so glad you put this review together! AAR drives me crazy. I know it’s a very unpopular opinion. I love TG&TB, but not for learning to read. I’m a huge fan of LOE. I think you’ve convinced me to try cursive with my next child.
We are doing AAR right now and I don’t like it. I hate the tiles. And the fluency sheets..😳😳
Fantastic review, I am totally switching. We have been doing Good and the Beautiful and my son just can't wait for it to be over. But with our Right Start math he LOVES the games.
This review was very helpful. Thank you!
You're welcome!
Thank you thank you this is so helpful. Cuz I also wanted to do cursive first and I let people talk me out of it. So I’m going for it for first grade
I think it's so nice doing the cursive. It actually seems way easier for my daughter, so I'm glad we did it.
This was SO helpful! We are in this same boat right now.
Glad I could help!
Thank you so much for the thorough review. Super helpful!
You're welcome! Glad it was helpful!
This was very helpful as someone who uses those other curriculums with a very frustrated child! I’m going to get the cursive with my struggling 8 year old (older sister is dyslexic so I am sure he is too), but the manuscript I will plan to use with our 4 year old in September. I like they can use different “levels” of the same level for my older son. Thanks for dharing
This review helped me greatly in deciding what reading curriculum to choose!
So glad I could help!
So glad I found this! Im still going to test the free lesson samples of LOE and All About Reading beforw making a final choice but I am leaning towards LOE. Weve been doing TGTB and although its been a good fit otherwise, I think we need all the letter sounds and rules up front.
My daughter really thrived by having all the rules up front. I'm amazed at how well she can decode things now. She can figure out such difficult words with so much confidence. LOE has been amazing for her!
Thank you for such a detailed review! I almost didn’t watch it bc it was so long LOL but I’m glad I did. Super helpful.
🤣 You're welcome!
This is extremely helpful. Most people haven't done AAR and LOE. I'm on the fence because my son learns best with play and games. He didn't even find TGATB pre-k fun at all (which I understand, but it seems like most other little ones love it). But I worry he will be overwhelmed by ALL the rules, which is my main reason I would do AAR instead of LOE. I know you mentioned this, but could you share more about the review built in and share how different they are in terms of fun/games? Thanks!!
The review lessons are built in after every five regular lessons. In general, you'll run through the phonogram flash cards you've learned so far, practice writing the letters in the previous lessons, and then there will be some games. Sometimes they're card games, and sometimes they're matching activities in the workbook or words cards you cut out of the workbook and do an activity with. Just as an example, in my daughter's most recent assessment lesson, there was a page with a list of sentences on one page and on the next page were a bunch of pictures we had to cut out. Then, she had to put the pictures in order according to what the sentences said.
I've definitely heard other people describe LOE as kind of overkill with the rules, and I was a bit nervous of overwhelming my daughter, but she's done really well with it. The new rules you learn are repeated often, and I was surprised how well my daughter could recognize why words were spelled certain ways without my prompting based on the previous rules she learned. I really think LOE does a great job of presenting things without being overwhelming. My daughter has never complained that it's too much, and she seems to have amazing recall of what we've already learned.
As for the games, up to where we left AAR, all the games were just cutting out a printable and doing something with it. Maybe just read them or match them or something like that. LOE does have some printable games like that too (although I think with a bit more variety), but pretty much every lesson has more active games as well. Sometimes it's really simple stuff, like read the word and add a block to a tower or push a toy car as far as you can, but even these simple things make the lesson so much more engaging for my daughter! The other day we had one where I had to lay out a bunch of stuff, like a fork, hat, watch, car, ball, etc., and then she had to read directions and do those things, like "Put on the hat." or "Toss the ball." She loved it!
Other things she's done is pretend to walk on a tightrope, and she gets to take one step forward for each phonogram card she reads correctly, another was closing her eyes and trying to write her letters without looking.
Every lesson has different little activities like this that just make things more fun. And it's not similar activities in back to back lessons, so each lesson feels different from the previous one.
And after completing A and most of B, I'm so happy that LOE has spelling and handwriting built in. It's so much easier for me not having to juggle more things, and our lessons flow really well.
Hope that helps! If you have other questions, let me know!
