Primary Arts of Language (PAL) from IEW

I am so excited to finally be posting this review for Primary Arts of Language (PAL) from the Institute for Excellence in Writing.  Not only is this my hands down favorite review product ever, but it's also my favorite curriculum for teaching reading and writing and I've used a lot of different things in the 15 years we've been homeschooling.

We received the complete PAL reading and writing package which includes all of the following:

Primary Arts of Language: Reading Teacher’s Manual

Primary Arts of Language: Reading DVD-ROM

Primary Arts of Language: Phonetic Games

Primary Arts of Language: Phonetic Farm folder with Stickers

Primary Arts of Language: Writing Teacher’s Manual
Primary Arts of Language: Writing DVD-ROM

All About Spelling Basic Interactive Kit
All About Spelling Level 1 (Teacher’s Manual and One Student Material Packet) By Marie Rippel

We also received the following MP3 Audios:
The Four Language Arts , Nurturing Competent Communicators, and
Dictation, Narration, and Public Speaking  by Andrew Pudewa
Poetry as an Integrator and Intro to the Blended Sound Sight Program by Anna Ingham
Reading Comprehension  by Adam Andrews
Units 1 and 2 in the K–2 Classroom and Unit 3 in the K–2 Classroom MP3 Audio by Shirley George
Preparing the K-2 Writing Environment MP3 Audio by Richelle Palmer


When the package arrived it seemed like it could be a bit overwhelming.  However, I popped in the Instructional Video (included on the DVD-ROM) and author Jill Pike does a great job of explaining how to get started.  I found it very easy to just jump right in and get started.  PAL arrived on Saturday and we started using it first thing Monday morning.  Besides watching the video, I also started listening to the incredible audios that were included. These are inspiring for all homeschoolers and I highly recommend them.

When using the complete PAL program you have everything you need to teach reading, writing and spelling.  While the different parts of the program can be used separately, they are meant to be used in conjunction with each other.

Because there is just so much to cover, I recommend you watch this free webinar for an overview and you can watch this 3 minute video with Jill Pike and Andrew Pudewa that explains where to begin:


Click on this link if the embedded video doesn't appear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmR5K-ozQZ8&feature=autoplay&list=UUHuYYtnncZw7SCOQb-lY0pA&playnext=1

I thought the easiest way to share PAL with you would be to show you what a typical day of PAL looks like for us. We don't always follow the same order, but this is a rough idea of how the day goes.

I begin by opening the reading and writing guides and setting them next to each other.  I have an island so I stand on one side of the island while kids are on the other side.  I have a white board on my refrigerator.

I usually begin by writing in our classroom journal (a composition notebook).  The kids can tell me what they want me to write and I add things that I think are important.

Next, we work on our writing lesson.  In the early lessons, every lower case letter is taught with a letter story.  I can't tell you how wonderful these stories are in helping the kids to remember the letters.  Here is a sample of pictures of some of the stories.  There are cards that can be printed for each letter.

Each letter has its own name and story.  For example, d is the doggy letter.
You start by making his head and then his tail goes straight up and you go back down again.

Printable pdf worksheets are included on the Writing DVD-ROM.  Teachers are encouraged to have students practice on a white board before moving to paper. (My kids love this.) At first, the students write in blocks without any lines.  Later, they move to writing on lines using a house to guide the height of the letters with a main floor, and attic and a basement.  (You can see what I mean in the picture above with the Teacher Guides.)  Once students learn all of the lowercase letters they move on to the capitals, then finally numbers.  

3 of my children are using PAL.  Ellie (almost 5), Jenna (7) and
Connor (11 with Down syndrome)

We then do our Poetry Lesson. (Sometimes we start with poetry.)  I read the poem (or have the kids recite it once they've learned it) and then there are notes in the teacher's book as to what to do with the poem that day.  You might have things to underline or look for, you might draw a picture of it or act it out.  I've never been a big fan of poetry, but PAL has really changed my mind on this.  For the first time ever, I am enjoying poetry and love the way PAL uses the poetry to integrate what we are learning.

A major component of PAL are the file folder games.    The Phonetic Games, among other things, really set PAL apart from any other reading program.  It took me about a week to completely assemble all of the games.  This included taking the book apart, copying it and storing the originals in a 3-ring binder.  I could have saved time by just cutting the games out as we needed them but I preferred to have them all set ahead of time (and to copy them so if anything happened to one I could make another one.)

I have the games stored in a file folder box that I purchased for this purpose.  I also keep our classroom journal and some supplies in the box.

There are 40 games that teach everything from phonograms to vowels/consonants, beginning and ending sounds, matching, compound words etc.  The kids like to play these games and enjoy learning this way.  

