Eclectic Foundations has 3 levels and is available in both digital and print editions. We received the print edition. This included a spiral bound Student Workbook, Teacher's Guide, laminated appendixes, and flash cards that are printed on heavy card stock. Also included is a free download of McGuffey's Eclectic Primer (or you could purchase the book online).
This level of curriculum is intended for new or beginning readers. It has a total of 144 lessons that can be done 4 days a week for 36 weeks. The entire curriculum is laid out so all you have to do is open it up and start working with your student. There is no prep work involved which is something I as a busy mom really appreciate!
A glimpse of the teacher's guide
The curriculum starts out with introducing one letter a week. The first lesson of the week introduces the student to the upper and lower case letter. The letters take up most of a page and are block type of letters which allows the student to do different multi-sensory, hands on activities to learn the shape of each letter. This could be forming play dough to fill in the letter, or gluing sand to fill it in or simply coloring the letters in. The teacher guide tells you the activities to complete with each lesson. This also includes the child listening to words you read and pointing to the laminated happy or sad face to show if they heard the letter sound or not. Each lesson ends with a short Mother Goose rhyme.
The letter maze for letter "M"
Other lessons of the week involve sounding out the letter, a letter maze, and picking out and circling the letters out of a short passage. There is also a page devoted for the student to practice writing their name and the upper and lower case letters.
Each lesson builds off previous lessons so by lesson 6, they are sounding out the word "man". The first part of the curriculum has the student learning letter sounds and building/writing 3 letter words which can be practiced on the laminated appendix. Lesson 65 is when the McGuffey's Eclectic Primer is introduced and when it starts teaching parts of speech. The teachers guide explains what colors to have the child color the words as each color represents a part of speech. They also include reading comprehension questions to ask the student.
Olivia has really enjoyed using this program! Depending on each days activities, it takes us an average of 10-20 minutes to complete (the handwriting takes a bit longer). She has even doubled up lessons some days because she wants to do "more school work". She has began sounding out several of the 3 letter words. During this review period, we haven't yet reached the lessons where the McGuffey's Eclectic Primer is introduced but I look forward to seeing how those lessons work with Olivia.
If you are looking for a solid, phonic based program that includes handwriting, grammar, spelling, reading comprehension and requires no prep work, then this curriculum would be a good fit for your family!
This program sounds similar to the one that I used when teaching kindergarten back in the 70s. I liked the idea that the letters were taught in a sequence that had them sounding out words by the third letter. I supplemented the program by creating math, science and social studies lessons that related to the letter of the week. Does this program introduce the long vowel sounds as well? I don't remember if mine did or not.
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