This was so helpful, I’m getting ready to teach my 4th child to read, I have been debating between many curriculum choices, I have always been drawn to LOE but haven’t been able to make the investment yet...of all the samples and reviews your walkthrough has definitely opened my eyes to some points I hadn’t considered and I think I’ll be asking the grandparents to pitch in so we can get LOE at last, I hope you and your family are well and that you come make more RUclips videos I’m now very curious what you use for math lol
Thanks so much! It is a bit of an investment, but I do think it's totally worth it. The nice thing is that it covers everything, so at least you don't need extra spelling or anything. It also seems to have pretty good re-sale value on the Facebook group, so you might be able to get some of the cost back at the end.
For math, we do Rightstart. Love, love, love it! It's very similar in style to LOE, in that it teaches a lot through games and the lessons are completely scripted. Super open and go! We're actually almost done with Rightstart B and will be moving onto C in about a month. It is a bit of an investment, too, because of all of the manipulatives you need to buy the first year, but I think it averages out ok if you use it for several years. They also do a Cyber Monday sale every year on gently used items (usually displays from conventions or returns), and you can get the manuals for 30% off. I always buy then! You just have to get up in time because they sell out fast!
@@courtneya9437 thank you for the Cyber Monday tip! We love Rightstart Math, as well! We use Timberdoodle for lots of STEAM/Thinking Skills, but may I ask what you use for Science/Health and for Social Studies/History? Thanks so much!
@@Lilc97Jax We're actually doing a few different things 🤣. I couldn't decide between History Quest and Curiosity Chronicles for ancient history, so I'm actually combing both. And for science, we're doing the Blossom and Root First Grade, which has a geology focus, and Elemental Science's Intro to Science, which has a bit of everything. And I've actually discovered Core Knowledge which is an amazing curriculum, and the PDFs are free! We've been supplementing our geology studies with the "History of the Earth" language arts unit, and for my youngest, we're doing the Kindergarten "Stories" LA unit. They have science and history, too, but I haven't tried them yet. I'm really impressed so far, though, so we might switch to more of Core Knowledge next year.
www.coreknowledge.org/curriculum/
This was so extremely helpful for me, thank you so much!!
You're welcome!
Thank you for sharing this!! So helpful!
Thank you so much for the review and the comparisons! I love the boxes from Michael’s you use to store your cards. Do you by chance know the demensions so I can order them online?
Ah! I was able to find the size of the cards on their website. Thanks again for the review!
@@CandiceMcCool Glad you were able to find it! We're in the process of moving, so I'm not sure where everything is packed away at the moment 😅
Thank you ...was wondering about this program.
You're welcome!
Very helpful, thank you!
You're welcome!
Thanks for sharing!! I've been reading Uncovering the Logic of English and want to stick with a program that teaches all of the sounds and rules. Was going to say it seems to be the phonics/reading equivalent to RightStart, but saw in the comments that you use that as well :) We're loving RS level B, and will move to level C this fall. My son seems to learn like your daughter does. What will you use after LOE level B? Is it still Foundations or a different LOE program?
Haha. I think it's like the Rightstart of phonics, too! Both programs are so fantastic! We're almost done with Rightstart B, and we'll start C after. We've actually already finished LOE Foundations B and are in the middle of C already. I can't believe how quickly we've gotten through it! At the moment, my plan is to stick to Foundations through D and then do LOE essentials. The program just works so well for my daughter, I haven't really looked at anything else once we made the switch 😁.
I loved this video, I can tell that you really love homeschooling! I’m wondering if you would use this program with a child who is already reading by sight fairly well? My 5 year old has taught himself to read by sight and can read some pretty impressive words, but he hasn’t had any formal phonics instruction, which makes me a bit nervous. The only words he can sound out (or at least that I’ve heard him sound out) are CVC words. But he has such a good memory and is just naturally word smart that he learns sight words really quickly, so once I tell him what a word is, he almost always remembers it the next time it pops up.
Thanks so much! That's a really good question! My daughter wasn't reading more than simple CVC words when we started. She knew all the basic letter sounds, but that was about it. I actually really wanted to go with a whole phonics approach originally because I thought it would be better in the long run for spelling. I basically taught myself to read just with sight words as a kid, and my spelling is so ridiculously bad. Sometimes the spell check on my phone doesn't even know what I'm trying to write, it's so bad 🤣. So from that side of it, I would say that it's still really worth it to have phonics reading instruction, even if the sight reading is strong. And honestly, I'm amazed by how well my daughter can figure out new words by learning to read this way. I rarely have to prompt or give clues. We're half-way through C now, and she flies through the readers without really stopping now. She never looks to me to remind her of something; she just uses the rules she's learned and figures everything out. It's pretty amazing!
