by inHistiming » Tue Aug 28, 2007 2:53 pm
I used Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory last year with my daughter, who would have been in first grade in public school. I love what it did for her! She was having difficulty reading in Kindergarten, due to an undiagnosed vision problem. We took her to the eye doctor, got her some glasses, and began working on improving her reading. She was not ready to enter the first grade by fall, so because of that and other reasons, we decided to homeschool her (along with her 3rd grade brother).
We chose to begin with Reading Made Easy for our reading program. It was great. I love the way they have all of the letters in a different color (or shade) to indicate what sound it makes. I also really enjoyed the Language Arts portion of the curriculum. The index cards for spelling is really helpful. My daughter is not good with remembering just from sight. So, it was great for her to write the word on the card, look at it, then try to write it down from memory. We used the cards all week, and she really improved with her ability to spell. I also like the way nouns, verbs, etc. are introduced slowly and clearly. She enjoyed making up sentences and dictating to me.
My favorite part of the curriculum is probably the copy work portion. I never would have guessed how much her handwriting would improve just from copying a poem from a piece of paper. She made marked improvements in just a month, and continues to do so. She is more accurate, writes more quickly, and her reading has also gotten better. She can now read what she writes with ease, except maybe for words she has not encountered before.
The history portion of the curriculum is awesome, too. We enjoyed reading the history texts that come with BLHFHG. We actually did not finish them because we were focusing so much on her reading, so we will be using them this year with both children to supplement their history. The science book is nice as well, and she loves to do experiments! We will be using the science and history books, as well as the list of emerging readers schedule this year. We are looking forward to another year with BLHFHG, and can't wait to use DITHOR in the future.
I also have a preschooler, so we are looking into using Little Hands to Heaven soon. We're very happy with the product, and I feel sure others will benefit as well.