SL LA vs. LOE

[MercyInDisguise]

C is desperate to learn to read. I'm trying to compare Sonlight language arts program (using Explode the Code) and Logic of English, which I know is a fairly new program. Any thoughts?

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[mamacat]

5 is VERY young for reading for some kids - especially boys.I used 100 Easy Lessons for my 2 homeschooled kids and it worked for both.One started at 5 but the other didnt read until 7.5 and then just took off. You may have to just keep retrying and ressuring him that he will learn to read when he is ready.In meantime reading TO him really helps

[Kiara.I]

I haven't used either. From what I've heard, Explode the Code wouldn't be my first choice. What about just getting something like Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading our of the library and seeing how it goes? Or if you're okay with screens, Progressive Phonics might work.

[MidnightCafe]

Logic of English is totally awesome!! We used LOE "Essentials," which is for older kids, and I was amazed by how solid the program was in teaching phonograms AND grammar AND basic writing skills. I actually got way more than I was expecting.

I have a friend using LOE "Foundations," which is for younger kiddos and beginners. She loves it, too. I like that it's an open and go curriculum with specific instructions for the "teacher." I love that they use games, but they aren't elaborate complicated games that take a bunch of prep work. I think you could do the beginning of Foundations without it being stressful or seeming like you're pushing reading. There's a lot in there about playing with sounds, where we form letter sounds in our mouths, really hearing sounds in words and breaking up sounds in words. All of those things are pre-reading skills. You can take a long as you want or need on the beginning stuff and then speed up or slow down as needed.

[twentysixcats]

Originally Posted by mamacat

5 is VERY young for reading for some kids - especially boys.I used 100 Easy Lessons for my 2 homeschooled kids and it worked for both.One started at 5 but the other didnt read until 7.5 and then just took off. You may have to just keep retrying and ressuring him that he will learn to read when he is ready.In meantime reading TO him really helps

I think you misread the OP?

I'm curious what you find out, Rachel! opcorn

[MercyInDisguise]

Originally Posted by Kiara.I

I haven't used either. From what I've heard, Explode the Code wouldn't be my first choice. What about just getting something like Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading our of the library and seeing how it goes? Or if you're okay with screens, Progressive Phonics might work.

Can you expand on Explode the Code a bit and why you wouldn't choose it? I will look into OPG2TR.

Originally Posted by MidnightCafe

Logic of English is totally awesome!! We used LOE "Essentials," which is for older kids, and I was amazed by how solid the program was in teaching phonograms AND grammar AND basic writing skills. I actually got way more than I was expecting.

I have a friend using LOE "Foundations," which is for younger kiddos and beginners. She loves it, too. I like that it's an open and go curriculum with specific instructions for the "teacher." I love that they use games, but they aren't elaborate complicated games that take a bunch of prep work. I think you could do the beginning of Foundations without it being stressful or seeming like you're pushing reading. There's a lot in there about playing with sounds, where we form letter sounds in our mouths, really hearing sounds in words and breaking up sounds in words. All of those things are pre-reading skills. You can take a long as you want or need on the beginning stuff and then speed up or slow down as needed.

This is super helpful, thank you!!! I see there are 48 lessons in each program... how long does a lesson take? Just one day?

[Aerynne]

I haven't used any formal reading program except the Bob books, starting with the easiest one and going to the harder ones. My five-year-old is reading and loving the Bob books right now. What would be the advantage of a formal reading program over doing that?

[MidnightCafe]

I think that how quickly you go through the lessons really depends on the child. One lesson of the Essentials books can easily take an hour for an average child, depending on how many of the optional activities you do. We did almost everything (optional & review activities). But we were doing remedial work, AND Essentials includes grammar, dictation, composition, and vocabulary. I don't recall ever doing an entire lesson in one sitting. The lessons in Essentials are all formatted exactly the same. So, you learn where you want your breaking point(s) to be.

I think the lessons in Foundations are a bit shorter. The website suggests using Foundations A, B, C & D in this way:

A typical schedule is A & B in kindergarten and C and D in 1st grade. Some choose to start A in pre-K, or to spread A-C over kindergarten and first grade and teach D in second grade. These schedules will work fine as well!