Maybe you should look into starting right in at Foundations B? I think they have the first five lessons for free to try on their website, so maybe let your son try one and see what he thinks?
I’m switching from all about reading right now because of the same exact reason 😅 she just isn’t engaged hates those pages full of words & honestly so do I.
They're really hard!
Are you still using and liking this curriculum?
Yes! Still loving it! We're actually a little over halfway through Foundations C, and my daughter's reading ability has really picked up more quickly than I expected. She's actually started doing some of those Scholastic Acorn books on her own!
This is great thank you! My daughter gets frustrated when she has a sound down and then now there is a new way for that sound so I think teaching all the sounds makes sense. Been debating what program to do but I keep coming back to this. But she is almost at second grade level would it be fine to go straight to level c?
I thought AAR was way too flash card based and my kindergartener dreaded doing it
Yeah, we had the same experience. I'm glad the phonogram cards are used pretty sparingly in LOE.
Thank you so much for your review, it is so helpful. I have all the levels of AAR and have used it with my oldest and on the last level with her. However for my so it seems like LOE might be a better fit because of all the games. I just don't know if I can bring myself to purchase another curriculum. It's also a little expensive. Do you think it's possible to find LOE used?
Yes! Have you joined the Logic of English Family User Group on Facebook? I see used sets on there a lot. The company also has scratch and dent sales occasionally.
Soooo helpful thank you!!!
You're welcome!
So helpful thank you!! I had thought about this program so many times but my 5yo flew threw both k and level 1 of TGTB and I seriously wanted to try logic of English but I don’t know if we can start at level c since he is doing level 2 of TGTB now.
Ah, good question! I know on the LOE website they say to start in A or B, but I'm not sure exactly why they prefer not to start in C. I suppose it's because of how they schedule their multi-letter phonograms across B and C. If you just started in C, you would miss the some. Perhaps there's a list of which multi-letter phonograms are taught in which level on their site? Maybe in a teacher's guide sample? Or maybe if you can look at a copy of Whistling Whales? They'd all be in there. Then you could match and see if he knows all the covered phonograms in B already. The only other issue I could see is being unfamiliar with the spelling marks they use, but I think you could pick it up fine. Denise Eide has some videos up explaining her finger spelling methods that I've watched before, so I imagine she would have some with her marking methods up as well.
We just started C this month, and the structure is basically the same as B. The lesson starts with a new phonogram, has some activities, spelling practice, handwriting practice, and reading from a reader. We've started with all the /er/ phonograms so far - ur, ir, er, and ear.
Thank you so much for your video! I'm looking around, and LOE is a top contender. I'm wondering, how does it handle blending? You know that really important jump where kids take single letters and are able to put them together to read words. I'm curious how LOE approaches this.
There are lots of exercises in A and B as part of the lessons. You do some work with flash cards first, I think, saying one and then the other closer and closer together. I'm doing B again now with my son, and there are some reading lift-the-flap worksheets, where you say the blend, then lift the flap and read the word under it. There's also lots of segmenting work before you even get to the blends. Both the child segmenting the words and the teacher doing it and the child putting the sounds together.
Your review was SO helpful! Made me feel confident in my decision to go with LOE. I'm just not sure where I want to start my son. He is in Kindergarten now and we have 8 lessons left in "How to teach you child to read in 100 easy lessons". So he is reading and is doing well but definitely has signs of dyslexia. Fluency could be better. Because I'm seeing these signs and I struggled with reading as a child I want to build strong reading skills with my son. So I want to start LOE for 1st grade and want to do cursive. Do you think LOE A is too easy for a 1st grader who is reading? "100 easy lessons" doesn't teach all the sounds "A" makes like LOE, just short and long. So I'm on the fence if I should skip LOE A and go straight to B. Your advice is really appreciated.
He might feel a little bored with A if he's reading well, but if he has no experience with cursive, the newness of that might make up for it. When we started A, my daughter knew all the basic sounds of each letter, but not the additional sounds, and we hadn't really done much writing at all, and she was fine starting with A. I think we went through it pretty fast. Maybe about three months? She was five and a half at the time.
In B, there is an intro lesson for those who didn't complete A that goes over all the additional letter sounds. So if you feel like A would be too easy, those extras would be covered in B.
Writing-wise, A does all lowercase and B does all uppercase, so if you think you'll need the help teaching the cursive, you might want to start with A. Another alternative would be doing Rhythm of Handwriting, which teaches cursive the LOE way independently from Foundations.
@@courtneya9437 Thank you some much for the reply! I think we might go with A and just move through it quickly.
