Hewitt Homeschooling Resources Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set Review

My family had the privilege of trying the student guide, student workbook, and teacher's guide from the Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set produced by Hewitt Homeschooling Resources for this review to use in conjunction with our own curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Hewitt Homeschooling was founded in 1963/64 by Carl Hewitt and Dr. Raymond Moore. Their primary function has shifted from working with public education to now focusing on home education. Because of Dr. Raymond Moore's publications and books about home education this foundation became at the forefront of the homeschooling movement. They produce high quality curriculum that follows a balanced, flexible approach to homeschooling. Some of their products include: Lightening Literature, Unit Programs/Studies, My First Reports, Hewitt Readers, "Best" Literature, Math-It, Winston Grammar, State Chronicles, etc. They serve parents with students from kindergarten through high school.

The Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set is what we received and it is composed of the Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Teacher's Guide, Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Student's Guide and the Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Student Workbook. You can instead purchase the Grade 7 Lightning Literature & Composition Pack that has all the books that you will need for your student to read as well as what is also in just the set. These books, short stories, and poems are all reasonably and affordably priced if you purchase them on your own. Some are classics and others are new to us.


Students read in the following order:

• “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” by Rudyard Kipling from Stories & Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Various poems from Stories & Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
• "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” a short story by Stephen Crane from Stories & Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children
• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
• Various poems from Stories & Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children
• All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

The Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Teacher's Guide is easy to follow, clear, and thorough. It includes an introduction of how to use the guide and a weekly lesson planner at the beginning. It contains answer keys to the comprehension questions and the workbook pages as well.

A page out of the Student Guide.

The Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Student Guide is guide that contains for each chapter: an introduction for the student to read before starting, vocabulary, comprehension questions, a literary lesson, a mini-lesson, and writing exercises. If you follow this you will easily have a complete literature, grammar, and composition curriculum for the whole standard two semester, 36-week school year.

The Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Student Workbook is a consumable workbook that has all of the workbook pages that should be done for each chapter before the writing exercises in the student guide. There are seven types of workbook pages: [L] exercises relating to the major literary lessons, [M] exercises relating to the mini-lessons, [C] activities that allow the student to practice composition skills, [T] thinking skills pages, [G] exercises the review grammar and mechanics, [P] puzzles, and [E] extra-challenge pages. The first five are mandatory for the student to complete. The last two are optional.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
 
I used the Hewitt Homeschooling Resources Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set with my daughter Teela who has just finished up fifth grade and is 11 years old. She is a strong reader and so these books are fairly easy reading and comprehension for her. She; however, is not as good with the grammar or composition so I got this for her to strengthen those. We also love to do summer reading programs and this has just fit into our summer reading quite well so far.

Hewitt Homeschooling Resources Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set with my dad's passed down The Adventures of Tom Sawyer book.

I found that the book selection was very appropriate. I remember reading some of these as a child myself and enjoying them. We started with "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and after that started The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I was happy to have had some of the books in our library at home. The others I found online or will be checking out from our city library. Teela had not read either of these before, but I had. We found the whole of "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" online. My copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (and a copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) was actually given to my father at age 11 by his parents (It still has the inscription on the inside cover where it says this.) and passed down to me when I was young. I love that I get to share this part of my history with my daughter.

Part of the schedule of semester 1.

We worked on this 3 days a week instead of the 5 days a week that is recommended because it is summer. I had her read the short stories/books to herself. Then we followed the schedule that was given for doing the work. I really loved that the whole schedule was mapped out for us. This made it easier for us to know what we should be doing each week.

Teacher's Guide, Student Guide, Workbook Ch. 1 contents.

There was a lot of writing and other work though and frankly I think it was just too much for Teela especially since she was being distracted by summer things. Even though this is above her grade level I believe if she buckled down to do it, she could. Her favorite parts were the reading, discussion, crossword puzzles, and word searches.

Teela working on the Gr 7 Lightning Lit workbook pages.

Overall, I am pleased with the Hewitt Homeschooling Resources Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set. It is a great English homeschool curriculum that can be personalized and tailored to the student. We liked how it was laid out and the flow of the lessons. We will be reading the other books needed for this set at a later time when Teela isn't so distracted.

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BUY IT
The Lightning Literature & Composition Grade 3 Pack w Book of Poetry (comes with all the books, but one that is out of print) is $137.50. The Lightning Literature & Composition Grade 3 Set: Teachers Guide and Student Workbook is $71.01. Prices are accurate as of date of this post.

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English on a Roll English Grammar Teaching Method Review

My family had the privilege of trying the English Grammar Teaching Method from English on a Roll 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.

