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divinagrace
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| Posted: May 08 2007 at 10:16pm | IP Logged
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Does anyone have any experience with the Catholic Heritage Curricula preschool program? Does the program have good habit and character training like it appears to in the catalogue? What things about the program do/did you like and dislike?
Also, for reading, does anyone have any experience with CHC's phonics reading program? What is CHC's program like compared to 100 Easy Lessons? I just bought 100 EZ Lessons and am having a hard time imagining going through all 100 lessons. CHC advertises their reading program as simple, straightforward, and easy. This sounds more appealing to me and I wonder if I should just return the 100 EZ Lessons book and buy CHC's program???
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CathinCoffeland
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| Posted: May 09 2007 at 1:05am | IP Logged
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The preschool lesson plans are new so i cant help there, but we worked through the some k stuff including the phonics. It was an older edition than is used now but dd really took to it. It seemed "simple, strightforward and easy" to me. it is the only phonics program we have used although dd enjoyed dick and jane and the seton readers we borrowed for supplemental practice.
dd especially collecting "her books".
a caveat...reading is not hard for dd- she went from reading letters to advanced reading very quickly.
i dont know how they would work for someone who needed a little more time.
I have to say that the 100 ez book gave me serious heebie jeebies when i looked at it. I do not know any phonics rules myself-like dd i went from saying my ABC's to reading without much trouble-a lot of intuitive sight reading. The CHC was very user friendly ie nervous first time totally freaked out hs'r mom friendly  -which sums me up when i had to teach dd to read.
Ill use it again with ds. Though dd says can she PLEEAASSE!!! teach him herself?! "At least the letters?!"
maggie
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Genevieve
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| Posted: May 09 2007 at 8:34am | IP Logged
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I know most people don't use 100 EZ all the way through and probably stop around 75th lesson and just read regular books with the children. As for CHC, it is a very simple program. Cathy Duffy has a fairly accurate description of it here. Love2learn has a more descriptive review here. They are very much like the Bob books if you can get them through the library or Barnes and Nobles. Like Bob, they teach using word families and don't directly teach phonics rules as other programs. Big difference from Bob is that they are not as repetitive.
The way my child has learned to read is learning sounds through Leapfrog. Then we played blending games similar to those in 100 EZ. I"m thinking of a word ham *pause* burger. What is it? I'm thinking of a word c *pause* at. I'm thinking of a word c *pause* a *pause* t. Now with the advance phonics leapfrog, we have been playing with the phonics rules with movable alphabets (with the fridge magnets), occasionally doing some formal phonics like this, and casually taking turns to read some beginning readers. You have to scroll down a bit to get to it. And every once in a while we would throw in a phonics lesson as decribed in CM's original volume one.
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The Good Within
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CatholicMommy
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| Posted: May 09 2007 at 8:41am | IP Logged
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I have both the current preschool plans and Little Stories for Little Folks.
I cannot compare LSLF to 100 Easy Lessons since I've not seen 100 Easy lessons. What I can say is that I have used LSLF from scratch with 4 of my tutoring students, ranging from Kindergarten through 2nd grade (extremely delayed older children), and have had excellent success with it. I also supplemented with a bit of Montessori (ie sandpaper letters and moveable alphabet in addition to their letter flashcards), but otherwise it was quite a good program when not leaving out a single step. I did find a few times that if we skipped something, figuring the child already had it down, there would be a bit of trouble later until we went back and re-covered our missed steps. It was never anything major, and it was always done quickly, in a review format.
As the children gained confidence I would carefully provide them other books at a similar level, to show them that they are truly reading. And my older tutoring children begged to copy each story onto bigger paper, fold it the same way and illustrate it themselves with bigger pictures. The line drawings in these books compared to other readers allows the children to have more imagination like this.
The preschool plans themselves are not laid out like the K and older plans at all. There is no day-to-day plan. Instead it has activity ideas along the bottom of the pages (much as in the K plans), with all 7 days listed above with blank areas to just fill in what the child has done. At the start of each month there is a page with various lists, including chores, virtues, activity suggestions for that month (weather season or liturgical based), for some guideline; there is also a section with monthly coloring pages.
I like its flexibility and fill-in-the-blank format. I love all the suggestions it lists. I love using it in that I can use Montessori activities and others, and just fill in as I go.
I do wish it had slightly more guidance in it (during busier times it would be nice to do less planning myself), but seeing as how it comes with the K plans, I have been able to take some ideas from there to use as my son is ready, adding in other ideas of mine from a long list of activities I've organized separately that I want my preschoolers to do.
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Cheryl
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| Posted: May 09 2007 at 10:49am | IP Logged
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divinagrace wrote:
| Also, for reading, does anyone have any experience with CHC's phonics reading program? What is CHC's program like compared to 100 Easy Lessons? I just bought 100 EZ Lessons and am having a hard time imagining going through all 100 lessons. CHC advertises their reading program as simple, straightforward, and easy. This sounds more appealing to me and I wonder if I should just return the 100 EZ Lessons book and buy CHC's program??? |
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I wasn't attracted to 100 EZ Lessons, so I never tried it. I tried a program called Simply Phonics when my ds 8 was in K. He was not interested so I stopped. Then we tried Reading Made Easy when he was in 1st grade. I didn't finish that one either because he wasn't interested and we were busy building a house and we had a baby.
This year we used LSFLF and I really like it. He's reading now. I'm using it with my ds 6, and my dd 4 wants to start it now. I think the stories are cute. The family in them reminds me of my own family. I like that I can just show them a flash card and listen to them read a book. I'm not one who feels comfortable with scripted lessons.
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Cheryl
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Mom to Matthew 13, Joseph 11, Sarah 10, Rachel 6, Hannah almost 4 and Mary 1
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divinagrace
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| Posted: May 09 2007 at 11:41am | IP Logged
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Hello Ladies,
This is the first question I've posted on this forum, and I thank you all for your input. Your comments are really helpful. (I'm also very excited to finally be "talking" to those I've been inspired by through your blogs and forum posts.)
So far, what it seems like, the CHC reading program is well-liked and enjoyed by both parent and child. I have two children, almost 4 yo son and 16 mo daughter. This will be my first time homeschooling, and am overwhelmed at all the possibilities. It seems like CHC can gently ease me into homeschooling. Does anyone feel this way?
Are there any negatives about the CHC reading program or the program in general? I have read the forum threads on CHC and they mostly seem positive, so I'm just wondering if anyone feels CHC is lacking or just not right for their family.
Thank you again.
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Catholic Heritage Curricula