In this game, Mugs the dog is fed bones with phonograms on them.  As the child says the sound they feed the bone to Mugs (you can place a box or bowl behind Mugs to catch the bones and prop up the folder.)  

Another game the kids like is feeding words to the "monster".  This is not a file folder game but we often play this during game time.  Connor especially likes this game.

Below is a photo of several of the games.  In the back, is a beginning consonant game where the child places the correct letter on the picture. The game on the left is a vowel and consonant game.  The child drives the cars into the proper parking lot (vowel-consonant- or VIP parking space for "y").  To the right is a game where the child places the proper color word on the color.  In the front is a charades game where the child chooses a card to read then acts it out.

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In the beginning lessons, the teacher's guide tells you which games to play. Eventually, the kids are to learn to play games on their own (or with you or a sibling) for 30 minutes per day.

Another fun component of PAL is the Phonetic Farm shown here:

The inside of the tri-fold folder 

The backside

As you learn new phonograms, students place stickers in the farm to help them remember rules for what sounds the letters make.  It's really cute yet effective.  The back side (which also shows the cover) has a few jingles to help children remember which words use er, ir and ur, as well as rules for the sounds of y and much more.

Besides poetry, we also use story telling.  In the early lessons, stories are provided in the teacher book. After reading the story, you begin to teach the children about setting, plot, characters etc by asking questions provided in the book.  

The remainder of the time is spent on reading worksheets.  For most lessons there are 2 worksheets.  One usually involves coloring then cutting and pasting words or sentence strips from the bottom of the page to the appropriate box under each picture.  The second sheet is a reading sheet for the kids to practice reading the words they have learned.  This is all in preparation for their first reader.  We are just getting to the first reader (we finished lesson 21 this week) and I am just so excited for my 2 older children using this program to get the reader.  It's a pdf reader that is also a coloring book that you print out for the child.

Jenna with her notebook

As they work through the lessons they build a notebook with 5 parts to it: Poetry, Posters (these are coloring pages that teach certain rules such as punctuation and phonetic rules), Homophone Clothesline (a place to record homophones as they are learned/found), Phonetic Farm Word Book (printable pages that mirror the Phonetic Farm), and Reading Practice worksheets.  We also choose to save all of the work pages and handwriting sheets as well.  We keep everything in sheet protectors.  The kids love their notebooks and even took them on a recent trip to read in the car! (with no prompting from me)

As I've been working on this review, I keep wanting to say that "this is my favorite part" about everything.  I just love all of the different components and how they work together. It is a joy to use PAL and I am thankful to have had this opportunity to review it and use it.  I really feel that I've barely scratched the surface with all that is included with this program.  It is amazing and yet so simple to use.

The final component we received is All About Spelling.  This doesn't really begin until after you reach lesson 20 and so I've only just started this with my first grader.  Connor and Ellie aren't quite ready for it.  I can't give an in depth opinion of it since we are only just beginning but I like what I see.  Other crew members have more advanced students that did use more of the spelling program so if you are interested in more details please read the other reviews.

All About Spelling starts by teaching phonograms to the child.  There are phonogram flash cards, a phonogram CD-ROM so you can hear exactly how each phonogram is to be pronounced, a teacher's manual, and a student pack. The student pack contains a phonogram chart, tokens, phonogram cards, sound cards, key cards, word cards, a progress chart and a completion certificate. Also, magnetized letter tiles that you use on a white board.  This is a step by step multi-sensory program.  I am truly looking forward to digging deeper with All About Spelling.

The Basic Phonogram CD-ROM allows you or your student to click on a phonogram to hear the sound or sounds that it makes.  This is fun for your student and helpful for anyone not familiar with the phonogram sounds.

Before I finish, I want to point out that we have only used part 1 of PAL:Writing and Reading.  The Writing Program has 3 part and the Reading program contains 4 parts as follows:

Reading:
Stage 1: Foundations (as discussed throughout the review)
Stage 2: Activity Time (Students play the games and being with their readers.)
Stage 3: Discovery (Once the student has mastered the phonetic rules by playing the games they move on to discovery cards (included).  There are 30 pages of cardstock, each containing ten Discovery Words
Stage 4: The Library (The student moves to reading real books.  A book list is provided.)

Writing:
Part I: Printing and Story Summaries
Part II: Copy Work and Style with All About Spelling
Part III: Composition with Style


I hope it is clear how much I love PAL.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I do want to mention that I was already familiar with phonograms as I have taught phonics in the past.  I felt like this was a "no-prep" type of course, but if you have no experience with phonograms you might need to spend a little time familiarizing yourself with them, but I still think minimal prep time is needed.

The price of this is a little high, but worth every penny.  Connor (my son with Down syndrome) has really taken off reading with this.  Jenna (my first grader) is making great progress in her reading.  The pace was a little fast for my 4 year old, but her writing is coming along wonderfully and she is learning so much.  I love having the three of them working together.  We will continue using this for the rest of the year.

