Update on Sonlight Core F

I thought I should write a quick update on Sonlight Core F.

We have just finished half the year of homeschooling and I am extremely impressed with how much my 4th grader has learned from this Core.  Almost daily I am caught by surprise (I suppose at some point I should quit being surprised) at what my child has picked up and retained.  Every single book has been well liked and many times I catch my voracious reader reading ahead, plus the encyclopedia reading has been a wonderful resource.  One thing I have implemented is each day after every reading I require a short synopsis of what has just been read (just a few sentences).  Also, every week I required one long or one short essay.  I believe having my child do this has also helped in the retention of the information.

One thing I must add is last year this same child would complete school before noon, but now with all the required reading, writing, map work and timeline school is lasting almost to supper time.  I have heard no complaints, but the amount of work has increased tremendously.  This is quite a thumbs up for the publishers of Sonlight as my child is sitting doing schoolwork for most of the day and still loves it.  I am not sure a child who dislikes reading or is a slower reader would enjoy this curriculum, but I truly believe if you have a kid who devours books this may be the curriculum for you.

One thing we did was discontinue the Sonlight Language Arts. Both my child and I felt it was way too disjointed: jumping from one topic to another within the same lesson.  We are now back to Writing With Ease level 4 and then of course we have been using from the first day of school First Language Lessons Level 4.  I like both books and feel that the information presented in a logical and consistent way helps my child retain the rules of grammar and writing.

One last thing:  I am going to have both my older children write a research paper and will use Sonlight's guidelines.  We will start this coming week and I will let you know what I think when we have completed it.