First Language Lessons Level 1 Paperback – Illustrated, September 27, 2010

I love this curriculum! My 6 yr old is doing his 2nd year of kinder- he is autistic and just wasn't ready for a regular kinder curriculum last year emotionally or behaviorally (even though, academically, he was capable), so this year is more of the meat while last year was more of an intro to kinder. This curriculum is excellent. I just tested him this past week using a testing web site and in grammar he scored in 2nd grade- because of THIS curriculum. This is recommended for 1st grade, but I think an advanced kinder student could use this just fine, as mine is. It doesn't have fluff. It does go into depth on what a noun is and 1/3 of the way through we are still working on what a noun is. Now you might think, that is stupid and boring, but it isn't. We started out working on the definition of a noun. Then the next day we had a poem. Then we came back and touched on one type of nouns and specifically one small subset of that type of nouns, then reviewed the poem. Then we read a story and talked about it and reviewed the poem for memorization. Every day is simple, straight forward enough that very young children can easily grasp it, and no two days are the same and typically the subject matter changes every day and slowly it broadens the horizon of what a noun is and the different types of nouns while learning that proper nouns are capitalized. Within that, the student learns their own complete name and how to write it correctly, the names of their parents, their complete address, days of the week, etc. It is very thorough and my son, who has a little difficulty with focus, never finds it boring or tedious. We are only a little over a 1/3 of the way through level 1, but I already plan on using level 2 next year for him and even switching my older son from the LA book he is using to this series level 4. It's that good. I also use Explode the Code and Reading Eggs, plus reading time every day, to round out our Reading/Writing/Language Arts program.

I purchased these lessons to use with my 1st and 2nd grade daughters. We had not done any formal grammar lessons so I started them both together at this first level. They enjoy working through the lessons together. This is a teacher workbook. Students do not write in this book so it can be used again and again with multiple children. Any writing that needs to be done requires lined paper. There are 100 lessons in all. Each lesson is a separate lesson which builds on the previous one. This allows you to work at whatever pace you want. We work through the lessons 2 days out of the week completing 2 lessons at one sitting, which is very doable, the lessons are quite short. Your child will gain a solid understanding of nouns, pronouns, action verbs, abbreviations, beginning capitalization, and the four main types of sentences. All throughout there are poems to memorize and narration and copywork exercises to go through. I am very grateful to have found a simple and effective way to go through the basics of grammar with my young ones in a way that is not overwhelming but actually interactive and enjoyable.

Best grammar program around hands down. My 15 yr old still uses the definition "chants" in his high school grammar class. For instance, "adjectives tell what kind, which one, how many and whose...". He is getting 100% so far in his class and I believe it is due to all 4 years of training using this program. My little ones love to sit with me and do the program. It is painless and takes only 5-10 min a lesson, depending on whether you are learning a new poem or not. The poems are wonderful, as they not only train them to memorize well, they also have redeeming qualities like teaching them to work well at something, and then enjoy playing afterwards, or another one called "The Goop" is a cute poem about eating nicely. The girls will often playfully remind their big brother he is acting like "a goop" when he eats so fast with large mouthfuls of food! You will enjoy this one on one time with your little ones while teaching them very useful things.

I am using this to supplement public school for my six year old kindergarten child. She is a bright girl, but could really use some language intervention- getting her thoughts out orally. I have found these short lessons to be perfect for her attention span, and they discuss things she may have never really thought about before. I feel like it will train her to form complete sentences as she answers things out loud, listen carefully, and learn concepts such as nouns, family members, seasons, etc.- basic things about which, sadly, we’ve never had a super formal conversation. This book takes care of that. I also know it will help her as she begins writing in a year or two. I also appreciate the lessons where the child is asked to describe pictures. I think this is extremely important in our fast paced, looking at screens world. These are slow, gentle teaching conversations about literature, pictures, definitions and parts of speech. Invaluable .

I honestly had my doubts about this curriculum before I started it. We have always used more elaborate and traditional language arts curriculum but when my 1st grader was having some reading issues I decided to try a different approach and thought I’d give this a try along side the reading program I switched her to. I have been so pleasantly surprised at how effective this has been! We are about 60 lessons into the book and my child loves it and I love it as well! So simple to use yet so effective! My child is learning so much but in a way that isn’t overwhelming to either of us! It had been a great fit for us . I look forward to moving on to Level 2!

So far we're loving this book, repetitive, but the lessons stick. It's even a good review for adults :)

This is such a perfect and easy way to introduce your kids in upper kindergarten and first grade to grammar. Just go for it. Very well planned lessons with gentle reinforcements of the concepts.

Really like this book. We are still only on lesson 12 but my boys (7 and 5) both like it because the lessons are short, they are spoken so it isn't too formal and they enjoy the memorizing the poems. Its also easy to use as the dialogue is all spelt out for you. Little repetitive in parts but you can skip ahead if you want to.

nice product

Best grammar curriculum, already in second part.