Queens or Serl's…my last nagging choice for next year (I think)!

Bumping this up, as I have the same question.

Emma Serle is the author of Primary Language Lessons (2nd – 3rd grade) and Intermediary Language Lessons (4th – 5th grade).

We are using both Emma Serle’s Primary and Intermediate Language lessons with three different kiddos right now. At the beginning of the year, I thought PLL would be way too much writing for littlest, who was 7 at the beginning of the 7th grade year. It gave passages for dictation I thought would be too long, and yes, long lovely poems for memorization. But I owned it, so I did not chuck it, but adapted it. And you know what? It is littlest’s favorite subject.

Here’s what we do. We own the hardcover books, so each boy works in a composition notebook. For the younger students, I buy one that is blank on the top and lined on the bottom of each page; they can be found cheaply at Walmart. I adapt each lesson as we go. Copywork too long? Please copy half of this, or the first two or three, or four sentences, mom chooses. Dictation more than he is ready for? It will be copywork. We have another program I found free online that I am using for daily dictation/spelling anyway. Poems too long to memorize? We will either read it together and have him copy portions over the course of a few days, and illustrate them, or he could memorize it over the course of a week or two, adding a little each day, with help of course.

Truly, we love these little books. My ds13 went through both and I attribute his love of poetry and language in part to this program. I have at times thought the workbook format would be nice, but the hardcover is durable and their notebooks are nice keepsakes at the end of the year. Either way would work, and yes, this could be a fine fit. It is not set up the same as R&S, so your child won’t have missed anything in the way of terms; because there is a lot of writing, she might be more comfortable starting off in the beginning and doing the full lessons (as opposed to a young 2nd grader); I don’t think the 2nd and 3rd grade designations are strict. FYI, in terms of retention, you won’t get a lot of grammar terms, but your child will most likely be able to USE words properly in her writing, which, to me, is the most important part at this age. If the terms are important to you, you can add them in as you notice that the lesson is working on nouns, or adjectives, etc. With dictation and cursive practice, you should be all set.

I just spent thirty minutes looking through my books and typing a post, and it disappeared when I hit send, argggg! So the short version: I would try to take a look at PLL and see if either half of it would be well suited to your daughter’s level. If not, you could always shelve it for your little guy to use in a few years, if you’ve bought it. The lessons do vary as you’ve said, and the creative writing builds incrementally and starts with telling a story orally from an outline, next has them write an outline and tell the story, etc. Very gentle and sweet and my various types of learners have been ok with it. I felt with Queen’s the lessons looked too short for my taste – like 5 minutes rather than 15. Serle’s are more like 15, and 20+ by the time you get to ILL. Some are longer and I break them into a few days. Others are shorter and we double up or call it a day on busy days.

I do think ILL could cover 7th grade if need be. I have a friend who started her 5th grader in it this year, in the middle third, thinking she should do the last third for 6th grade. Her child was overwhelmed and lessons were miserable. I suggested she go back and start at the beginning, as the lessons tend to build on each other, and they have had much more success trying it this way.

After ILL my ds 13, 7th grade, is using Hewitt’s Lightning Literature. It is not particularly CM in nature except that it uses real literature, unabridged – wonderful books! Largely because of the great AO lit he’s read and ILL’s lessons, he needed to use the 8th grade program this year, and he has LOVED it. I have been trying to talk him into doing a straight AO year next year but he begs for more Lightning Lit – what 13-yo boy begs for books, poetry and literary analysis, LOL? So he will get it, I am respecting his interests and giftings and going with what he loves. He did formal grammar along with LL this year as well, we used Applications of Grammar (straightforward, dry, fine, and less $$$ than Analytical Grammar, which I just couldn’t do this year). I’m not sure what other options are out there, but we will surely be looking when the next two graduate from ILL in a few years.

As for your littlest, the Queen’s books at that level look sweet, but I’ve not used them. We’ve used the first half of First Language Lessons with our first graders – not totally CM but it was gentle and the kids enjoyed it. Her view of narration is different from CM’s however, in that she has specific bits of information she is looking for, rather than just seeing what the child got out of it. I would be looser in my expectations if I were using it again. Alongside, we used Explode the Code for phonics.

I don’t know if this is coherent as it’s the second time I’ve tried to type it and time is short, but perhaps something here helps?   – Blessings!

Did you know that ILL by Serle is at Googlebooks if you want to take a look at it.  I don’t have the current ILL so I can’t compare to see if anything is different, but if you’d like to see it go over and take a peek.

May I also add in the usefulness of the Teacher’s Guides for PLL and ILL from Lost Classics? They are worth the $12.00 from Amazon.

Rachel