You're welcome! Glad it was helpful!

I'm so glad you liked it! We totally love LOE, too. Can't say enough good things about it!

You're welcome!

That's so lovely! Thank you! ❤️ I'm really so glad I could help.

You're welcome!

You're welcome!

Aw thanks so much! I've been meaning to do some more reviews, but I actually had another baby in February, so things have been crazy around here 🤣. Hopefully soon, though!

You're welcome!

Me, too! Such a game changer for us! We just finished Foundations B this week, and I can't wait to start C. ❤️

So glad I could help!

Glad I could help!

Thanks so much! Glad it was helpful!

🤣 You're welcome!

My daughter really thrived by having all the rules up front. I'm amazed at how well she can decode things now. She can figure out such difficult words with so much confidence. LOE has been amazing for her!

We have 5 more lessons in C and then moving on to D!

Some here

You’re welcome! Glad it was helpful!

So glad it was helpful!

Glad I could help!

You're welcome!

You're welcome! I hope you can find something that works well. It can be so hard trying to make the decision when to stick with something and when to try something new.

Logic of English is great for children who have dyslexia. My granddaughter is on level b on foundation and doing great.

Also do you find the workbook necessary for A based on what I described?

@@kchapyful Sorry, just saw that this was from a month ago, so you probably ordered already, but I would do the workbooks, especially if you are doing cursive because there are lots of letter recognition activities in it.

Thank you! We really enjoy it so much!

It looks amazing, looks like it would be a great fit for my son - but being in Australia the currency conversion is a killer, I was prepared to pay that until it was going to be $110 purely for postage.

@@tuathadesidhe1530 Yeah, US shipping prices are always killer! We're in Taiwan, so I ended up paying about $200 to ship A-D here 😬. They do have an online option now, though. It wasn't available when we started, but it's likely a better option for those of us overseas.

You're welcome!

So glad it was helpful! My daughter really loves it, so I hope it works just as well for you guys 😄

AAR has games built in. If you read the lesson opener for the instructor they suggest a game to play for the cards or fluency sheets. All the games and activities are in the appendix. If you just do the cards or fluency sheets without the suggested game AAR can be really dry and tedious.

@@vickih5405 I was thinking the same - I've been doing LOE for a bit and my 6yo really doesn't like it, so I've been considering AAR and one of things that draws me is all the games! Hmm...

@@genevievesophia I seriously can’t recommend AAR enough. (Not saying that LOE isn’t good, it looks really appealing having the reading handwriting and spelling all together in one curriculum) I just love AAR, it’s so tactile and the kids get to see how to build a word and sub in new sounds to make a new word. And they don’t have to use a pencil ever. I could go on 🤣💜

You're welcome!

It's really so helpful knowing all these little rules. Honestly, I feel like I'm learning a lot with my daughter! When I was in school, it was mostly sight reading, so there are lots of things that I wasn't sure why I pronounce it like I do! I love the LOE explains all this. I totally wouldn't worry about her being behind! I think starting this in first grade is fine.

Thank you!

I think it's so nice doing the cursive. It actually seems way easier for my daughter, so I'm glad we did it.

We are doing AAR right now and I don’t like it. I hate the tiles. And the fluency sheets..😳😳

So glad it was helpful!

Thanks so much! It is a bit of an investment, but I do think it's totally worth it. The nice thing is that it covers everything, so at least you don't need extra spelling or anything. It also seems to have pretty good re-sale value on the Facebook group, so you might be able to get some of the cost back at the end. For math, we do Rightstart. Love, love, love it! It's very similar in style to LOE, in that it teaches a lot through games and the lessons are completely scripted. Super open and go! We're actually almost done with Rightstart B and will be moving onto C in about a month. It is a bit of an investment, too, because of all of the manipulatives you need to buy the first year, but I think it averages out ok if you use it for several years. They also do a Cyber Monday sale every year on gently used items (usually displays from conventions or returns), and you can get the manuals for 30% off. I always buy then! You just have to get up in time because they sell out fast!

@@courtneya9437 thank you for the Cyber Monday tip! We love Rightstart Math, as well! We use Timberdoodle for lots of STEAM/Thinking Skills, but may I ask what you use for Science/Health and for Social Studies/History? Thanks so much!

