ABeCeDarian Company {curriclum review}

We recently were privileged to review the reading program from the ABeCeDarian Company.  We received both levels A & B, but I started Caleb in Level B, found here.  We used both the student workbook and the teacher manual. (We also received this booklet of Aesop fables but Caleb was not quite ready to begin this yet.) Since I was a kindergarten teacher in my “former life” I have really, really enjoyed teaching my own 3 children to read! Having them read to me has been one of my favorite parenting/homeschooling moments of all time! Some very sweet memories on the couch reading with my little ones. It has been a little bittersweet to teach my last baby to read. I think God knew I was feeling sad, so He decided it would take Caleb a little longer to learn than the girls. ha!!

I have mentioned before that Caleb is all-boy, I have had to change up my teaching style and tactics to teach him, I have prayed more, cried more and probably been more frustrated, too. Just bein’ real. Teaching him to read has been no different. Because Caleb is easily distractible, for this reading program, it took us 3 days to do 1 lesson from the teacher guide. I was not in anyway upset by this, in fact, I think some of the lessons would be a little long for any of my former kindergartners. But, I do know there are lots of happy little girls (like my first 2) who would have sat for hours on the couch doing a reading lesson!! I don’t think it caused us any problems to go a little slower.

For where Caleb is at in his reading instruction, we started him with level B1 in this program. Check out this page for a thorough explanation of each level. I received the teacher’s guides for this level as well as the student workbook. The teacher’s guide is very, very thorough. There are bolded lines through each lesson that tell you exactly what to say as you move through the lesson with your child. I always find this kind teacher manual very helpful as a teacher!! I will say, here, that at the beginning of the teacher manuals there is a very lengthy introduction to this program that does require some time at the front end of implementing this program. I found all this information very helpful, but also know that had I not been reading this for a review I don’t know that I would have made it through all of it. As a busy homeschool parent (aren’t we all?) I hope they will consider condensing this a bit in future printings. Not that there is anything wrong with a lot of explanation, but sometimes I am overwhelmed with the prospect of SO much to read before even starting.

We also received the student reader books, 1-10, for practice reading. My only suggestion for these books is to make them a color other than pink next time. 🙂 My all-boy-boy’s first comment was, “do I have to read these PINK books?” ha!! Here is a picture of the first book, though the books we received were a very hot-pink color. {I realize this does not affect the program AT ALL, but for little boys learning to read, it matters a little bit.} 

A little bit more about this reading program…here is a quote directly from their website:
“The ABeCeDarian Reading Program doesn’t attempt to provide radically new teaching techniques, but it does offer unparalleled efficiency in helping students develop into fluent and accomplished readers.”

The Abecedarian program is a research based, comprehensive, decoding reading instruction program that was developed by Dr. Michael Bend, Ph.D. The program uses phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency as the key ingredients and claims to only focus on what is essential to teaching reading.

If you look at this page, you can see the prices for the various items needed in level B,which is what we used. The teacher’s manual is $25 for each level, the student books are $10.25 and you need B1 and B2 for the full B level program. The set of 10 story books that we received are $21.50.

Overall, this program was very helpful for Caleb and me. Starting at the level B seemed to be exactly what he needed and he learned a lot of very essential things that I had not covered with him yet! I’m very happy that we were able to review this program and I will be continuing to use it with Caleb to finish out this level.

If you’d like to read about how other homeschool families are using this program, please check out the TOS Crew blog!