1st time HOD user and having trouble with placement.

[lauranick]

I am trying to figure out which curriculum would best fit our 7 yr. old 2nd grader? She went to public school for K-1. She did great on the Primary Math 1A test but struggled a bit on the Primary Math 1B. She didn't learn a lot about time and multiplication last year. Anyone have any suggestions? Can I order Primary Math 2A and Primary 1B? Also, I'm not quite certain if I should choose Beyond or Bigger? Our 5 yr. old son is going to start out with Little Hearts. Thank you in advance!!! Laura

[StephanieU]

First, you can order the Singapore books individually. If you want the teacher's guide, the easiest place to order 1B would be from LHFHG. You can get 2A and 2B under Beyond or Bigger (teacher's guide is in Beyond). As for Bigger or Beyond, how does she fit for language arts between the two guides? What books does she read? How is her handwriting? If you look at the placement chart, check the grammar and writing boxes to see which one she would fit better in.

Normally, kids do best being the middle age for the guides just based on maturity though. If you do one guide a year, then LHFHG is actually a 1st grade guide, Beyond 2nd grade, and Bigger 3rd grade. But, if you are on the young side the guides, you have some "breathing room" to go half speed when necessary. That is why they have left the grades off the guides until high school - as skills and placement is more important than artificial grades.

[lauranick]

Thank you Stephanie! I will definitely see how she fits in those areas to better determine where to place her? Your tip about the placement on one guide a year also helps! Do you think that LHTH would be too young for our son who is 5? For some reason I would just rather be told which guide fits which grade, though I do realize that is not always the best fit for each child. Feeling overwhelmed! He still struggles with recognizing some letters, and phonics. The catalog says that it is for pre-k? Thank you so much for your thoughts! Laura

[StephanieU]

We are only on Unit 2 Day 2 of LHFHG, so I am no expert for sure. But, I think the question is whether he is mature enough for the storytime and history. It is only about 3 pages of text for storytime a day, but often there are no pictures. So, this can be challenging (my 5.5 yo still doesn't love it although she can sit still for it). LHTH is definitely slower and more basic. But, the Bible study is good. Some families do LHTH with the phonics and math from LHFHG for K. Or, they add in phonics and math some other way for kids "ready" for K work. I was debating between LHFHG and Beyond with my daughter because she (based on skills) would fit in Beyond. But, I realized that the maturity just wasn't there. Plus, she is already pushed in math and phonics (we are using another curriculum because we didn't hear about HOD until after we bought it), so I wanted to keep everything else light. We bought the Beyond economy package though and are going to do the grammar, spelling, and ER in there with LHFHG. That is one of the big things i love with HOD. You can exchange boxes on the right side with other guides (phonics, math, fine motor skills/handwriting, etc). You don't have to just use 1 guide per kid.