Purchase Primary Arts of Language as individual components or get the best deal on complete packages.  Primary Arts of Language: Reading for $69 and Primary Arts of Language: Writing is $89 (includes All About Spelling). Samples of each program are available by scrolling down on either of those 2 links.


Visit the Institute for Excellence in Writing for a variety of Language Arts curriculum for all ages.  I am so happy to have found IEW!

See what others are saying about Primary Arts of Language on The Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.




disclaimer: I received Primary Arts of Language in exchange for an honest review.

Samson's Classroom

Samson's Classroom is an online resource for teaching sight words, spelling and reading comprehension to children in grades K-5. We've been using this for the last month and the kids are really enjoying it.

There are 3 sections to Samson's classroom:

The first area is SIGHT WORDS where children are taught 224 of the most commonly used English words.  The sight words are divided up into lists that are taught in 5 steps. 

First, the words are introduced by showing the word being spelled one letter at a time while the voice says the word and each letter as it is shown.  It will repeat the same word and spelling over and over until the child presses the arrow to go to the next word.  

Next, they are given a set of letters to choose from to spell the word.  

In Step 3, they have to click on the correct word when they hear it. 

In Step 4, the child must spell the word using the entire keyboard (rather than just a few letters like in Step 2)

Finally, in Step 5 players go on a treasure hunt for the correctly spelled word.

Students can easily see their progress and navigate through the lists:

SPELLING

In the spelling section students (or parents) have the choice of creating their own lists or using the many lists already included in the program.  We are using both.  Below is a screenshot clip of Emma's spelling lists.  The 4 icons at the top are the choices the player has. They click on a circle (green ones are already completed) to begin a task.

The first one is a learning activity.  The list pops up (and can be printed) and the child can click on the word to hear it read, hear it in a sentence and hear it being spelled.  The other 3 icons are all games. In the one pictured below, students must choose the missing part of the word. If they get it correct Samson karate chops the board.  In the second game, students make Samson run across the screen gathering letters.  There is a spider that chases Samson and ties him up in "silk" if the player is not fast enough.  I cannot for the life of me figure out how to play this game.  It took Emma a few weeks, but now she can play it.  I guess it's the way gamers move characters.  I wouldn't know.  LOL  Third, is the walrus game.  The player must spell the word correctly to get Samson to jump across blocks of ice.  If you wait too long or misspell a word a giant walrus jumps up and starts to bite the ice and eventually Samson falls in. (This one I like. :) )

The games are fun and they're a great way to reinforce spelling.

It is very easy to add spelling lists.  You can choose to activate lists so that your
 student can only see the ones you want them to see.  You can leave other lists deactivated until later.

Finally there is the READING section which gives students practice at reading comprehension.  This would be great for kids getting ready for standardized tests. 

Students read a passage and choose the correct answer.  If they choose incorrectly
the text will turn red so the student can find the proper answer.

In Reading, students earn Hammer points so they can try their hand
at swinging the hammer.  Emma loves this.

Samson's Classroom is not just an online game sight though.  They also have a large Resource section that includes worksheets, games to be printed, flashcards, lesson plans and award certificates.  I'm really impressed with the number of worksheets and activities that can be printed to go along with the spelling lists.

a few sample worksheets- we used these yesterday because I had to be out
for several hours today

a sample of an award certificate that can be printed

One last thing to mention is that parents can see their child's progress easily in their account.  You can view all of the children at once, by level.  Then, by clicking on their name you can see detailed charts of what they have completed, what they need to work on and what hasn't been attempted yet.

Emma (9) has been using this as her main spelling program.  I took the words from our current spelling program and entered them into the program and she is set for the year.  It didn't take long to enter the words at all.  More words can be added at any time.  Occasionally, a word is not in Samson's Classroom's database.  You can request a word be added by the click of a button.  We have found this too be too difficult for my very beginning readers. Connor, who is 11 and has Down syndrome likes to play on this, but hasn't really progressed with it.  He can't enter the letters fast enough so he is stuck at the same level.  (He doesn't seem to mind though.)  However, this has been really great for my first and 4th graders.  We are really enjoying this and plan to continue with it for the rest of the year.

Here is a video you can watch that will show you Samson in action.

Click to try a demo.

Purchase Samson's Classroom for 1 student for $30 a year or pay $50 for up to 4 students.  This is an amazing value for an internet subscription program.

Click here to visit Samson’s Classroom and become a better reader. Play fun games that will help you master sight words, spelling and reading comprehension!

See what others are saying about Samson's Classroom on The Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.




disclaimer: I received  4 one year subscriptions to Samson's Classroom  in exchange for an honest review