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Has anyone used First Language Lessons for Little Ones, Volumes 1-3? These books come before Very Young, which is recommended for use with DITHOR. I'm just curious if I should get the Little Ones books to use with LHTH and LHFHG before my dd starts DITHOR. I'd love to hear if anyone here has used them! It looks like they are Language Arts....so would I use them in addition to my phonics and handwriting programs, or would that just be redundant? I don't want to get them if I'll already be covering the same material in using LHTH and LHFHG along with phonics and Handwriting, so I'm confused. Here is a brief description of what each book covers:

Language Lessons for Little Ones by Sandi Queen
This sweet collection of lessons for preschoolers (ages 3-5) introduces the young child to the Charlotte Mason method of language arts with a simple, child-friendly feel.
180 daily lessons guide a child through picture study of full-color paintings, narration, introduction to the letters of the alphabet (capital and lowercase), copywork of letters, writing their name, poetry and story appreciation, creative
expression, and more. Lessons are the perfect
length - about 5 to 10 minutes per day on average, and give a nice variety along with a sequential review of concepts.

Language Lessons for Little Ones, Volume 2
For ages 4 - 6, this volume assumes the child knows his letter names, how to write them, and how to differentiate between similar letters in upper and lower case. In this book, children will learn the sounds of the individual consonants and short vowels, and learn to read short vowel words, gradually progressing to words with long vowel sounds and silent "e" towards the end of the book. Short copywork lessons progress with the child's reading ability, and are interspersed throughout, along with lessons in picture study with full color painting reproductions, poetry readings, narrations, and more. Nice large letters to copy, with wide, generic lines to copy onto provide a very flexible handwriting program in addition to the other topics covered.

Language Lessons for Little Ones, Volume 3
Picking up where volume 2 leaves off, Volume 3 in this level continues on through phonics until a child is reading fluently and ready to begin the grammar lessons which begin in "Language Lessons for the Very Young." Phonics lessons are continually reviewed in different ways, even while adding new rules. And of course, intertwined throughout are the beautiful, full color art reproductions and photographs for picture studies, poetry readings, narrations, and copywork lessons which you have come to love. 180 daily lessons cover an entire school year.

Get ready for what could be a choppy, senseless reply...LOL...I'm up and down with the little guys and typing when I get a chance. My apologies in advance. LOL

These books look really neat, but there are some things I don't like about them. They teach handwriting together with phonics being one. I tend to not like programs that combine LA with phonics since that could slow down a child that's ready for phonics, but not the rest. For instance, my two year old is ready for simple phonics instruction and already knows his letter names (upper and lower case) and letter sounds. But, obviously as a two yr old, he can't do the writing and many of the other skills taught. So his phonics knowledge is well ahead of his other LA skills...he could do the phonics of Vol. 2, but can't even begin the other skills in Vol. 1.

LHTH could be compared to VOl. 1 of the FLL for Little Ones in that it introduces that alphabet but the child is not required to be able to do anything else in order to progress through learning each letter and it's sound. If you wanted, you could always add in picture study!

LHFHG will cover ALL LA (handwriting, gentle grammar concepts, spelling, poetry,narration...) and you just need to add phonics. FLL for Little Ones would be alot of the same material. Again, you could easily add picture study.

I've considered using FLL for little ones with my youngest if I'm not quite able to fit in a whole 3rd HOD program at first. Letting him sit in with either of my older two and just have his own little workbook to go through before we do something formal with him even if he can't do it all. But adding it to HOD would just be more of the same stuff.

So it sounds like they would be unnecessary.....thanks for the reply!

We use Language Lessons by Jessie Wise which is for 1st and 2nd grade. I believe there is another book after this one. I love this book! I also saw Jessie Wise at the SE Homeschool Expo in Atlanta last summer and I fully believe in the need for basic grammer lessons at this age.

HTH,
Judy

jewel7123,

We don't carry the younger volumes of Language Lessons, as they're not needed to make LHTH or LHFHG a complete program. It is completely up to you whether you'd enjoy adding them into your day or not. I think you and I corresponded by email about this too, but if you still have questions, feel free to ask.

As far as First Language Lessons goes, we did carry that for a few years, and have since dropped it from our line. We did use First Language Lessons with our oldest son for his first and second grade years for grammar instruction. While we did enjoy the lessons at the time, we discovered that there was very little carry-over. We did teach the lessons exactly as written, and did complete all but the last several lessons of the second year of the program. With the amount of teaching time it required from me, I was definitely desiring for my son to have better retention of the concepts in the end. By the time we headed into Rod and Staff (after trying both Easy Grammar and Bob Jones for third and fourth grade), my son was still at a loss as to what a noun was. Within several weeks of using Rod and Staff in fifth grade, my son was easily diagramming sentences.

When we wrote our Beyond Little Hearts guide, we desired to have a gentler, less time-consuming introduction to grammar, usage, and mechanics than First Language Lessons (knowing what we wrote would only serve as an introduction in those areas). In Beyond, we also provide lessons in oral narration, copywork, spelling, poetry, and literature study to round out the language arts instruction. Then after that we move into Rod and Staff English 2 in Bigger for a very thorough coverage of all grammar-related concepts, including written language. We've found Rod and Staff to use a very solid systematic way of teaching English that helps kiddos connect the dots as to why we need to learn language arts skills. We are also grateful that their materials are so God-honoring. As we've followed the grammar path mapped out in our guides with our second son, we have been very pleased with his grasp of grammar and his writing skills.

I agree that grammar is an often neglected area, but I don't think that the instruction in grammar must begin in kindergarten, or even in first grade. Reading, writing, and math continue to be the areas of emphasis needed during those years. Once those skills are in place, then grammar instruction can move into more prominence within instruction time.

Blessings,
Carrie