@@Lilc97Jax We're actually doing a few different things 🤣. I couldn't decide between History Quest and Curiosity Chronicles for ancient history, so I'm actually combing both. And for science, we're doing the Blossom and Root First Grade, which has a geology focus, and Elemental Science's Intro to Science, which has a bit of everything. And I've actually discovered Core Knowledge which is an amazing curriculum, and the PDFs are free! We've been supplementing our geology studies with the "History of the Earth" language arts unit, and for my youngest, we're doing the Kindergarten "Stories" LA unit. They have science and history, too, but I haven't tried them yet. I'm really impressed so far, though, so we might switch to more of Core Knowledge next year. www.coreknowledge.org/curriculum/

Ah, good question! I know on the LOE website they say to start in A or B, but I'm not sure exactly why they prefer not to start in C. I suppose it's because of how they schedule their multi-letter phonograms across B and C. If you just started in C, you would miss the some. Perhaps there's a list of which multi-letter phonograms are taught in which level on their site? Maybe in a teacher's guide sample? Or maybe if you can look at a copy of Whistling Whales? They'd all be in there. Then you could match and see if he knows all the covered phonograms in B already. The only other issue I could see is being unfamiliar with the spelling marks they use, but I think you could pick it up fine. Denise Eide has some videos up explaining her finger spelling methods that I've watched before, so I imagine she would have some with her marking methods up as well. We just started C this month, and the structure is basically the same as B. The lesson starts with a new phonogram, has some activities, spelling practice, handwriting practice, and reading from a reader. We've started with all the /er/ phonograms so far - ur, ir, er, and ear.

The review lessons are built in after every five regular lessons. In general, you'll run through the phonogram flash cards you've learned so far, practice writing the letters in the previous lessons, and then there will be some games. Sometimes they're card games, and sometimes they're matching activities in the workbook or words cards you cut out of the workbook and do an activity with. Just as an example, in my daughter's most recent assessment lesson, there was a page with a list of sentences on one page and on the next page were a bunch of pictures we had to cut out. Then, she had to put the pictures in order according to what the sentences said. I've definitely heard other people describe LOE as kind of overkill with the rules, and I was a bit nervous of overwhelming my daughter, but she's done really well with it. The new rules you learn are repeated often, and I was surprised how well my daughter could recognize why words were spelled certain ways without my prompting based on the previous rules she learned. I really think LOE does a great job of presenting things without being overwhelming. My daughter has never complained that it's too much, and she seems to have amazing recall of what we've already learned. As for the games, up to where we left AAR, all the games were just cutting out a printable and doing something with it. Maybe just read them or match them or something like that. LOE does have some printable games like that too (although I think with a bit more variety), but pretty much every lesson has more active games as well. Sometimes it's really simple stuff, like read the word and add a block to a tower or push a toy car as far as you can, but even these simple things make the lesson so much more engaging for my daughter! The other day we had one where I had to lay out a bunch of stuff, like a fork, hat, watch, car, ball, etc., and then she had to read directions and do those things, like "Put on the hat." or "Toss the ball." She loved it! Other things she's done is pretend to walk on a tightrope, and she gets to take one step forward for each phonogram card she reads correctly, another was closing her eyes and trying to write her letters without looking. Every lesson has different little activities like this that just make things more fun. And it's not similar activities in back to back lessons, so each lesson feels different from the previous one. And after completing A and most of B, I'm so happy that LOE has spelling and handwriting built in. It's so much easier for me not having to juggle more things, and our lessons flow really well. Hope that helps! If you have other questions, let me know!

I think the beginning is a bit hard to get into, especially when you aren't doing full letter writing yet and just the little practice strokes. Unfortunately in A, there really aren't many readers, just those little books you put together. My daughter loved making them, though! In B, it really does pick up, so you'd have more to do in that. I have heard that some people use the AAR readers to supplement LOE. I'm not sure how all the phonograms would line up, but that might be an idea. Would your 6 year old want to go a bit faster? I think we finished A in about 4 or 5 months, but we weren't doing it every day, so you could probably go through it a bit quicker and get to the parts he's more interested in.

Ah! I was able to find the size of the cards on their website. Thanks again for the review!

@@CandiceMcCool Glad you were able to find it! We're in the process of moving, so I'm not sure where everything is packed away at the moment 😅

Thanks so much! That's a really good question! My daughter wasn't reading more than simple CVC words when we started. She knew all the basic letter sounds, but that was about it. I actually really wanted to go with a whole phonics approach originally because I thought it would be better in the long run for spelling. I basically taught myself to read just with sight words as a kid, and my spelling is so ridiculously bad. Sometimes the spell check on my phone doesn't even know what I'm trying to write, it's so bad 🤣. So from that side of it, I would say that it's still really worth it to have phonics reading instruction, even if the sight reading is strong. And honestly, I'm amazed by how well my daughter can figure out new words by learning to read this way. I rarely have to prompt or give clues. We're half-way through C now, and she flies through the readers without really stopping now. She never looks to me to remind her of something; she just uses the rules she's learned and figures everything out. It's pretty amazing! Maybe you should look into starting right in at Foundations B? I think they have the first five lessons for free to try on their website, so maybe let your son try one and see what he thinks?

