Kindergarten Language Arts

Sonlight's LA K

To be upfront, my son is advanced in certain subjects for his age. Two things are language skills and reading. His handwriting is also good, for his age. So choosing a language arts program for kindergarten has been challenging. My original plan was to start him with Sonlight's Language Arts 1st grade. Reading wise, this is a great option. However, once I bought it, I realized that there is a lot of copywork. 

I have been reading Dr. Ruth Beechick's book, The Three R's. I highly recommend it! She explains the importance of not only learning to read well but to write well. To write well, one must practice copywork. I have a BA in English and in one of my upper levels literature college classes, one of my professors recommended copywork. He told our class that to be a great writer, one must practice writing. To do this, he recommended writing word for word paragraphs and pages from other great writers. This will help sentence structure, grammar, and creativity. At the time I thought it was interesting because I had never heard of it. As I've been researching the best methods for me to teach my children, his words made so much sense!

So back to language arts. I love Sonlight's philosophy in teaching. They recommend teaching through literature and living books rather than textbooks. Children learn the material enough to remember and share it, not just to fill in the blanks on a test and forget about it. I'm not using the complete package from Sonlight, although I have the Core A instructors guide, Language Arts K, Science K, and Language Arts 1st grade and many of the books. I'm not using the whole package because my son loves hands-on activities. And while he loves good books, during the day he does not want to sit still and just listen to me read, even though we do plenty of reading during the day and there are some hands-on activities.

Last year we started off using Sonlight P4/5 for pre-K along with My Father's World Kindergarten and he after a few weeks into it, he quickly preferred My Father's World over Sonlight. We continued reading Sonlight books but mostly at night and we didn't go by their schedule. I still think Sonlight is a great company and many of his favorite books are from their reading list which is why we are continuing to use them. After looking through Sonlight LA 1, I have decided that it's too much copywork for a typical kindergarten, which is why it's part of 1st grade. So I'm going to do a mix. My original plan was that I would just have him write his memory verse everyday. I think I'll mix it up depending on how long the verse is. I will also use part of Sonlight's LA K, we'll practice handwriting, and use their recommendations for Language and Thinking for Young Children. We're also going to go ahead with Explode the Code 1 and 2. These books are recommended in LA 1 but he's ready for them. We'll also continue reading level 1 readers and practicing handwriting. I love how Sonlight's LA K teaches children how to use a dictionary and is a great introduction to grammar. There are lots of games to play. He'll learn to write a letter as well as invitations. It's more than just going over the alphabet again. I think I'm also going to go ahead and continue with more phonograms and we can play games with those. I'll use some of the methods that Dr. Beechick suggests in her book. By the end of the year, I think he will have a great foundation in language arts and be ready for more copywork. The most important thing I want for this year is for him to have fun and continue to enjoy learning. He will be learning his whole life. As much as I want to push ahead, I'm going to take a step back in some ways. In other ways, we'll be continuing to move ahead. For handwriting we'll still be using A Reason for Handwriting K as well as doing handwriting practice from Sonlight LA K. In a few weeks after we start, I'll let you know what we're doing and not doing. Here's a picture of most of our History, Bible, and Language Arts. I did not gather all the books together for a picture. It's hard to find time to blog with a baby and busy 5 year old. :)

My big blue Sonlight Core A binder along with some other fun things for Bible, History, LA, and Geography