Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Logic of English Essentials 2nd Edition Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Logic of English Essentials 2nd Edition along with the Optional Essentials Reader Set in PDF format for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.


Logic of English products are designed to help emerging readers, struggling readers, remedial readers, dyslexic students, poor spellers, gifted readers, ESL students, and learners of all ages to become proficient readers and spellers. These products have materials that use fun, multi-sensory methods with tips, games, and exercises that help teach phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle and systematic phonics, fluency and high frequency words, handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. This uses techniques that are by far better than just rote memory of sight words. Students that use this program learn the "why" behind English spelling. This is a great comprehensive, flexible, customizable and all encompassing reading and spelling curriculum for homeschoolers based on successful, evidence-based methods.



Logic of English Essentials is an evidence-based reading, spelling, and grammar program that covers a full semester for students age seven to adult. This helps students to read, spell, and write successfully by providing linguistically accurate phonics instruction, fluency practice, morphology and vocabulary development, grammar, and composition. The second edition has three levels of instruction in one curriculum, expanded vocabulary lessons, Greek and Latin roots, placement tests, ten pre-lessons, full-color teachers guide, clearer and easier to use layout, games, guide to teaching spelling analysis, new resources, new tables, and new teacher tips. The core content and the approach is the same as the first edition.

The Essentials 2nd Edition, Volume 1 Complete Set Includes:
  • Essentials Teacher's Guide, 2nd Ed., Volume 1
  • Essentials Student Workbook, 2nd Ed., Volume 1 (student consumable)
  • Spelling Journal (student consumable)
  • Basic Phonogram Flash Cards
  • Spelling Rule Flash Cards
  • Advanced Phonogram Flash Cards
  • Grammar Flash Cards
  • Morpheme Cards, Set 1
  • Phonogram Game Cards: Bookface
  • Phonogram Game Cards (your choice of either Manuscript or Cursive)
  • Phonogram Game Tiles
  • Phonogram and Spelling Rule Quick Reference
  • Spelling Analysis Card

I also received the Essential Reader Set which are readings to accompany the Logic of English Essentials. There are 30 passages that go along with the phonics and language concepts that students learn in Essentials. These are to be used after the concepts are learned in Essentials so that the students can successfully sound out each word, with no sight words or guessing. Combined with the Essentials Reader Teacher's Guide and Student Activity Book, The Essentials Reader may be used as a complete reading comprehension program for upper elementary grades. The Essentials Reader Student Activity Book is a companion to the Essentials Reader and contains engaging pre-reading, comprehension, and composition activities. The Essentials Reader Teacher's Guide includes four sections of suggested activities: Pre-reading, Pre-reading, Handwriting and Composition, Extension & Cross-Curricular Activities; for each lesson in The Essentials Reader. These texts are designed with the older struggling student in mind and include high-interest topics to engage the student reader.

The Essential Reader Set Includes:
  • Essentials Reader
  • Essentials Reader Student Activity Book
  • Essentials Reader Teacher's Guide  

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I used the Logic of English Essentials 2nd Edition, Volume 1 Set with my 7 year old daughter, Teela. She had been learning reading and spelling through sight words alone and had gotten stuck on some words because they could not just be sounded out or written exactly how they sounded. I thought that learning the "why" behind English spelling would help her tremendously with both her reading and spelling.

Teela Working out of the Essentials Student Workbook, 2nd Ed., Volume 1.

There are 3 levels of instruction in the book and the placement test we gave at the beginning tested Teela in level B. After I had her properly placed we went ahead with the lessons. She wanted to do Level A as well, so I let her do that as well. The levels built upon themselves and I thought that it was neat that the same Teela could use the workbook with the next level next year when she was done with this one this year. The 15 weekly lessons are each divided into 5 days, each taking about 30-45 minutes per lesson. The lessons cover dictation, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension. The lessons are taught with a multi-sensory technique having parts that are listened to by the student, read aloud, and written. These are interspersed with games, flash card work, and a spelling journal you can have your student collect and organize commonly misspelled words in.

  • Day One: Essential Concepts and Phonograms
  • Day Two: Review and Spelling Analysis
  • Day Three: Review and Grammar
  • Day Four: Review and Vocabulary
  • Day Five: Review and Check Your Understanding

The Essentials Teacher's Guide is fully scripted.

Since this is a fully scripted curriculum the teacher must read the provided script in consecutive order of the lessons to the student from the Teachers Guide. The Teacher's Guide is lengthy and involved. It has everything you need to teach the lesson to the student and references the Student Workbook very accurately so you can quickly find the correct section in the workbook that correlates with the lesson. I am not used to this type of instruction and I found this to be very time consuming. I had to read the lessons and prepare them ahead of time. I am used to workbooks that I can just have my kids sit in front of and the instructions are in the workbook for them to see or are self explanatory. Although this was a very thorough guide it involved more of my time and attention than I would have liked. I did learn a lot that I didn't know myself about English though.

I think that setting aside the correct amount of time for this curriculum would be best because you can't just jump into the lessons. They need a lot of preparation ahead of time, but I like how much my daughter and I are learning about the English language and the "why" behind it. I believe if you have the time to put in, this curriculum is wonderful! I highly recommend this set because it is very complete and teaches a great deal of information about reading, spelling, and grammar.

BUY IT
  • Logic of English Essentials 2nd Edition Volume 1: Available Now! Complete Set: $221 $198.00. Upgrade Set: $110 $93.00.
  • Essential Reader (PDF): $17.60, Essentials Reader Student Activity Book (PDF): $9.60, Essentials Reader Teacher's Guide (PDF): $16.00.
  • Logic of English Essentials 2nd Edition Volume 2: January 2017. Complete Add-on Set: $109 $98.10 (Will include the Essentials Teacher’s Guide Volume 2, the Essentials Student Workbook Volume 2, and Morpheme Cards Set 2).

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