I decided to switch gears on our phonics approach.  I liked what we were using and Carson was doing really well with it but there was just something missing.  He was asking a lot of questions about things we were not covering yet.  I felt like I was constantly telling him we would learn that later or there was a rule for that and we would learn that later.

I was researching other approaches to teaching phonics when I came across The Logic of English by Denise Eide.  I loved what I saw but Essentials is geared toward older students and I wasn’t really sure how to make it work for us.  I heard that the author was in the process of writing a foundations program for Kindergarten students but it was still in beta testing.  I inquired about it and found out they were opening up more slots for people to beta test.  I was a little skeptical about doing it because it’s not finished and there are a lot of unknowns.  I decided to go ahead and try it after emailing with the author and asking some questions.

I am absolutely LOVING the looks of this program.  It teaches all the sounds of the phonograms up front.  It teaches spelling rules and incorporates handwriting.  It also teaches grammar.  I’m not sure I’ll use it for grammar but it will be a great supplement to use if we choose something else.  The author has done a wonderful job of making this program so open and go.  We love that there are so many ideas and games to reinforce the phonograms and what we are learning.  I went ahead and bought the Essentials book and Teacher manual.  I doubt we are going to catch up but if we do and the program has not gone to press yet I wanted to have the other material to use.  The plan is to do foundations this year in Kindergarten and then start Essentials and work through it over a year and a half.