Love your video!!!
Thank you!
I am really considering LOE for my boys and teaching them together. My question is, if we do the cursive workbook and all of that, what about when they are reading the readers and such which aren't in cursive. Is there confusion on the letters and such or do they teach everything in bookcase and then just the handwriting is cursive. I just don't want to overwhelm them with not only numerous sounds but then differentiating between the cursive versus bookcase letters if that makes sense. Thanks for the review.
bookface
My daughter never had any issue going back and forth between the print and cursive. All the phonogram cards are in bookface, so when they first are introduced to the letters, they see them like how they are in the readers. There's lots of practice built in to help them recognize the print and cursive version of each letter. The workbook has some matching activities, and you'll play some games like memory and go fish with the decks of both cards, so they'll get lots of practice seeing both forms together.
My daughter had a bit of print writing practice before we started this, so I was worried about confusing her, too, but she actually told me she thought the cursive was easier to write. If you do run into problems with the cursive, though, it actually wouldn't be too hard to just switch to using print in the same workbooks. Mostly you would just need to rewrite the Bingo boards and copywork parts. You could also order a set of the manuscript game cards, too, so you'd have all three types. I actually really like switching between bookface and manuscript with the cursive cards in games so my daughter can see all the different types.
@@courtneya9437 thanks for replying. I'm excited to give this a go and hope it works for my kiddos. :)
My daughter has also loved LOE and sounds very similar to yours. (She also loved stacking blocks, which I almost skipped too). I'd love to know what other programs you used for other subjects with a child with an active learning style?
For math, Rightstart has been a great fit for her. We started at A, and we're just finishing C now. I love that it's really handson, with few worksheets, and they teach everything using a variety of manipulatives. For history/social studies, I'm just using units from Core Knowledge. It's not perfect, but they're short and she has better recall of what we learn in them than she did with History Quest or Curiosity Chronicles.
Does AAR teach all the different sounds a letter can make like LOE?
Does LOE include comprehensive grammar like First Language Lessons?
Does LOE teach homphones? Is it thorough like the All About Homophones program?
We only did half of the first level of AAR, so I can't say how it is later, but in the parts we did, it taught the first sound of each letter only. I'm not sure when the other sounds are added.
I haven't used First Language Lessons, but we've been doing a little basic grammar in LOE. In C, we've done a bit with sentence structure, comparatives, making lists, and capitalization. I'm not sure how much more will come up in D yet, though. I believe most of the grammar work comes up in Essentials.
We're almost done with C, and nothing about homophones yet that I recall. It might be in D, though. I'll try to go through the D teacher's manual to check for you.
@@courtneya9437 you are such a sweetheart for responding back. The info you provided was very helpful. Thank you. ❤
I checked D and I don't see a homophones section listed. There is a grammar section in every lesson, though, so that's something extra added that wasn't in earlier levels. There is a bunch on sentence structure, like fragments and subject-verb agreement, as well as punctuation and different parts of speech.
Hope that helps!
@@courtneya9437 thank you, Courtney l. Very helpful! ❤
Would you recommend starting with A even if you have finished AAR 1? Or would it be ok to start with B? Thank you for this review! I have been trying to decide what I wanted to use.
Ooh, good question. We only got about 10 lessons into AAR1, so we went ahead and started in A. I'm not sure what all ends up getting taught in AAR1, but I think the biggest issue might be that LOE teaches all the sounds a letter makes at once, so if AAR1 hasn't taught, for example, the two sounds of "g" and the four sounds of "i", you might need to work a bit on that when you start B. I just pulled out my LOE B manual to check, and there is one review lesson at the beginning of the book for those starting Foundations at B. It has a bunch of game ideas and focuses on the different sounds each vowel makes. So, if your child is feeling confident with everything done in AAR1, I think you should be OK. You might just need to spend some time on those extra sounds. The only other big difference would be the handwriting component. LOE A does all the lowercase letters, and then you do all the uppercase letters in B. If you were thinking about doing cursive, you could always get their separate "Rhythm of Handwriting" program just to teach that, unless you are using some other program already.
Love that you call it dragon school ❤️
Do you need to get level A to have everything you need in the next level and so on? I’m homeschooling for the first time this year and my son has dyslexia so I’m looking for a program to help him keep exercising the skills that were being taught to him with a specialist.
I’m looking to use this on top of his curriculum and am wondering also if it would be too much or would it be something that could be used a few times a week as supplemental? Appreciate you sharing your video and hope to get your opinion.
