Good morning!
Can you please explain further what you mean concerning his reading level but “lacks phonemic awareness”? I’m not sure I understand fully.
Concerning Charlotte’s method to approaching the subject we call language arts: it looks incredibly different from what we traditionally are familiar and comfortable with. Many elements of language arts are rather abstract ideas so Charlotte presented them later than the traditional method. I encourage you to read through our series that elaborates on how Charlotte approached language arts.
Because of our desire to stay true to Charlotte’s method, Spelling Wisdom and Using Language Well Books 1 will not teach children how to write poetry, a letter, or original writings. Original Writings begin in grade 4 with 1 written narration a week. Children prepare for this written narration by orally narrating most of their readings (oral composition) prior to grade 4 (this continues through their school years). Poetry is learned by reading poetry every week and in upper middle to early high school written narrations can be required in the form of poetry (we like to suggest mimicking the style of the poet being studied that year). We teach poetry analysis in Using Language Well Book 3.
Children will see letters in Spelling Wisdom and will be required to study and write them (studied dictation) in Spelling Wisdom.
While utilizing Book 1, children will learn capitalization rules, punctuation rules, and English usage.