Doing A & B in a year over a typical 36 week school year would mean doing 2-3 lessons per week. Doing A-C over 2 years means exactly 2 lessons per week. I wouldn't rush it. Foundations is the perfect name for this curriculum for a reason. It's a foundation. You'll be building on this forever, and it's ok if it takes some time to get through it.

I'll see if I can get my friend, who is using Foundations, to come on over and comment here...

---------- Post added at 09:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:37 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Aerynne

I haven't used any formal reading program except the Bob books, starting with the easiest one and going to the harder ones. My five-year-old is reading and loving the Bob books right now. What would be the advantage of a formal reading program over doing that?

I think if that works for you, it's totally fine. Some kids just seem to pick up reading and intuitively understand spelling. I *do* think that all kids can benefit from a formal program that teaching the ins & outs of phonograms & spelling rules, but it isn't absolutely necessary. I picked up reading & spelling really easily as a child, but I still remember learning some rules from my teacher such as, "'I' before 'E,' except after 'C.'"

Also, with regard to LOE specifically, a lot of what is taught in the Essentials program and in the later part of the Foundations program is language arts/grammar - handwriting, parts of speech, composition, vocabulary. So, it's really more of a comprehensive and progressive language arts program, not just a reading program.

[HuggaBuggaMommy]

My workbook loving ds1 adored ETC, but he was already reading when he used them and they were more for reinforcement. If your kiddo is a workbook kid, I think ETC is valuable practice but wouldn't use it as a stand-alone *if* you are looking for a more comprehensive program.

[Quiteria]

We're loving the LOE Foundations here. It's not too complicated to do the games or to not do them as games if you don't feel like it...on a day where you truly cannot muster the enthusiasm, you can just do the activity aloud or written, but the ideas are always there for how to make it more multisensory.

We do however much of the lesson they have the attention span for. At least 1 segment, sometimes 2 or 3. We're mostly using it for alphabet for the pre-K dd, and cursive for the elementary boys who are already reading, but we do the whole thing together because one of them is a little weak in phonemic awareness even though he can read, so I figure it doesn't hurt to review and keep the little one company.

We did also enjoy Progressive Phonics, starting with the Alphabetti series. It's not a complete program, just phonics...and it's a little loosely written for explanations...but the shared reading concept worked well for an eager reader (you read difficult words in black while the student reads target words in red, so the story can be more complex than the Bob books), and the readers are funny. I actually printed them out at first. Then my farsighted child did them on screen so we could enlarge. But my other child held them in his hands on paper. Both ways worked. Research does say that printed is better, but that wasn't working for the one who needed a little less effort to see the words. (We got glasses, but it's taken a few follow ups to figure out everything.)

[forty-two]

Originally Posted by Aerynne

I haven't used any formal reading program except the Bob books, starting with the easiest one and going to the harder ones. My five-year-old is reading and loving the Bob books right now. What would be the advantage of a formal reading program over doing that?

Benefits of formal reading programs imo:
*explicit instructions on what and how to teach (and in some programs, what to do when the initial approach doesn't work)
*a well-thought-out sequence of instruction
*practice material aligned with that sequence of instruction
*bells-n-whistles to make the whole thing more fun and appealing

Not everyone wants all those things, and not all programs have all those things, but if you need them, it can be a huge help to have them already done for you instead of you having to take the time and effort to put them together yourself. And wrt Bob books in particular, they moved *way* too fast for my kids - they needed to go slower, and with much more practice material. In theory I could have made up my own, but why reinvent the wheel, kwim?

The program I used with dd8 and am now using with dd6 (Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach) worked the same way as teaching-via-Bob-books, though - the teaching is mostly a barebones "these letters/phonograms say these sounds", and the meat of the program is all the practice in context (and the order the phonograms and their various sounds are introduced). Learning to read by reading, basically, using graded phonetically decodable reading material (basically it supplied two of the four things on my list - a well-thought-out sequence and copious practice material; I provided the "how to teach" and the "making it interesting").

[Lilac]

I'm the friend, and I can't say enough great things about Logic of English Foundations. It is simply fantastic!! I bought a used version a few months into this school year to use with my kindergartner who wanted to learn to read.

