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Hi there! I need some help.

Can someone tell me the basic difference between
A Reason for Handwriting K and Italic A? Anyone that wants to recommend one book over the other?

Also, the basic difference between
The Reading Lesson and Reading Made Easy? Recommendations? Should I get the CD?

Any information you have would be greatly appreciated!!!!

We've used A Reason for Handwriting K and A. This is ball and stick manuscript. I liked the clean look of it. We also liked it because as it progresses, it uses Bible verses as copywork. The coloring page accompanying each letter was fun too. Italic A and B are also good options that other ladies enjoy as well though. Italic is supposed to make it easier to learn cursive later on. We found we only had to do one year of Cheerful Cursive after A Reason for HW, and it went great. So, either one is a good choice - it's just your personal preference. Someone doing the phonics will have better thoughts for you on that, so I'll leave that to them.

In Christ,
Julie

In the past week or so, there's been lots of posts about Reading Made Easy. There are new workbooks coming out to go with it and I have some samples...I just can't get my email to work right now to send them. Someone else should be able to forward them to you though...just search the RME Samples thread and ask someone to send that to you! We LOVE RME and I'm too tired and mindless...and haven't done school in weeks with lots going on...so I can't seem to find the words to describe why we love it so much. But, simply put, it works, it's easy and quick, my ds loves it.

Another "A Reason for Handwriting" liker here. (I haven't used Italic though...so I'm sure it's great, too. I've always thought that Italic handwriting was very pretty.) I used ARFH with my oldest, and plan to start with Allison this fall.

I'm sure both the phonics options are great, too. I've decided to use The Reading Lesson with Allison, and we absolutely love it! (Grant used Saxon phonics and 100 EZ Lesson...and while he reads wonderfully neither are something that I want to reuse for many reasons!) The Reading Lesson is SOOO easy to use, and my dd has picked up reading quite quickly. I love the nice open pages that aren't cluttered with scripted lessons. (There are notes to the parent at the beginning of each lesson, but then the following pages that you work through with the child are nice and open and have words and stories for the child to read. We also use the CD with the program. My dd thinks this is great fun! We're about a third of the way through it, and from what we've done so far, I'd highly reccommend it. (Phonics is one of those things that has a million great choices that will work well. I like that The Reading Lesson was very affordable and is doing the job.)

Kathleen