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Any CMers use CLE for math and LA?
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Hi, I started using CLE math 200 for my 8 year old a little over a month ago and we both really like it. I had used MEP with her before now, which was good, but I wanted something more independent and MEP didn’t cover some things I wanted to include in her math instruction without me having to do-it-myself and schedule it in. I’m having a baby soon and doing school myself so this was the best option for us, plus she really loves CLE math and understands it.
Every other subject we are doing pretty much CM, but I am considering using CLE’s Language Arts. I have been going back and forth between CLE and starting Spelling Wisdom with Using Language Well. Has anyone here used CLE’s Language Arts? My eight year old is an excellent reader and we haven’t done any grammar or spelling really except for what she naturally picks up from transcription and narration. She learned to read with 100 Easy Lessons and took off from there so neither her nor I know many phonics rules or what a digraph is, though I consider myself a pretty decent speller and reader without knowing the formal rules. That is the only thing that might trip us up if we go with CLE’s language arts because she wouldn’t be starting from the beginning.
She likes the CLE math so well that she said she would like to do a workbook like it for language arts. Math and cursive are the only things she considers “school”. I don’t think she even realizes that the read-alouds and oral narrations we do are school. She just enjoys them.
Advice from any who use CLE math with either CLE language arts or Spelling Wisdom and ULW?
CLE math has been the only math we’ve used that has worked for my dd. She’s had learning disabilities in this area and in grammar. GWG has been the best for her. I started her at Level 2 on both curriculum in 2014, and she’s been moving steadily through since. She’s needs the spiral manner of teaching and basic, simple instruction. She will be using GWG all the way through to Level 8, then Our Mother Tongue.
My dd didn’t pick up learning to read easily. SO we spent a lot of time on breaking down words and more phonics. My son took off with reading so quickly, he didn’t learn the phonics rules. It didn’t matter until he began getting into multi-syllabic words. I realized it hampered him by not having had the same step-by-step training that his sister had had, so I started him on Megawords when he was 12.
I don’t know anything about CLE LA, but my recommendation, after seeing the experience my son has had, I would suggest starting earlier in the program. Perhaps call them and ask. It’s a spiral type program (at least the math is), so just going back to Level 2, working quickly through it and learning the rules would probably be sufficient. Just tell her to tolerate some of the more youngish parts, just to glean the phonics from it. Then move on. She won’t be “behind”. However, if Level 3 has the same teachings as Level 3, just presented more quickly, you could just review them daily with her for memorization and start in Level 3 (I don’t know where you were planning on starting her).
True, CLE LA isn’t CMish, but if it works, use it. However, there are some other “workbook” type programs out there which she could use that are more CMish and teach phonics and move at the CM pace of when to present grammar and spelling, for example.
Continue with the oral narrations.
I don’ t know anything about ULW.
HTH
We use CLE Sunrise math at the 300 & 400 levels now. They use Life of Fred once a week. We started with RightStart and still use their AL Abacus with CLE. I considered CLE LA but did not like the samples. Have you printed some of the free pdf samples? I did not like the spelling word lists or how they teach penmanship. I like to be able to customize more for each child where they are at and use more CM methods. My 6th grader uses Spelling Wisdom and had used Writing Tales. My 3rd Grader uses Sequential Spelling, Handwriting Without Tears for cursive, and Explode the Code phonics ( book 8 now). They also do oral narrations.
We’ve used CLE Math from the beginning, and my oldest is now in 6th grade. We LOVE it.
My oldest daughter used CLE LA for 4th and 5th grade. She really liked it b/c the lessons had variety. There were only a couple of diagramming problems, a couple of whatever else was being learned.
There were some writing assignments in the books, too. So that was nice.
What I didn’t like about itwas mainly the spelling. It used what seemed to me to be random word-rules. The words for a particular section (20 words per 1/3 of the book, so 3 wordlists for each LightUnit), were all related as words, but not related inhiw they were spelled. So, you’d be studying the words cabin, hut, cottage, and building in the same lesson. To me, that makes no sense. I think the words ought to be grouped by spelling rules (which I don’t know either, but I’m learning as I am tutoring my other daughter in the Barton Program).
Neither did I like using Spelling Wisdom, for that same reason. We also tried Sequential Spelling, and that seemed too brainless – the words were all listed together by families, but no phonics/spelling rukes were given.
So, maybe I’m just hard to please!
CLE LA did serve the purpose of giving my daughter good grammar and syntax practive, though. So I am pleased about that. This year, she’s using Easy Grammar to keep up the grammar. I’m floundering a bit when it comes to a writing curriculum for her. And I bought a used spelling wkbk – A Reason for Spelling – for her to use just so she’s doing some spelling. But I’m not entirely happy with that, either.
If I had it to do over, I’d use Writing Tales Levels 1 and 2.
Explode the Code is a good, basic phonics instruction workbk. series.
Another option is Phonics Pathways.
Thanks for the responses! Wings2fly, I agree with you about being able to tailor the LA to the individual child. I didn’t really like the spelling or penmanship portion of CLE’s LA either when I looked at the samples.
I like the looks of Growing with Grammar and Writing Tales, but I keep coming back to SCM’s Spelling Wisdom and Using Language Well. Wings2fly, did you like using Writing Tales? Do you like Spelling Wisdom better? I read that someone on this forum uses Spelling Wisdom as copywork four days a week, and then dictation on the fifth day so they really get familiar with the words. I like that Using Language Well goes along with Spelling Wisdom so they get the introduction to grammar with it. I’ve considered Sequential Spelling as it makes sense in my brain and maybe the way my daughter thinks.
I’m thinking about using Phonics Pathways with my dd4 when we get there. Not sure if I want to go back to work on phonics rules or not with my dd8. If I did, I’m not sure where I’d start. I will continue to have her read aloud to me so I can make sure she’s enunciating and understanding words correctly.
Decisions, decisions. 🙂
That is good to keep having her read aloud some to you. I think that is Tristan who uses SW daily with the copywork. We use both SW and Writing Tales. I like the variety in WT and how they cover grammar and writing. But there is only one copywork passage every two weeks. And their only spelling practice is once every two weeks and it is a list of words I create based on words they misspelled in their written narration. This is where I sometimes throw in a SW word missed, for extra practice. I like WT well enough to stick with it for my dd coming up. But the new SCM Using Language Well looks nice too. There are only two levels of WT out now and I use it for grades 4-6. I am looking for what to use next.
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