I bought in in part because MidnightCafe gave me such glowing reviews of the older version, and in part because I looked through the books at a conference and really liked what I saw.

I like that I can just grab the books, flashcards and whiteboard, sit down, and have the whole lesson there for me and my daughter. I don't have to do advance prep. The teacher guide tells me what to say, but I don't feel like it is forced and neither does my daughter.

The whole thing is fun for her. We have been doing about 2 lessons each week, and she started reading Bob books after about 4 months when I introduced them to her. She picked up reading right away.

I love that the book gives suggestions on games that are really easy to play, using things around the house like balls and marbles. They aren't difficult to play to put together, but seem to contribute a lot to my daughter's happiness with the curriculum. She just loves the simple little games!! They are so much fun.

I love that the curriculum includes ideas for sensory play, as well as workbook and handwriting skills. When we learn each new letter, we write it in the air with our fingers, our elbows and whatever else! We use a salt box. We do the whiteboard. And then sometimes we get to the handwriting page in the workbook to do stuff with a pencil and paper. But the curriculum recognizes that not all kids will be ready for handwriting yet, and let's the teacher know it is just fine to only write in the air.

We start each lesson with listening. I say words and she listens for specific sounds. She is really learning to hear the difference between letters. We've learned about vowels and consonants -- you can sing vowels but not consonants! We've learned about voiced and unvoiced phonograms - it's fun to touch your voicebox when you say a sound and it really instills the learning! She loves to hop and jump and wave as instructed to with the various components of each lesson. She's moving that little body of hers while she learns her phonics!

I really feel that she's getting such a solid FOUNDATION in phonics because our Logic of English Foundations stresses sound at the start of each lesson. We started with the beginning sounds, and now after 20 or so lessons we've moved on to adding the ending sounds, as well. We blend words together every lesson (so far) as well, and that's a big reason why she just started sounding out words everywhere we went! She was used to doing it, and enjoyed it.

They also just started adding spelling words. It happened in such a way that she wasn't worried or freaked out. There were just words for her to read, sound out and spell. It was a natural progression that built upon what we'd already learned. I feel like that is such an important part of this program, the way things build gradually.

Reviews are worked in with every 5th lesson, and so the parent teacher can tell if there's something to stop and focus on. There are things to make sure the kiddo knows and things that are ok if they only kinda know because those things will be focused on more later. Both she and I feel like things are being accomplished after we go through each review, although it didn't feel like it took effort to get there!

So, for example, here are the components from Lesson 17, which focused on the letter i:
- Phonograms at the beginning of words (I say a word, student shows me the phonogram)
- Blending words together (I segment, she blends together)
- The Phonogram i
- Doodling Dragons: sounds in words (I read the page, she jumps when she hears one of the four i sounds)
- Writing the Phonograms (write in air and/or on paper)
- Matching phonograms
- Writing on paper
- Phonogram bingo
- Target station
- Phonogram playdough

Again, I can't say enough great things about LOE Foundations. I have looked over a few other programs, including Explore the Code (which we actually started with in September), and I simply don't feel that they come close to being as comprehensive as LOE Foundations.

Originally Posted by MidnightCafe

Logic of English is totally awesome!! We used LOE "Essentials," which is for older kids, and I was amazed by how solid the program was in teaching phonograms AND grammar AND basic writing skills. I actually got way more than I was expecting.

I have a friend using LOE "Foundations," which is for younger kiddos and beginners. She loves it, too. I like that it's an open and go curriculum with specific instructions for the "teacher." I love that they use games, but they aren't elaborate complicated games that take a bunch of prep work. I think you could do the beginning of Foundations without it being stressful or seeming like you're pushing reading. There's a lot in there about playing with sounds, where we form letter sounds in our mouths, really hearing sounds in words and breaking up sounds in words. All of those things are pre-reading skills. You can take a long as you want or need on the beginning stuff and then speed up or slow down as needed.

[Kiara.I]

Originally Posted by MercyInDisguise

Can you expand on Explode the Code a bit and why you wouldn't choose it? I will look into OPG2TR.

Like I said, I haven't tried using it. But some of the feedback is that in some kids, it leads to guessing. But then, there are also kids that seem to do well with it, so...