After our first year of trying different curriculums and reading every homeschooling and learning style book out there
- we've fallen in love with the Charlotte Mason method.
I admit - I was interested in this style in the beginning of our journey but I was hesitant. I was so worried about
creating a "school in our home" that I failed to realize that was EXACTLY what I was trying to take my son AWAY from.
I was worried that since my 6 year old son was more of a visual/kinesthetic learner that he wouldn't or couldn't handle
so much auditory learning. BOY was I WRONG. :)
I am not saying that I jumped into CM. I - unfortunately- tried (at both our frustrations and unecssary expenses)
so many other programs.
We tried:
Horizons Phonics & Grammar
Horizons Spelling & Vocabulary
A bit of Abeka and a bit of BJU that we "tried out" by borrowing some manuals from friends.
It was nice having the "structure" and it made me more confident to have a "script" to go by - I thought this ensured
that I covered everything - the lessons were, however, completely boring and repetitive. It was also not "me" - not
my personality or connection to my son coming through.
The other issue was the amount of workbook pages. Especially with the Horizons Language Arts - by the time he was
working on his 6th or 7th workbook page of the day - he was yawining and fidgeting and frustrated and by that point so was
I! It just wasn't a fit for him. There are only so many ways you can practice writing the same 10 spelling words
without losing your focus.
All of the writing and stories in the Horizons books were boring for us. The 1 1/2 page story in the Horizon's
reader was ALL of the reading for the day according to their language arts program! Who focuses so little on the
act of reading itself? All of the stories for the entire 1st workbook were in this planner sized spiral book.
No in depth characters or interest for him. I understand a lot of the phonetically based readers are not written for
their fine character detail but this was like pulling teeth. He (nor my 2 girls if they happen to try to listen in)
could answer the 3 simple comprehension questions at the end.
We also tried Sing, Spell, Read, Write. I will say, at least, this program emphasized MORE reading on the part
of my son. Which was so lacking in Horizons. We enjoyed SSRW initially. My son had been in public schools
here and so most of his reading lessons were based around sight word memorization. They used a lot of 'look at the picture
then look at the words' and "guess" type of reading instruction. This left him capable of reading but REALLY weak in
the area of phonics. He could pick up a "Frog and Toad" book and read it - at least until he came to a word that he
didn't "know" - then it was meltdown. He became quite frustrated with himself. I'd find him sounding out the words
out of order. For example, truck was turkey. He had been "trained" that if he saw a word with a t - r- u - k in
it that (from the big Thanksgiving unit they did) it was turkey - even though phonetically - truck made more sense and appeared
(at least to me) to be easier to read.
The SSRW wasn't a 'bad' program for him but quickly became much too simple. It was quite repetitive which is necessary
when learning to read but my son COULD read already - and well - unless there were unknown words. Again though, the
only literature or reading in the program were phonetically based readers and he breezed through them. Once he figured
out the initial "pattern" and memorized it for that moment, he'd run right through them. And no problem with comprehension
- I mean what really was there to think about? If the fat cat sat on the mat or if Nat sat on the mat? :) Comical
but so true :).
I yearned for some "good reading" but by the time we squeezed in all of the phonetic activities and readers and writing
- there wasn't any desire left in him for any books. He went from my son who loved to curl up with me and a book to
the son that despised all parts of it.
Again, SSRW has an AMAZING group of followers. I read great reviews on this program before purchasing it (and
it can be expensive by the way) but the use of the cheap, uninteresting toys in the "treasure chest", the lack of literature,
and the continued simplicity of the program did NOT work for us.
The KEY is not for OUR family. I wanted to get back to enjoying my kids, enjoying our stories
and reading, enjoying each other. And for us - Charlotte Mason did that.