If you get the whole Level A package then you'll have all the cards and things you'll need for A through D. Then you'll just need to buy the Teacher's Guides and Workbooks for each level and the level's readers. For D, there are a few regular children's books assigned, but I actually just borrow them from the library to save some money!
I'm not sure if combining two curriculums would be too much or not. I know other people do that with other programs. I guess the main thing I would look for in the order in which the phonograms are taught. If your other program teaches with sight words, you might need to move things around a bit to fit because some phonograms used in common sight words are taught until Level C.
Is it okay just to buy Level A at first? I just ordered level A. I’ll be using it for 2 kids so I added a extra workbook. Should I have bought a extra of anything else to be able to use it for 2?
If you'll teach them at the same time, you'll probably want an extra primary ruled whiteboard. You can buy one on Amazon if that's easier or photocopy the one you get and put the paper in a plastic sleeve.
did you stop using blossom and root
I was wondering the same thing!🤔
No, we're still doing some Blossom and Root, too! We actually completed our first year of homeschooling in April, and we finished Logic of English Foundations A, Rightstart Level A, and Blossom and Root's Kindergarten. Then, we started our second year with LOE B, Rightstart B, Torchlight's Kindergarten for my daughter, and Blossom and Root's Early Years Volume 1 for my son 😄.
@@courtneya9437 Thanks so much for sharing and updating on your progress! This was very helpful. I see you do so many programs together, which is my style too! Would love to see/ hear more about how you combine programs. Maybe a day in the life or a typical schedule? It's awesome to see homeschool done so well. :)
Good idea! We're definitely doing a bunch of different things. I love trying everything 😂!
If you start with A and get cursive, does it start at the beginning and teach them cursive? Or do they assume your child allows cursive?
Foundations A starts at the very beginning with cursive. The first few lessons, you just do common strokes, like curves and dips, and then move into letters. You'll just do lowercase in A, then uppercase in B.
Did you continue onto the Essentials? If so, did you continue to enjoy it?
We haven't done Essentials yet. It felt a little mature for my daughter still (she's 7). I'm thinking maybe next year.
Ma'am please level A page by page work book flip through....
How does LOE do fluency? I know that AAR does the fluency sheets and flash cards and I feel like my son is similar to your daughters (very ACTIVE and loves games!!!). I can just see my son absolutely hating the fluency sheets from AAR and I'm like you... not good at coming up with games that aren't given to me haha!
The focus is really on the readers and playing phonogram games. I think the games build so much confidence that it really does work well in building recognition and fluency. When you get to level C, there are actually two sets of readers. The Young Artist series is a bit longer and more challenging than the regular readers, so they really get to practice a lot of what they've learned going through them. I do know some choose to do those readers on a separate day because of their length, too.
Hey! Could you share the link to those organizer boxes in your description please?
I just checked and it looks like Michaels isn't carrying them anymore! At least not on their website. The boxes are made by Really Useful Products. The new brand they have on there with similar boxes seems to be a bit smaller, so I don't think they'll fit.
@@courtneya9437 thanks anyway!
Can we start with loe level c or d for 2nd grader or is it necessary to start with b?
You could check with them to make sure, but I believe the reason for that is that they start teaching two letter phonograms in B. So if you start in C, you'll miss some of them.
I also feel overwhelmed with not being creative enough to come up w ways to change it
I'm so ridiculously uncreative 😂. I try to always pick things that are really open and go, so I don't have to worry about it 😂.
Could we start to level c ? She is in 2nd grade
I would check the scope and sequence to make sure she knows all the phonograms introduced in B. Another option at that age would be to try Essentials instead. That might be a better fit, and you could start right at level A.
Hi, did you buy the LOE game book?
I did. But I actually haven't used it yet. I was a bit overwhelmed by how much was in it, so I kind of set it aside. I need to get back to it, especially now that my son is starting to learn his letters too.
Are you still using blossom and root too?
Yes! We're actually doing the new version of Blossom and Root Level 1, and it's fantastic! We're really loving the new literature selections.
Do you plan on going back to TGTB eventually?
No, LOE is working really well for us, so I plan to just go into Essentials once we finish Foundations.
I really hate that LOE doesn’t teach regular writing just italicization or cursive
I never really paid attention to the manuscript version because we're doing cursive, but it looks like the student book would have the bookface and manuscript on the writing pages, so maybe just don't use the tactile cards and have them trace in the book instead?
This was a super helpful video! Thank you!
You're welcome!