RLTL is based on the Elsie Readers. No overlap with ELTL content. The stories are cute in Level 1, and by level 2 there are many adaptations of aesop’s fables, russian tales, etc. All classics – very well done.
As for whether the two programs together would be overwhelming, hard for me to guess as I don’t do really do much grammar until closer to age 10, so am not using ELTL. (if I did opt for early years grammar you can bet ELTL is the one I’d be using!)
I can tell you that with RLTL, it’s as easy as dictating 10 words a day (assuming your child already knows the 75 phonograms of the program).
– you say the word and then dictate the spelling phonogram by phonogram
– as you dictate, you indicate to your child exactly where to break the syllables. The syllable breaks are laid out in the teacher’s guide. (this habit of regularly breaking down syllables is a beautiful aspect of the program…constant reinforcement on how to break words into syllables so that they can apply this skill once they are independent readers and need to figure out new words on their own)
– after the dictation, which takes us about 10 minutes, you sit and read the story from the reader portion of the guide – this is a story with all the words from your dictation. (on the day you do dictation 37, you read story 37 — which has all the words you just studied plus all the words you’ve study in the previous 5 lessons…) Very brilliantly laid out!
If your child is not yet at the stage where the 75 phonograms are well learned, you would add one step to what I’ve outlined above, and that is simply doing a flashcards drill of the phonogram cards once a day. (I usually do this at a different time than our regular reading lesson….keeps things shorter, and gives variation to another part of our day)
Only other point worth mentioning…for my 5 year old I dictate only half the list (5 words per day). We “spell” them on my magnet board (left over from my AAR days), as well as writing them, and then we do the next five words the next day. So we have two days of “work” before we get to read the “list words” story. On the day in between we read from our other reader (this is where you would use Pathway on alternating days).
HTH — Good luck!