I am looking at buying Rosetta Stone Spanish for the children, and myself too. Does anyone use the home school edition and if so what are you thoughts on it, good and bad?
We are using it for my two boys, ages 6 and 8. We love it! It's my 6 year old's favorite subject. This year, we are only doing the computerized part. Next year, I plan to redo level 1 and add the worksheets/written component. I like the fact that it keeps all grades. I like that it mixes listening, speaking, and writing.
Thanks for the reply. I had someone point me towards powerspeak but the children did not like it (from doing the demo). I did the demo for Rosetta Stone and all of the children loved it, even my youngest who is on the spectrum. My children are 15 - 12. If I am understanding it correctly if I get the RS that is the home school edition and all 5 levels that should get all of the children through the high school language requirement, right? If that is correct then it will cost me about $500 for all 5 children to get through the world language requirement. With the powerspeak you have to buy it by the semester or year and it is about $230 per semester, per student, if you only get the material. It is about $700 for a full year, one student, with credit from a teacher. From what I am understanding RS is the better "deal" not only for the money but because my children love it!
I'm not familiar with powerspeak but I have used Rosetta Stone for years. We like RS okay. It's not perfect, but we tried other things and came back to RS. We did modify how they suggest using it though. Some of these things may or may not work for you: 1. We do not use the spoken part. I loved the idea, but my oldest had an absolutely atrocious accent which the program did not help but only caused frustration. If your children love the spoken part, go for it. 2. We take a slower pace than the book suggests. On Day 1 we do the first computer lesson. Day 2 the student reads the study guide and writes in the definition of the vocabulary words. If they don't know some, they go to the English-Spanish dictionary. Then I orally quiz them on the vocabulary words and the grammar introduced in that study guide lesson. Day 3 is another computer day. Day 4 is workbook day. Day 5 is computer day but it is the day when the student has to spell words. I allow them to use the curriculum text otherwise these days last foreeeevvverrr. And I think that they learn the spelling this way just as well. The next day might be a quiz or test, or it might be on to the next lesson. 3. My attitude about foreign language is that we'll do it because it is required by the state, but I think it is mostly a waste of time. Therefore, we do 2 years, but if we're not as far along as Rosetta Stone thinks we should be, well, oh well.
Is anyone familiar with the "regular" Rosetta Stone software? How does it differ from the homeschool version?
Thanks for the tips. I am getting it for myself as well. The more that I look at job postings the more I see that a requirement is that the person be bilingual and speak both English and Spanish. No one in our family or any of our friends speak a second language other than an Uncle who speaks German. He lives in another state through so we would need to skype with him for interaction. The plus is he lived in Germany for years and speaks it fluently. From looking at the website the only difference that I can see is that the home school edition comes with record keeping software, which for me is a good thing because I am not that good at it! I just pulled up the website and found it interesting that the home school edition is cheaper by $20 I hope to make a purchase within the next two weeks.
Yes, that's the main difference- record keeping-- and it's an important one for me as well. I only purchased year one, because I wanted to be sure we would use it. Resale on it goes pretty well, too. I tried to buy a used version, but they kept selling so quickly that I had to buy new. I also thought I would do it along with them. I did at first, but fell behind and now my 6 year old is about 3 months ahead of me
