Thoughts on CLE Language Arts vs HOD language arts

[Mamamindy]

I was wondering if I could get some opinions on using Christian Light Education Language Arts & Reading LightUnits versus using the language arts and reading boxes as planned in the HOD guide. I have a 4th grader in Preparing who has used CLE language & reading workbooks for the last two years. Overall I am very happy with them. But... when I see the reading & language arts boxes in his Preparing guide, I wonder what we are missing out on! I also have a 2nd grader who will be starting formal language arts lessons next year and I am debating on whether to start him with CLE or use the LA/Reading boxes as planned in the guides.

This is what I like about CLE:
1) My child can do the lesson independently (we do go over every lesson together after he completes it)
2) New concepts are introduced in small, manageable bits with consistent & thorough review.
3) The language arts workbooks cover grammar, handwriting, spelling, study habits & some writing all within one workbook. I wonder if all these are covered in the HOD lesson plans?
4) The CLE workbooks teach godliness, hard work, respect and making good choices right along with the academics
5) Consistency and familiarity. We have used CLE Math from the beginning (with no plans to stop) and LA and Reading the last two years. We are both comfortable with the layout and routine of the LightUnits.

Why I am considering switching:
1) Each workbook takes 45-60 minutes to complete. He can easily spend two hours a day on just LA/Reading. I am wondering if the same subjects are covered in the HOD plans, but with better efficiency & variety
2) I think dictation, poetry study, etc. are important, but I don't feel we have time for them.
3) Creative writing is lacking in CLE
4) The workbooks do get tedious at times

Does anybody have experience with both Christian Light Education Language Arts & Reading LightUnits and HODs Language Arts and Reading boxes? How do the two compare? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[psreit]

I have never used CLE, but we have used ACE in the past, which is the same format at CLE. I guess the answer to your question is another question. How do you want to teach LA to your children? All Areas you mentioned will be covered in HOD. They just are not contained in one workbook. We haven't started Preparing yet, but we have done the earlier guides. I can't comment in detail, but I will try to give you a comparison/contrast. I'm sure someone else can do a better job of explaining HOD than I can. Hope this helps a little.


This is what I like about CLE:
1) My child can do the lesson independently (we do go over every lesson together after he completes it)
HOD gradually works toward independence. If you have a child doing Preparing, you can see that already.

2) New concepts are introduced in small, manageable bits with consistent & thorough review.
There is review in the R&S grammar, with much practice in one concept before moving to another.

3) The language arts workbooks cover grammar, handwriting, spelling, study habits & some writing all within one workbook. I wonder if all these are covered in the HOD lesson plans?
HOD covers all of these areas. Handwriting (cursive) instruction/practice was scheduled in the Bigger guide. If your child needs that instruction, you could use Cheerful Cursive from the Bigger guide. Otherwise, they will get much handwriting practice in their HOD notebooks.

4) The CLE workbooks teach godliness, hard work, respect and making good choices right along with the academics
This is what HOD is all about. It is why I have appreciated HOD so much since the day I found it. The R&S grammar books complement this.

5) Consistency and familiarity. We have used CLE Math from the beginning (with no plans to stop) and LA and Reading the last two years. We are both comfortable with the layout and routine of the LightUnits.
Change comes hard for some people, but I really think you would enjoy what HOD has to offer in this area. Everything is written out in HOD, which is another great thing for me. So, there would definitely be consistency. Familiarity would come with the using.

Why I am considering switching:
1) Each workbook takes 45-60 minutes to complete. He can easily spend two hours a day on just LA/Reading. I am wondering if the same subjects are covered in the HOD plans, but with better efficiency &riety
With HOD, you would not be spending this much time in LA each day. The workbooks are reading and answering questions. HOD definitely has efficiency and variety. The method is different. And, the reading book choices are excellent.

2) I think dictation, poetry study, etc. are important, but I don't feel we have time for them.
If you are not doing the workbooks, you will have time for these things. Dictation is their spelling.

3) Creative writing is lacking in CLE.
HOD offers much in this area, I'm sure, as the child progresses through each guide, through written narration, etc.

4) The workbooks do get tedious at times.
My older dc did a lot of the workbooks (ACE and Lifepacs). In those days, school was just working through each subject to fulfill requirements. I know my two older girls for sure would have enjoyed school more having a method like this. I have said many times, I wish they could have done HOD.

[mom23]

Pam did a terrific job of answering your questions above! The one thing I wanted to build on was the creative writing-HOD begins to systematically teach this in CTC with Write With the Best. The time factor was the reason I had to switch from CLE math...I loved their spiral approach and my kids learned well from it, but I didn't want them spending over an hour a day on Math. I can imagine if you're running both their Math and the LA the day could get quite lengthy!

I've not used anything besides R&S for grammar and the HOD language arts so I can't compare for you, but I can tell you that I really love R&S! We do much of it orally, the way HOD recommends and it goes very quickly, while giving them plenty of review (this is the first year I've used the R&S teacher's manual and have found more review in there at the beginning of each lesson.) Other aspects you've mentioned are covered elsewhere in the manual.

