My family had the privilege of trying the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook (36-week Curriculum) *and* R.E.A.D. Review Pack (28 Early Readers that Correspond with R.E.A.D. Notebook) from The Crafty Classroom for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.
The Crafty Classroom is a website full of homeschool resources and printables that are produced by homeschooling mother of 4 kids, Valerie Mcclintick. These are designed to make homeschooling easier. The Crafty Classroom produces high quality homeschooling curriculum and educational resources, like: alphabet, geography, science, math, Bible, reading, and writing resources.
The Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook is a 4 day per week over 36 week curriculum that gives you everything needed to teach your child to read. R.E.A.D. is an acronym meaning: Ready, Eager, Able & Determined to READ! It comes as a downloadable and printable PDF eBook that has 785 pages filled with hands-on activities. This covers phonics, digraphs, blends, sight words, grammar, and writing. There are 30 word families, 64 sight words, and 24 blends & digraphs.
The R.E.A.D. Review Pack is a 92 page downloadable and printable PDF eBook that has 28 Early Readers which correspond with the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook. This can also be used as a stand-alone product, if you are not wanting a full curriculum. These cover 30 plus Word Families and 70 sight words. These are great to build fluency and be used as review. These early readers progressively build onto the learning as they go.
How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
I used this with my youngest daughter who is 6 years old. She is still just getting the hang of reading. I wanted to boost her confidence and try out The Crafty Classroom Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook & R.E.A.D. Review Pack. Zari was excited because she wants to read like her sister Teela who is 9 years old and devours books.
I was disappointed though that my printer decided to act up for this review. Both of these files are large! The Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook is a full 785 pages long and the R.E.A.D. Review Pack is a full 92 pages. Printer ink is expensive and these pages have some that are supposed to be printed in full color as well. I just tried to print out as much as I could before my printer's ink ran out completely, but my pages didn't look at all as good as the pages in the PDF and all the printing really gave my printer a workout. It might be less expensive to have them printed out professionally so you don't eat up all your printer ink like I did.
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| Just some of the pages of the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook printed out with low ink. |
The Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook is very thorough and is a complete curriculum for teaching students to learn to read. It is perfect for homeschool applications for a kindergarten reading curriculum with phonics and word families. We worked on this 4 days per week. At the beginning of the PDF file there is a curriculum overview which tells you the week and which word family, sight words, and language arts your student was going to be working on in that week. There is also a general overview, daily schedule, and blends & digraphs week schedule to follow.
The pages are placed inside a 3-ring binder. You are supposed to use two page protectors and a dry erase pen so that the pages can be reused. I didn't have any page protectors so I used a gallon sized zip lock bag. We also needed a composition book and a container or bag to hold the flash cards. We just used rubber bands to put the flashcards together.
There are some pre-assessment activities that we were told to start out with. These are reviewing letters (both uppercase and lowercase) and their letter sounds. Zari did fairly well with this and knew all the letters, but some of the sounds she had forgotten. So we reviewed these until she had them down.
You start out each day with a Daily Warmup. This consists of two pages that are placed in the page protectors and reused each day. This exercise has First & Last Name, Digital/Analog Time, Weather, Temperature, Count & Write Daily Number, Number Word, Ten Frame, Tally, Money, Days of Week, Months of Year, Number Word, and Number Line.
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| Zari doing some of the work for the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook. |
Each day there are different activities to teach the student reading skills. Each activity and page is explained really well in the PDF. These pages and activities Zari had the most fun with. She loved the hands-on games like Spinner Winner and BINGO. She also loved the cutting and pasting activities and the draw and write pages. There was so many fun things to do to help her learn to read in the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook! She was really enjoying these lessons a lot.
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| R.E.A.D. Review Pack, first 4 books. |
Along with the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook we received the R.E.A.D. Review Pack. This has 28 simple to put together printable early readers that go very well with the curriculum notebook. Zari had fun reading these once she knew word family and sight words. These had fun graphics and an easy to read font. The little phonics readers are super cute. Since they are put together in pages of threes they are also simple to assemble. Just stack the three pages of each book in order of printing (first on top, last on bottom) and cut out the books pages along the dotted lines. Put the first stack on top of the next pages cut out and so on until all pages are in correct order (they are numbered just in case you get them mixed up), then staple together There are 4 books per a five week period. I printed the first 4 books to use with the curriculum notebook and weeks 1-5. We used these 3 days per week. The instructions suggest an empty tissue box to store them in.
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| Zari reading one of the R.E.A.D. Review Pack books. |
Zari is doing very well with this curriculum and I am very happy with it so far. It is just a lot to print out like I said. The activities keep her engaged and occupied learning. I highly recommend this curriculum and booklet pack for teaching Kindergartners that are beginning readers. It is perfect for a homeschool setting.
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The Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook is $25 and the R.E.A.D. Review Pack is $15.
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