Haha. I think it's like the Rightstart of phonics, too! Both programs are so fantastic! We're almost done with Rightstart B, and we'll start C after. We've actually already finished LOE Foundations B and are in the middle of C already. I can't believe how quickly we've gotten through it! At the moment, my plan is to stick to Foundations through D and then do LOE essentials. The program just works so well for my daughter, I haven't really looked at anything else once we made the switch 😁.

Thanks! That's great to know about the timing, too! I will likely have my daughter doing Essentials when my son is starting Foundations.

Yes! Have you joined the Logic of English Family User Group on Facebook? I see used sets on there a lot. The company also has scratch and dent sales occasionally.

There are lots of exercises in A and B as part of the lessons. You do some work with flash cards first, I think, saying one and then the other closer and closer together. I'm doing B again now with my son, and there are some reading lift-the-flap worksheets, where you say the blend, then lift the flap and read the word under it. There's also lots of segmenting work before you even get to the blends. Both the child segmenting the words and the teacher doing it and the child putting the sounds together.

For math, Rightstart has been a great fit for her. We started at A, and we're just finishing C now. I love that it's really handson, with few worksheets, and they teach everything using a variety of manipulatives. For history/social studies, I'm just using units from Core Knowledge. It's not perfect, but they're short and she has better recall of what we learn in them than she did with History Quest or Curiosity Chronicles.

Ooh, good question. We only got about 10 lessons into AAR1, so we went ahead and started in A. I'm not sure what all ends up getting taught in AAR1, but I think the biggest issue might be that LOE teaches all the sounds a letter makes at once, so if AAR1 hasn't taught, for example, the two sounds of "g" and the four sounds of "i", you might need to work a bit on that when you start B. I just pulled out my LOE B manual to check, and there is one review lesson at the beginning of the book for those starting Foundations at B. It has a bunch of game ideas and focuses on the different sounds each vowel makes. So, if your child is feeling confident with everything done in AAR1, I think you should be OK. You might just need to spend some time on those extra sounds. The only other big difference would be the handwriting component. LOE A does all the lowercase letters, and then you do all the uppercase letters in B. If you were thinking about doing cursive, you could always get their separate "Rhythm of Handwriting" program just to teach that, unless you are using some other program already.

bookface

My daughter never had any issue going back and forth between the print and cursive. All the phonogram cards are in bookface, so when they first are introduced to the letters, they see them like how they are in the readers. There's lots of practice built in to help them recognize the print and cursive version of each letter. The workbook has some matching activities, and you'll play some games like memory and go fish with the decks of both cards, so they'll get lots of practice seeing both forms together. My daughter had a bit of print writing practice before we started this, so I was worried about confusing her, too, but she actually told me she thought the cursive was easier to write. If you do run into problems with the cursive, though, it actually wouldn't be too hard to just switch to using print in the same workbooks. Mostly you would just need to rewrite the Bingo boards and copywork parts. You could also order a set of the manuscript game cards, too, so you'd have all three types. I actually really like switching between bookface and manuscript with the cursive cards in games so my daughter can see all the different types.

@@courtneya9437 thanks for replying. I'm excited to give this a go and hope it works for my kiddos. :)

If you get the whole Level A package then you'll have all the cards and things you'll need for A through D. Then you'll just need to buy the Teacher's Guides and Workbooks for each level and the level's readers. For D, there are a few regular children's books assigned, but I actually just borrow them from the library to save some money! I'm not sure if combining two curriculums would be too much or not. I know other people do that with other programs. I guess the main thing I would look for in the order in which the phonograms are taught. If your other program teaches with sight words, you might need to move things around a bit to fit because some phonograms used in common sight words are taught until Level C.