[Nealewill]

I also recommend switching. I have heard that R&S and CLE are very similar in approach. However, with CLE being workbook based, it makes it feel like you need to do every single activity on that page. And that is just TOO much time for me. We do most of R&S orally but I do make my kids do one of the shorter writing activities most days. I only do this because we have a certified teacher review my kids work and I want something written down to show that did complete the lesson. But what I love about using the same products for HOD that they recommend is it makes all the boxes line up better time wise for my day. So when they say Preparing should take 4 to 4.5 hours, we are done with school in that amount of time. And that is what I am looking for. So I am very happy with the grammar and writing activities and feel like it is a great fit for us. And with R&S, if you child is fairly independent, they can read the lesson to themselves. My dd is doing this now and it is working pretty good for her. The dc aren't necessarily supposed to read it to themselves specifically but my dd can and she wants to so sometimes she does.

[Mamamindy]

Thank you ladies for the input! I really want the cohesiveness of using ALL the boxes as written, but I guess the workbooks have been a bit of a security blanket for me. Does that sound terrible? I have 2 upper grade children (8th & 10th grades) that I am now seeing the results of my many mistakes in their elementary years. One of those mistakes is that I was way too lax in grammar/writing with them. I just want to make sure I provide a better foundation for my next group of kids (4th, 2nd & K) than I did the first group.

[Nealewill]

I don't know if you have googled reviews of R&S or not but it has EXCELLENT reviews. I review everything about a million times before I end up deciding it will be okay to use LOL. I think you will be very happy with R&S.

[psreit]

We haven't used anything past Bigger yet, but from I have seen in coming guides, I think grammar and writing will be covered thoroughly.

[alhempel]

This is my first year with HOD (4 Guides). I too have been using CLE for the past two years for math and LA and decided to stick with them in place of HOD, but here are the results. We will continue to use their math through 8th grade level but we switch to Videotext when we hit Algebra. LA has been a different story. In my opinion, CLE (in any grade but especially the older grades) is very intense in the grammar and still lacking in the writing. Starting with the oldest in World Geography we switched about a month ago to HOD's selections. LA is his least favorite part of the day. He is a terrible speller. The tedious workbooks were doing him in and he needed help in writing. He loves the switch and Essentials in Writing is his favorite part. My next son is in level 8 CLE and does not care for it, but can handle it flawlessly. He does it along with the writing course in his guide with no problem. He will phase out of CLE after this year and switch to HOD choices next year. My child in Beyond, having done CLE , already knows the LA in the Beyond guide. We do the LA in our Beyond Guide as review with the emerging readers for reading, and Beyond spelling lists and then add in CLE lessons 1 or 2 a week making it much less intense. We also eliminated spelling in our CLE as we are doing spelling in Beyond. We will only cover half of CLE level 2 this year. I will switch him completely to HOD LA next year in Bigger. My daughter in Little Hearts is completing CLE learn to read program and I love this program and will continue to use it for my other children. I will probably follow a more gentle use of CLE through Beyond like I did with my son and in Bigger switch completely to HOD choices. HOD choices are great and my kids are enjoying them so much more than our previous curriculums.

[Mamamindy]

Alison - Hats off to you, doing four guides your first year with HOD! Thank you for chiming in. I really wanted to hear from someone with experience with both programs. I am leaning heavily towards switching my 4th grader to HOD language arts when he moves into the next guide. Do you feel like your older two can do the grammar & writing lessons fairly independently or do you have to teach the lessons to them?

[LynnH]

I used CLE Language Arts for a short time back when my son was in CTC. I also used and loved their math. The problem I had with the language arts is that I could see how good the language arts in HOD was and so I was using that for everything but grammar. That meant I was skipping many of the pages in CLE because honestly I just didn't think it was as good as what HOD had scheduled. I also was very disappointed in CLE's writing. Carrie plans her writing programs based on the what is already covered in Rod and Staff so I felt he was missing some components by not doing Rod and Staff. I switched him mid-year to Rod and Staff and have never looked back. I do teach the grammar but it doesn't take very long and we do at least 2/3rds of it orally as Carrie suggests. Grammar used to only take 15-20 minutes that way with the exception of days where it was a writing lesson and these took a little longer. Now in MTMM grammar still usually takes about 25 minutes.

Studied dictation has been a very successful way to improve my ds's spelling and there is plenty of copywork. The writing program boxes are intended to be done with the teacher, but usually I find that once I make sure he understands the assignment he is pretty independent with it. The creative writing in Preparing that goes along with the Poetry was the thing that made my ds decide he liked writing after all. It was a gentle introduction to writing and gave him the confidence he needed at that time.

[alhempel]

My older two sons work pretty independently. When they have questions they seek me out. I often have to go to them to make sure they really are getting it because they work so well on their own. I try and go over stuff before we start a new unit and glance through what they will be doing. Sometimes they will alert me then that they may have difficulty on a particular day. For me, the DDR my children become the easier teaching them has become.