English on a Roll is a hands-on way to teach English grammar created by Linda Hopkins Koran. This is based on principles of Multi-sensory Structured Language (MSL). It concurrently engages the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic/tactile parts of the brain. It is color-coded and cube-based. This is a great teaching method to educate any age or level student about the proper use of English grammar and syntax, including all verb forms. Students can build unlimited phrases and sentences with the set. Recommended for teaching English language learners ages 5 to adult. Perfect for English as a Second Language (ESL), English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), English Language Learner (ELL), English as a Foreign Language (EFL), beginning reading (K-4), literacy, speech therapy, special education, learners with Autism and/or Dyslexia, homeschooling, and adult literacy education.

The English Grammar Teaching Method is a starter set to teach English grammar for up to 6 students. It includes one instructors' manual and a cube set. The instructors' manual has 150 pages and 36 lessons. The cube set comes with 40 word cubes in a plastic case for storage. You can use this set with up to six students. You can get an idea of how they can be used in this video demonstration.

The instructors' manual is called English on a Roll: Book One. It is a soft bound book that contains 150 pages and 36 lesson plans, a teaching guide, games and conversation ideas, reproducible teaching materials and worksheets. This helps you teach with the cubes.

The instructors' manual starts out with a Cube Guide chart and About English on a Roll, then goes into the lessons with review at the end. The lesson pages each have a grey box at the top with Prep (what is needed for the lesson), Note, and Vocabulary for teaching the lesson. After the first grey box the lesson instructions start. There is another grey box with Teaching Notes and after that are Conversion/Games and Written Exercises. This is written for classroom use, but is adaptable for homeschooling. If you have purchased this you are also allowed to copy pages for multiple students from the manual for your use in your homeschool or classroom.

The cube set is a set of 40 cubes of which 38 are engraved upon. These word cubes are color coded with different colors being different parts of speech or word groups. Pronouns are blue, question words are green; nouns, articles, & prepositions are dark blue, verbs are red, adverbs are orange, adjectives are purple, punctuation & conjunctions are black. Also comes with two blank cubes to make your own with. It comes with 30 self adhesive labels to add vocabulary to the blank cubes. They also recommend using Avery 5/8″ x 7/8″ Self-Adhesive Removable Labels #05424 that you can purchase at any office supply store, or online if you get more blank cubes (these are also available to be purchased separately. These dice like cubes are made of solid plastic and are 1 inch (25mm) per side. These come in a durable plastic case that neatly stores all of them snugly so you know that you are not missing any.

With a few cubes you can make many sentences.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts: 
My family loves learning doing hands-on activities. We love science with labs, experiments, and projects; history with lap-books, cosplay, and role-playing; and math with its many manipulatives. But up until recently we hadn't found any hands-on approach to teaching and learning grammar and English. It is just one of a handful of subjects that I was unaware could be taught using a manipulative of some sort. I was pleasantly surprised to be introduced to the English on a Roll English Grammar Teaching Method

Initially I thought I could work through the material and lessons with my youngest, Zari, who is 6 years old and starting 1st grade this year, but on closer inspection I found that most concepts would be too advanced for her because she is only reading a handful of words. However; I did use the cubes with her for reading/sounding out the words on them and trying to make simple sentences with them. Some of the conversion/games in the instructors' manual also were less advanced and I included her in this instruction as well.

Teela playing with sentences.

My daughter Teela who is 9 and going into 4th grade came to the rescue to help me with this review. The lessons are right in line with what she is already learning in English and grammar. There is mostly grammar review and some new grammar for her that the book taught. I liked that the instruction could be with one to 6 people. That made it easier for both Zari and Teela to sit in on the lesson if needed and Teela could work on a photocopied page out of the book while Zari and I worked on her reading the cubes.

I liked how these cubes worked. You could change verb tense, punctuation, and many of the words just by flipping, replacing, and rearranging one cube or more. There are some words that are not on any of the cubes, but you can add them with the included labels and blank cubes. There are so many sentences you can build with these. My daughters liked making humorous sentences with these together.

I think these are a great manipulative and lesson set to teach English grammar. These are indispensable if you have a student that learns best hands-on. I highly recommend the English on a Roll English Grammar Teaching Method.

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BUY IT
You can purchase English on a Roll English Grammar Teaching Method for $75 and other options on their website. Order includes shipping if you buy directly from them with their "Order Form" by email, mail, or fax. Also, you only have to pay tax if you live in WA state. If you choose to "Buy Online" through Amazon please click the "More Buying Choices" and buy from English on a Roll directly. Just understand that you do not save on shipping unless you use their Order Form on their website.

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Hewitt Homeschooling Grade 3 Lightning Lit Set Review

My family had the privilege of trying the student workbook and teacher guide from the Grade 3 Lightning Lit Set produced by Hewitt Homeschooling 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.

