I write the Switched-On Schoolhouse Series twice a month to share our family’s experience using this software based curriculum in our home.
Today in my Switched-On Schoolhouse post, I want to share with you some of what the curriculum holds, specifically to English I, but from speaking with friends, the structure is similar in other grade levels as well.
The Language Arts or English courses (depending on what state or grade you are teaching I suppose), that Switched-On Schoolhouse offers are all on par with state standards. I’d have to say from having our daughter in public school for 7 years, that the Switched-On Schoolhouse curriculum is actually a bit more challenging in certain ways.
The courses begin with units in grammar; including sentence structure, prepositions, tenses and mechanics like that. Our daughter isn’t overly fond of grammar, she just wanted to get it over with (!), so we’ve just been plugging along in the order of the lessons as the software presents them. However, if as a parent/teacher, you want your student to have grammar interspersed throughout the course, you can set the lessons up manually on specific dates, or one of the units to be taken later on in the year. You don’t have to go through it systematically if you choose not to.
There are units on poetry, a study of a novel (in the case of English I it is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), and a play (this curriculum goes through The Miracle Worker).
When comparing Switched-On Schoolhouse to the work that we know other freshmen are doing in their schools, one place that I feel they are above par are their lessons on research papers.
The student learns proper techniques on how not only to do the research, but how to cite sources and format the paper. Our daughter is currently working through this unit. The unit is not yet complete, and two assignments to write research papers have already been assigned. In comparison, we have found that students from a variety of schools in our area as well as other students we’ve questioned, have not learned the proper format of writing a paper, or alarmingly haven’t had to write one at all!
Of course we appreciate that the material is all presented from a Christian worldview. It’s often easy to lose touch with that aspect when teaching as we try and make sure we get the fundamentals in. I love how it’s integrated throughout the curriculum.
We definitely are enjoying our Switched-On Schoolhouse Language Arts/English studies.
If you’re interested in learning more about Switched-On Schoolhouse or would like a discount on a purchase of curriculum, click through on the button in my right hand sidebar, and you’ll be taken to the publisher’s site.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the products mentioned above for free for review purposes from Alpha and Omega Publishing. I was not required to write a positive review and this product may not have the same results for all people, please do additional research of your own when purchasing products mentioned in reviews. The opinions I have expressed are my own.