First Language Lessons For The Well-Trained Mind: Level 1 (Second Edition) (First Language Lessons) Read Free Books and Download eBooks
A complete beginning grammar text that uses copywork, narration, picture study, and other classical techniques to develop the young student’s language ability. Scripted lessons give the teacher direction and confidence, while exquisite pencil reproductions of great paintings are used to encourage children in oral composition. Originally published as a single two-year volume, Level 1 (Grade 1, this book) and Level 2 (Grade 2, available separately) have been redesigned as two separate simple-to-use one-year programs. Grade Recommendation: Grade 1. Black-and-white illustrations
Series: First Language Lessons
Paperback: 188 pages
Publisher: The Well-Trained Mind Press; 2 edition (September 27, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1933339446
ISBN-13: 978-1933339443
Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 0.5 x 11 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #9,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #10 in Books > Children's Books > Education & Reference > Reading & Writing > Grammar #21 in Books > Education & Teaching > Schools & Teaching > Homeschooling #22 in Books > Education & Teaching > Schools & Teaching > Instruction Methods > Language Arts
Age Range: 6 and up
Grade Level: 1 and up
I purchased these lessons to use with my 1st and 2nd grade daughters. We had not done any formal grammar lessons so I started them both together at this first level. They enjoy working through the lessons together. This is a teacher workbook. Students do not write in this book so it can be used again and again with multiple children. Any writing that needs to be done requires lined paper. There are 100 lessons in all. Each lesson is a separate lesson which builds on the previous one. This allows you to work at whatever pace you want. We work through the lessons 2 days out of the week completing 2 lessons at one sitting, which is very doable, the lessons are quite short. Your child will gain a solid understanding of nouns, pronouns, action verbs, abbreviations, beginning capitalization, and the four main types of sentences. All throughout there are poems to memorize and narration and copywork exercises to go through. I am very grateful to have found a simple and effective way to go through the basics of grammar with my young ones in a way that is not overwhelming but actually interactive and enjoyable.
I ordered this book based on a recommendation from a friend that had also been homeschooling. I used this book AS WELL AS another language arts program for phonics. We really enjoyed using this book. It only takes a few minutes to go through a lesson, and there is a lot of review to help remember the concept that has been taught. I just finished this book with my Kindergarten age daughter and she can explain what a noun, verb, and different sentence types are. My daughter enjoyed memorizing the poems, doing the activities, and learning the lessons. It is basic English put in a simple format that 5 year olds can easily understand and use. I will definitely be going on to use level 2 with her.
I love this curriculum! My 6 yr old is doing his 2nd year of kinder- he is autistic and just wasn't ready for a regular kinder curriculum last year emotionally or behaviorally (even though, academically, he was capable), so this year is more of the meat while last year was more of an intro to kinder. This curriculum is excellent. I just tested him this past week using a testing web site and in grammar he scored in 2nd grade- because of THIS curriculum. This is recommended for 1st grade, but I think an advanced kinder student could use this just fine, as mine is. It doesn't have fluff. It does go into depth on what a noun is and 1/3 of the way through we are still working on what a noun is. Now you might think, that is stupid and boring, but it isn't. We started out working on the definition of a noun. Then the next day we had a poem. Then we came back and touched on one type of nouns and specifically one small subset of that type of nouns, then reviewed the poem. Then we read a story and talked about it and reviewed the poem for memorization. Every day is simple, straight forward enough that very young children can easily grasp it, and no two days are the same and typically the subject matter changes every day and slowly it broadens the horizon of what a noun is and the different types of nouns while learning that proper nouns are capitalized. Within that, the student learns their own complete name and how to write it correctly, the names of their parents, their complete address, days of the week, etc. It is very thorough and my son, who has a little difficulty with focus, never finds it boring or tedious. We are only a little over a 1/3 of the way through level 1, but I already plan on using level 2 next year for him and even switching my older son from the LA book he is using to this series level 4. It's that good. I also use Explode the Code and Reading Eggs, plus reading time every day, to round out our Reading/Writing/Language Arts program.
I hesitated to order this after seeing other reviewers complain about it being repetitive. I am glad I took a chance. There is a lot that repeats, but in a reinforcing way. The lessons are a great supplement to the other things we are doing. It is a little too scripted for my personal taste, but workable and I do enjoy the precise scripting when I have not had a lot of time to prep our lessons for the day. Also, my boys seem to enjoy the lessons and that makes a big difference. It is a great value too since it is not a workbook to write in, you can use it for more than one child.
I have finished all four levels of First Language Lessons with my now 4th grader. She loves to memorize all kinds of poetry after "getting her feet wet" with this series. My 1st grader has done all of Level 1 and started into Level 2. The older one was more amenable to the the boring repetition of this series (not without complaints now and then). The younger one dismissed the series about halfway through Level 1. I've had to preview each lesson and sneak it in somewhere else in our daily lessons. However, we do follow the ideas of the text day-by-day and memorize all the poems. She has become much more agreeable about the memorization and dictation. My 4th grader is now just reviewing all the concepts she learned in this series...from a 7th grade grammar textbook! It may not be flashy, and your family may resort to mockery of those memorized definitions, but this series definitely gets the job done.
I like that this book is constantly reminding my son what he has already learned, that there's memorization work,and that the lessons are quick and simple. However, I'm only on lesson 10 and I can tell you that I do have a few complaints. We learned what a noun is right away by memorizing that it is a person, place, thing or idea and repeating that several times. We were not given examples of each type of noun used in a sentence or any kind of worksheets so that my son could really start to pick them out. A few lessons in we are introduced to pronouns. I would have liked to work just on recognizing nouns in a sentence first. I printed up some worksheets offline and we did it ourselves, and even though my kiddo was spitting back what we were memorizing, it did take him a sheet or 2 before he was able to easily pick out the nouns and apply the knowledge. Like I said, we're only a few lessons in and maybe that will be worked on more later on, but I don't like the idea of just telling somebody what something is without really showing them what it is. Their other products seem to be effective so I am going to keep trying this for a little while longer, but I feel that we may need to look into another product or keep printing up worksheets. I don't know if I feel that this is enough on its own.
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