I read about HOD on a website on Friday or Saturday, and have been fascinated ever since. Much of my free time has been spent going through the archives and looking over the sample lessons and book lists. I've pretty much decided that this will be what we will be using for my ds (6yo in Oct) next year. I'm so definite that this is the way to go that everything is already in my shopping cart
Just need to pray about it a bit more.As I've poked around the site, it was thrilling to see how many of the curricula choices I've made in the past are being built into the levels already finished, as well as the ones that are planned for the future. The use of R & S grammar was a huge plus for me, as this is the one curriculum I have stayed with since the day we began hsing our 19 yo son (now in college many miles away) when he was 4 years old. I see Notgrass is a hit--this is on the list for my 11th grade daughter for next year. Starting Points--loved it with my son! Now, I cannot recall some of the others that jumped out at me, but it was almost like coming home as I read some of the posts. It seems as if the program were custom-made for my family. I look forward to watching the curriculum grow and develop over the coming years.
I wanted some help/affirmation/differing opinions on placement of my son. He's currently in Singapore math EBK 2B. We're working on phonics through Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading--about lesson 70 which is almost 1/3 of the way through the program. A child who completes the program as written in the guide finishes up at about 4th grade reading level. Currently he is doing the long vowel sounds with silent e and has done almost all the consonant blends. He's reading aloud programmed readers slightly behind what he is reading in his phonics lessons just to help him with fluency and comprehension. He's reading well 2-3 letter words and is decoding fairly quickly words like branch, thrush, etc. Each day I say 4 or 5 words for him, and he writes them out with correct spelling. We sort of fell into this because even before we started phonics he was all about how words were spelled. He loves to decode and write the word. Go figure. He's also writing sentences once a week or so for copywork. At first I thought of placing him in Little Hearts, but after reading the placement chart and many messages, I'm leaning more towards Beyond. I'm hoping he'd be in the emergent readers by the time August rolls around as we will continue phonics, reading, and math over the summer. I learned from taking 3 weeks off at Christmas that that is just not a wise thing to do. He seems more on level with Beyond due to the math and reading level, however, since I am new to the program I may be missing something. So, if you see something that raises a red flag for you, please let me know. I'd appreciate any and all advice.
Thanks for such a great forum!
but I'm in the minority! My kids made mudpies for an hour today! Hey, they very carefully measured the perfect ratio of water to dirt....it was math!