This week, we’re celebrating our 100th day of our first year of homeschool! We were blessed to receive review copies from several homeschool companies, and now that we’re this far into our year, I want to share some reviews of the curriculum we are using! I will be posting reviews all week so stay tuned! And if you dont homeschool, I’ll be posting a “regular” post tomorrow as well – never fear!

*****

We faced a challenge at the beginning of this homeschool year when deciding on a reading and phonics curriculum. Big J had already been reading for quite some time and many kindergarten curricula started at a level that would leave him, well…bored out of his mind.

However, I didn’t feel comfortable completely skipping to a first grade curriculum, so we decided to give the kindergarten level of Horizons Reading & Phonics from Alpha Omega Publications a try.

I am very glad we did.

Horizons Reading & Phonics consists of four student workbooks and four student readers to make up the year-long curriculum. The student books are very colorful and appealing to kids, which made it easy to get Big J interested right away!

Big J is able to breeze right through the actual reading and phonics parts of each lesson, but he is learning much more in the area of language arts along the way.

First of all, in the area of phonics, he is learning actual rules to go along with all of the words he already knows and has figured out on his own. This has helped him figure out even more words which is really fun to watch!

Secondly, language skills such as rhyming, alphabetical order, and sequencing are part of the lessons as well. I am thrilled these skills are being introduced and developed in this curriculum!

Thirdly, if we would have skipped to the first grade level, Big J would have missed out on the introduction of many punctuation marks and how to use them. While he works quickly through reading, he gets a little challenge when figuring out where to place quotation marks.

Honestly, at times, Big J has become a little frustrated with working on things he already knows in this curriculum, but he also has the satisfaction of working on things he knows how to do in the same lesson he learns a new skill.

In addition, Big J loves the readers and has grown in his ability to read for comprehension. We supplement with books at a higher level to keep him interested and growing in his vocabulary, but I am so pleased with his progress in understanding what he is reading that has come through Horizons.

All of this combines to make this reading & phonics curriculum a great choice for Big J this year!

*****

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this curriculum from Alpha Omega in exchange for my honest review. I was not compensated in any other way for this post, and all opinions are 100% my own.