Hewitt Homeschooling was founded in 1963/64 by by Carl Hewitt and Dr. Raymond Moore. Their primary function has shifted from working with public education to now focusing on home education. Because of Dr. Raymond Moore's publications and books about home education this foundation became at the forefront of the homeschooling movement. They produce high quality curriculum that follows a balanced, flexible approach to homeschooling. Some of their products include: Lightening Literature, Unit Programs/Studies, My First Reports, Hewitt Readers, "Best" Literature, Math-It, Winston Grammar, State Chronicles, etc. They serve parents with students from kindergarten through high school.

The Grade 3 Lightning Literature & Composition Set is composed of just the Lightning Lit: Grade 3 Teacher Guide and the Lightning Lit: Grade 3 Student Workbook. You can instead purchase the Grade 3 Lightning Literature & Composition Pack w Book of Poetry that has all the books that you will need for your student to read as well as what is also in just the set. The books you will need with the workbook and teacher guide are: Sarah, Plain and Tall; Rickshaw Girl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Random House Book of Poetry for Children, Ramona and Her Father, The Big Wave, Charlotte's Web, The Wheel on The School, and The Tale of Despereaux. These books are all reasonably and affordably priced. Some are classics and others are new to us. The Wheel on the School, is currently out of print and is not included in the pack; but it is easy to find a used copy.

The Lightning Lit: Grade 3 Teacher Guide is easy to follow, clear, and thorough. It includes an introduction of how to use the guide at the beginning. It contains answer keys as well as a schedule of what to do in what order. This guide helps you teach Literature: Reading and Comprehension Questions, Book Discussion, and Reading Journal (summary of the story, story theme, feelings about the book in own words, and one favorite sentence to copy from the book); Grammar and Mechanics (these are in the workbook and includes: grammar, punctuation, capitalization, parts of speech, sentence diagramming, and occasional literary concepts), and Composition (writing or dictation depending upon level of child, includes: creative writing, essays of all sorts, research papers, poems, etc.) Extension and related activities are not required, but suggested for further learning in such subjects like: science, geography, history, and art.

The Lightning Lit: Grade 3 Student Workbook is a consumable workbook that contains instruction on grammar (including sentence diagramming), workbook pages, a reading journal, dictionary pages, and sentence puzzles. It is printed in larger print and has colorful graphics. The lessons are short and to the point. There are four days worth of workbook pages per week. You can use the fifth day of the week for make-up or the extra related activities. If you follow this you will easily have a complete literature, grammar, and composition curriculum for the whole standard 36-week school year.

Teela doing the Hewitt Homeschooling Grade 3 Lightning Lit Student Workbook and reading.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
I used the Hewitt Homeschooling Grade 3 Lightning Lit Set with my daughter Teela who has just finished up third grade and is 9 years old. She is a strong reader and so these books are fairly easy reading and comprehension for her. She; however, is not as good with the grammar or composition so I got this for her to strengthen those. We also love to do summer reading programs and this has just fit into our summer reading quite well so far.

I found that the book selection was very appropriate. I remember reading some of these as a child myself and enjoying them. We started with Sarah Plain and Tall, moved onto Rickshaw Girl, and after that started Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was happy to have had some of the books in our library at home. The others I found online or will be checking out from our city library. Teela had not read Sarah Plain and Tall before, but I had. Both of us hadn't read Rickshaw Girl before and it was interesting learning about Bangladesh and their customs. Teela has read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory many times...it is one of her favorites.

We followed the 5 day a week schedule that was suggested. I had her read all these books to herself except Rickshaw Girl, which she read the chapters assigned and then I did after her. Then after the assigned reading she did the daily comprehension, assignments from the workbook, etc.

As I thought would be the case, Teela didn't much care for the grammar and mechanics parts of the lessons. Begrudgingly, she got through it though with some encouragement, but I believe she learned the concepts well. The sentence diagramming was not something that I remember from school, so I had to have a refresher to help Teela out with it. We both were glad that the lessons were not too long so she was not overly bored or exhausted by them. Her favorite parts were the reading, discussion, and creative writing.

Overall, I am pleased with the Hewitt Homeschooling Grade 3 Lightning Lit Set. It is a great English homeschool curriculum that can be personalized and tailored to the student. We liked how it was laid out and the flow of the lessons. We will be excited to read the other books needed for this set during the summer.

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HewittHomeschooling @HewittHomeschooling
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BUY IT
The Lightning Literature & Composition Grade 3 Pack w Book of Poetry (comes with all the books, but one that is out of print) is $137.50. The Lightning Literature & Composition Grade 3 Set: Teachers Guide and Student Workbook is $71.01. Prices are accurate as of date of this post.

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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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