New here, overwhelmed and don't know where to start

Lindina - How do your kids like the CLE program? Does it keep them interested? I'm worried about DS getting bored. I really like the CLE curriculum, though. Thanks for sharing it with me!

Also...I'm curious if you have any experience with their reading program. I can get a book for him to read, along with a 5 book set. I'm just wondering how long that will last, or how quickly he will go through those books. I'm just trying to decide if it is worth it to get those or not, or if I should just have him read books of my choosing.

 

I SO read that as CHAOS, lol!

 

It is CHAOS (Creative Homeschooling Alliance of SWMO)

 

I just can't spell at midnight. lol

 

I'll message you on FB with her contact information, but she won't have LPs. She'll maybe have the teacher manuals (TMs), but not the workbooks, since those are consumed. Maybe she'll have a science that works for you?

SHEM stands for Southwest Home Education Ministry (by "Southwest," they mean SWMO). They have a lot of links to outside groups, too.

 

Actually, I thought what you typed was correct, but my mind read that you were a member of CHAOS. Yeah, CHAOS pretty much describes every day in my house!!!

 

I've been teaching CLE for 12 years now, about to start the 13th and adding my 43rd and 44th kids this coming year. (Not all at the same time, though, of course! :lol Most of the time, we spread a 5-unit reading course out over the year. I don't necessarily plan it this way, but ... stuff happens. Most of the selections have two lessons in the workbook, so we do "a story at a time" not just "a lesson at a time". If someone finishes their course "early" in terms of the school year, I just give them more stuff outside the reading series to do, like novels, or maybe even another course from another publisher, or if they're playing "catch-up" we'll push to get one course finished in the first semester and the next course in the second semester. From fourth grade through tenth, each course is built for just half a year, so it works out. The company's stated purpose for this is that since the students aren't learning to read but reading to learn, this plan makes room for additional reading, projects, or whatever you like.

I know some people have also alternated, doing one unit of the course, then a novel, then another unit, another novel... through the year.

One of the things I like about the CLE reading is that it doesn't talk down to the student. I find the stories interesting, myself. This doesn't call attention to whether a student is "on level" or not by the content of the stories. The selections aren't all written specifically for instructing how to read (like the primary levels are) but are carefully selected from known authors, from Longfellow to Jesse Stuart to Lewis Grizzard (that immediately come to mind)! They teach literary analysis in middle school that I didn't get until high school. It wouldn't hurt for an 8th grader who's reading on level to do both the 7th and the 8th reading in one year, for example, because of the instruction in thinking skills and analysis. The Bible verses and study aren't included because they want to make it a Bible course, but so that the students learn to think about how their free-reading choices line up with Biblical teaching. I find that the difficulty of the selections is just about spot-on for the grade level, but that the thinking work in the units can be somewhat challenging, if the student has never thought about his reading in that way before.

This is strictly in my opinion, of course, and others may have a completely different one.

Interested. Hmmm. That's a hard question. I have a private school, which is "neither fish nor fowl" - not homeschooling but not public school. Let's say that I don't get many audible complaints. I give it, they do it (mostly). Interest doesn't have much to do with it. Most of the kids I've had have not attacked their work eagerly, at any level, in any subject, whether using CLE or something else, and in general "hate" school, except for lunch and field trips. My grandson included (he'll be in second grade this year).

Come to think of it, I have had one student who liked a story in reading so well that she looked up the book the excerpt was taken from, and read the entire biography on her own time.

ETA: I'd have to say that my students have found CLE to be at least as interesting as they find Lifepacs. :wink:

 

We use an online resource, Time4Learning, as our core and supplement with things my daughter is interesed in learning about. Currently we supplement with Drive Thur History (videos), Vocabulary Spelling City (online resource--free to use), Vocabulary Is Fun (online resource==free to use), Use It! Don't Lose It! Daily Language Practice 9th grade edition (Incentive Publications), Core Writing Skills (grade 7--Steck-Vaughn--we started it last year and just didn't finish it), and a Pre-GED book because my daughter wants to see where she is and what she needs to focus on.