He might feel a little bored with A if he's reading well, but if he has no experience with cursive, the newness of that might make up for it. When we started A, my daughter knew all the basic sounds of each letter, but not the additional sounds, and we hadn't really done much writing at all, and she was fine starting with A. I think we went through it pretty fast. Maybe about three months? She was five and a half at the time. In B, there is an intro lesson for those who didn't complete A that goes over all the additional letter sounds. So if you feel like A would be too easy, those extras would be covered in B. Writing-wise, A does all lowercase and B does all uppercase, so if you think you'll need the help teaching the cursive, you might want to start with A. Another alternative would be doing Rhythm of Handwriting, which teaches cursive the LOE way independently from Foundations.

@@courtneya9437 Thank you some much for the reply! I think we might go with A and just move through it quickly.

Foundations A starts at the very beginning with cursive. The first few lessons, you just do common strokes, like curves and dips, and then move into letters. You'll just do lowercase in A, then uppercase in B.

I just checked and it looks like Michaels isn't carrying them anymore! At least not on their website. The boxes are made by Really Useful Products. The new brand they have on there with similar boxes seems to be a bit smaller, so I don't think they'll fit.

@@courtneya9437 thanks anyway!

You could check with them to make sure, but I believe the reason for that is that they start teaching two letter phonograms in B. So if you start in C, you'll miss some of them.

If you'll teach them at the same time, you'll probably want an extra primary ruled whiteboard. You can buy one on Amazon if that's easier or photocopy the one you get and put the paper in a plastic sleeve.

We only did half of the first level of AAR, so I can't say how it is later, but in the parts we did, it taught the first sound of each letter only. I'm not sure when the other sounds are added. I haven't used First Language Lessons, but we've been doing a little basic grammar in LOE. In C, we've done a bit with sentence structure, comparatives, making lists, and capitalization. I'm not sure how much more will come up in D yet, though. I believe most of the grammar work comes up in Essentials. We're almost done with C, and nothing about homophones yet that I recall. It might be in D, though. I'll try to go through the D teacher's manual to check for you.

@@courtneya9437 you are such a sweetheart for responding back. The info you provided was very helpful. Thank you. ❤

I checked D and I don't see a homophones section listed. There is a grammar section in every lesson, though, so that's something extra added that wasn't in earlier levels. There is a bunch on sentence structure, like fragments and subject-verb agreement, as well as punctuation and different parts of speech. Hope that helps!

@@courtneya9437 thank you, Courtney l. Very helpful! ❤

I did. But I actually haven't used it yet. I was a bit overwhelmed by how much was in it, so I kind of set it aside. I need to get back to it, especially now that my son is starting to learn his letters too.

They're really hard!

The focus is really on the readers and playing phonogram games. I think the games build so much confidence that it really does work well in building recognition and fluency. When you get to level C, there are actually two sets of readers. The Young Artist series is a bit longer and more challenging than the regular readers, so they really get to practice a lot of what they've learned going through them. I do know some choose to do those readers on a separate day because of their length, too.

Yes! Still loving it! We're actually a little over halfway through Foundations C, and my daughter's reading ability has really picked up more quickly than I expected. She's actually started doing some of those Scholastic Acorn books on her own!

No, LOE is working really well for us, so I plan to just go into Essentials once we finish Foundations.

Yes! We're actually doing the new version of Blossom and Root Level 1, and it's fantastic! We're really loving the new literature selections.

We haven't done Essentials yet. It felt a little mature for my daughter still (she's 7). I'm thinking maybe next year.

I would check the scope and sequence to make sure she knows all the phonograms introduced in B. Another option at that age would be to try Essentials instead. That might be a better fit, and you could start right at level A.

Yeah, we had the same experience. I'm glad the phonogram cards are used pretty sparingly in LOE.

I was wondering the same thing!🤔

No, we're still doing some Blossom and Root, too! We actually completed our first year of homeschooling in April, and we finished Logic of English Foundations A, Rightstart Level A, and Blossom and Root's Kindergarten. Then, we started our second year with LOE B, Rightstart B, Torchlight's Kindergarten for my daughter, and Blossom and Root's Early Years Volume 1 for my son 😄.

@@courtneya9437 Thanks so much for sharing and updating on your progress! This was very helpful. I see you do so many programs together, which is my style too! Would love to see/ hear more about how you combine programs. Maybe a day in the life or a typical schedule? It's awesome to see homeschool done so well. :)

Good idea! We're definitely doing a bunch of different things. I love trying everything 😂!

I'm so ridiculously uncreative 😂. I try to always pick things that are really open and go, so I don't have to worry about it 😂.

I never really paid attention to the manuscript version because we're doing cursive, but it looks like the student book would have the bookface and manuscript on the writing pages, so maybe just don't use the tactile cards and have them trace in the book instead?

You're welcome!