Curriculum Guide: English and Literature

Are you looking for a thorough English/Language Arts curriculum that your children will enjoy? You’re sure to find some great options in the Top Picks English/Literature category!

Easy Grammar Systems

Easy Grammar Systems publishes Easy Grammar series, Daily GRAMS series, and Easy Grammar Ultimate Series. Renowned for her expertise in teaching grammar and writing, Dr. Wanda Phillips uses a building-block paradigm for introducing concepts and incorporates a cyclical approach that enhances mastery learning.

• In Easy Grammar teaching texts (Grades 2-6 and Plus), students learn to delete prepositional phrases and to determine subject, verb, agreement, etc. Concepts are introduced at a basic level and build for understanding. Easy Grammar Plus and Grades 3-6 include unit reviews/tests and cumulative reviews/tests, which promote mastery learning. (Students usually complete two-three lessons per day; however, the goal is mastery, not speed.)
• Daily GRAMS texts (Grades 3-7) and Jr./Sr. High are daily 10-minute reviews (180 lessons). The format is capitalization (#1), punctuation (#2), grammar and other concepts (#3/4), and sentence combining (#5) for improving students’ quality of writing. Concepts are reviewed cyclically to increase mastery learning. Begin each class period with a lesson and, then, proceed to Easy Grammar.
• Easy Grammar Ultimate Series (Grades 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12⁺) are teaching texts containing 10-minute daily lessons (180) in a Daily GRAMS format. Continued learning and application of concepts in a spiraling approach promote mastery!

WriteShop

At the heart of learning is the ability to write. WriteShop understands the challenges of teaching writing, offering parent-approved curriculum for kindergarten through high school. Engaging, step-by-step lessons give students the necessary building blocks of the writing process. Not only does WriteShop teach kids how to write, it shows you how to teach. You’ll learn to guide them through the writing process and inspire even the most reluctant writers. Parents rave about the results!

WriteShop Primary is a parent-led writing program that gently introduces K-3rd graders to the steps of the writing process through hands-on activities, crafts, and picture books.

WriteShop Junior exposes 3rd-6th graders to genre, fiction, and nonfiction writing—and introduces tools such as graphic organizers and editing games that truly motivate young writers.

WriteShop I and II offer a wide variety of writing assignments and creative activities for junior high and high schoolers. Teens become proficient in the four vital techniques of brainstorming, drafting, editing, and revising as they write descriptive, informative, narrative, and persuasive compositions and essays.

Whether you’re a new or veteran homeschooler, visit WriteShop.com to see how we can help you along your homeschooling journey. Teaching writing has never been easier!

Time4Writing

Time4Writing.com offers 8-week online writing courses for elementary, middle and high school students. Each online course is led by a certified teacher who provides one-on-one instruction, personalized feedback and guidance along the way.

Time4Writing offers basic, intermediate and advanced courses that teach topics such as grammar, sentence structure, paragraph writing, essay writing, sentence writing, writing for the SAT and research papers. Each course includes fun, interactive lessons and writing assignments.

Students can easily access the virtual campus with their own secure login from any computer or mobile device with an internet connection. The writing process includes learning to think, asking good questions, building confidence, and getting your thoughts out. Students work on their schedule, at their own pace, throughout the length of the course. Once an assignment is submitted, students receive constructive feedback from their teacher within one business day. Parents are able to log in as well to monitor reports and purchase additional courses.

In addition to teaching students the ins and outs of a particular area of writing, Time4Writing also teaches students how to think and express themselves clearly and confidently. Each course comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Brave Writer

Would you like to draw out the fascinating mind life of your children, capture their precious thoughts in writing, and also address pesky mechanics—spelling, punctuation, and grammar—painlessly? Then Brave Writer is for you!

Introduction to the Brave Writer program:

The Writer’s Jungle is the centerpiece of our curriculum. It teaches you how to be an effective writing coach and ally to your children for their entire academic writing careers.

We also offer manuals that provide monthly writing projects and correlate with your children’s natural stages of growth: Jot It Down! (5-8 year olds), Partnership Writing (9-10), and Faltering Ownership (11-12).

Our literature-based guides cover the mechanics of writing: The Wand (beginning readers), The Quiver of Arrows (1st-2nd grades), The Arrow (3rd-6th), and The Boomerang (7th-11th).

The digital downloadable Help for High School is a semester long self-teaching guide to writing. It contains exercises that develop the rhetorical imagination and teach the expository essay (both exploratory and argumentative).

There are a slew of online classes, too: Playing with Poetry, Literary Analysis, Movie Discussion Club, SAT/ACT Essay Class, Photography and Writing, Shakespeare, and more.

Check out Brave Writer today for all your language arts and writing needs!

Write for College

Writing Success: Essential Writing Skills for the College-Bound Student

• Are you struggling to get your child to write better?
• Are you uncertain on how to grade or comment on your child’s writing?
• Do you want to be certain your child is ready for the rigors of college writing?
• Do you want to know how to approach teaching your child different type of writing?
• Or do you simply want to help your special needs child or reluctant writer overcome his/her writing phobia?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you will absolutely love Writing Success: Essential Writing Skills for the College-Bound Student. Written by a veteran homeschool mom, college professor, internationally published author and homeschool coop teacher, who has not only used this method with her own children, but countless others. One mom called Writing Success a cheat sheet for reluctant and dyslexic writers because of its step-by-step approach and practical perspective. Parents will particularly find the section on grading writing assignments invaluable.

Comprehensive in scope, Writing Success may be used for middle school (gr. 6) through high school (gr. 12). Writing Success can be used alone or with almost any curriculum or homeschool approach. Visit www.writeforcollege.org for more information and to see our online classes

Order Writing Success today!

WordBuild

WordBuild® A Better Way to Teach Vocabulary™ is based on Latin and Greek roots, prefixes, and suffixes. The objective of WordBuild is to give students the tools they need to look at new words as puzzles they can solve to determine meaning. WordBuild students are never given lists of words to memorize, and they spend no more than 15 minutes each day focused on one unit of meaning for a week. We put words on tests that we know students haven’t seen before to see if they can apply their knowledge to them and figure out their meanings. That’s the whole point of WordBuild!

WordBuild is appropriate for students as young as second grade or as old as high school seniors. The program is available in traditional teacher and student book form at www.dynamichomeschool.com or as completely interactive web-based applications at www.wordbuildonline.com. When using the books, the parent is the teacher. With wordbuildonline the program is the teacher and recordkeeper. Wordbuildonline even adjusts the level of difficulty of the content based on student performance.

Write Through the Bible

Are you looking for a curriculum for you child that will teach them to write while focusing on God’s word? Write Through the Bible, Junior does just that.

What is Write Through the Bible, Junior?

Write Through the Bible, Junior was designed to help busy parents integrate several subjects into one. Below are a few things your child will focus on through the course of this workbook:

• Fine motor coordination
• Beginning letter sounds
• Letter formation
• Bible memory
• Biblical study
• New vocabulary words

Not only that, but there is virtually no preparation! There aren’t any involved crafts that take weird supplies. Everything you need for this curriculum you probably already have at home.

Write Through the Bible, Jr. is available in ESV or KJV and in 3 different font types. You can purchase this full year curriculum in paperback on Amazon or as a digital download.

Download a Sample Free!

Download the first week of lessons to see is this is the right program for your family! We know your child will love the fun activities and you’ll love knowing that you are giving them a good foundation in the Word of God.