Cathy Duffy review of Comprehension Plus

noreply@blogger.com (Homeschool Supercenter) — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Cathy Duffy review of Comprehension Plus

Posted by Audree Hall on Apr 11, 2014 6:05:54 AM

If you choose to use real books rather than a reading program with your children, you can soothe your qualms about accountability by using a reading comprehension resource such as this series from Modern Curriculum Press. Books A through F are suggested for grade levels 1 through 6.

Student books are printed in full color. Each lesson begins with a short narrative followed by a variety of comprehension and vocabulary activities as well as some activities that stretch into areas such as grammar, map reading, and research. At the end of each lesson is a writing assignment to be done in a separate notebook. Since there are 30 lessons per book, you would likely use one per week.

Narrative selections in these books are wide ranging. While some fantasy is included, I found none of the narratives in the three books I looked through likely to be offensive to Christian parents.

Younger levels begin with concepts like main idea and details, drawing conclusions, order of events, fantasy and reality, fact and opinion, and character. Each skill is continually developed each year at a more challenging level. At the top end of the series, students add skills in literacy analysis (character, plot, theme, setting), comparing and contrasting, paraphrasing, recognizing the author's purpose and point of view, outlining, use of persuasion and propaganda, figurative language, and connotation and denotation. Most levels also work with analogies, synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms. They also cover reading of maps, tables, charts, and graphs plus using dictionaries, encyclopedias, the library and the Internet.

While some answers were multiple-choice, many are opened-ended questions. That means they will take a bit longer for parents to check even though possible answers are in the Teacher's Guide.

Children can complete workbook lessons independently if need be, but lessons are designed to be taught. Teacher's Guides have detailed lesson presentations that are very easy to use. However, you might find the presentation and discussion unnecessary. For example, there are new vocabulary words in each lesson. The Teacher's Guide instructs the teacher to discuss the meaning of these words with students before they tackle the vocabulary exercise. However, the student book has a glossary with definitions of these words that students can use on their own.

These are additional discussions and writing projects in the Teacher's Guide that are useful but not essential. The Teacher's Guide also has reproducible tests in a standardized test format and organizational forms for children to use for such activities as charting cause and effect, story sequence, or main ideas and details. I recommend getting a Teacher's Guide then using as much as is practical in your situation.

There are other reading comprehension series that use only one-word or multiple-choice answers, but the extra writing and thinking required in this series will be more effective for developing reading skills.

Click below to view Reading Comprehension Bundles Available at our store
http://bit.ly/1pE5K1E

Cathy Duffy enVisionMath product review

noreply@blogger.com (Homeschool Supercenter) — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Cathy Duffy enVisionMath product review

Posted by Audree Hall on Apr 7, 2014 10:54:41 AM

Math programs designed for traditional schools generally are too expensive for home educators because teacher editions can cost more than $100 each. Pearson has developed affordable grade level bundles of the enVisionMATH program by providing teacher's editions on CD-ROM along with print editions of the student textbooks.

enVisionMATH is a 2011 copyright for grades K-6 that reflects the current math standards. This program is especially good for visual learners and those who benefit from having concepts thoroughly explained. Student books are heavily illustrated with lots of color, graphics and photos. New concepts are show visually, sometimes with real objects and sometimes with illustrations of math manipulative's. For example, when long division is introduced in grade three, the lesson first shows trays of sandwiches, then models the program using place-value blocks in place of the sandwiches. It continues to show visual models of each step of the process through three pages of the four-page lesson. Manipulative's are not required, but you would easily use place-value blocks and other types of manipulative's along with the lessons.

In most lessons, new concepts are presented visually, across the top of a two-page spread. This is followed by Guided Practice with problems based on the new concept. Next is Independent Practice where all problems still relate to the new concept. A Problem Solving set wraps up the lesson with problems on both the new concept and previously learned concepts, almost always presented as word problems.

Word problems and practical application situations pervade this program, which means that students have to move beyond computational skills to understand which mathematical function to apply to different situations.

In each course, lessons are divided under 20 topical units (16 for kindergarten) with a number of lessons presented in each unit. These courses develop each topic throughout a unit rather than mixing topics as is done in Saxon Math. Each unit begins with a short review set of problems and concludes with a test, all included in the student book. While the amount of work in the student text might be sufficient for some students, there are extra worksheets that may be printed from the teacher's edition CD-ROM.

The teacher's edition CD-ROM actually has an amazing number of resources. Each one has the complete student text with answers overprinted along with teaching instructions. There are vocabulary cards you might print out. "Center Activities" are printable pages for games and hands-on activities; some of these require two or more players but many can be used with a single student. In addition, there are alternative assessments, "Daily Spiral Review," "Problem of the Day", "Quick Check", "Enrichment", "Reteaching", and "Practice" worksheets that I mentioned above. You will probably want to use one or more of these with students. At the younger levels, there are also interactive math stories to use. While it is a bother to have to load the CD to see each day's lesson, that is offset by the availability of all of the easy-to-print resources.

Little to no lesson preparation is required. Independent readers can complete most of their lessons on their own. You might want to do some of the games, mental math, and other activities that provide more interaction, but most studnet at least fourth grade and above might be able to do most everything else independently since lessons are so clearly explained.

Student books for grades 3-6 are hardcover. For grades K-2, student books have a very unusual design called a "tear-n-take tablet". These are 11 x 17 bound books with pages that tear out at the top. Each lesson is on a single large page which is removed and folded in half to form a four page lesson. Tests are presented in the same format. This means that the student book gradually disappears over the school year.

A Mindpoint QuizShow program disk comes packaged with each bundle. This is actually a fairly good game program that requires students to answer math problems to score points. This is only one type of game but there are variations in how it is used. Graphics and production quality are excellent.

The brightly colored format, visual presentation, emphases on both conceptual understanding and practical application, and solid math instruction make this series a good choice for home educators.

For more information regarding these products and to view them individually please choose a link below.

Kindergarten - http://bit.ly/1iqzbjZ
1st Grade - http://bit.ly/1ir0FQv
2nd Grade - http://bit.ly/QRUoXZ
3rd Grade - http://bit.ly/1nxuSoN
4th Grade - http://bit.ly/QLWFEn
5th Grade - http://bit.ly/1tRnrdG
6th Grade - http://bit.ly/1fGOH5B