I love being on the Homeschool Review Crew. It has been such a blessing to us as a family. We have reviewed some great products with which my atypical learning children have excelled. I will give you a glimpse into how the Homeschool Review Crew works. First, future review vendors are posted as they come on board with us so that we as reviewers can check out their websites to get familiar with their products. Then, closer to the review period, a vendor interest form is posted for us to fill out and express our interest in reviewing a certain product. After much research there are some products that I feel would be a great fit for my kids so I express that I would be interested in reviewing that product. However, most of the time it takes much research. There aren't too may vendors that I know immediately that I want to review their products. Those vendors that I know without research that I want to review then are vendors that have "top of the hill - cream of the crop" curriculum. The Critical Thinking Co.™ is one of those companies and Language Smarts™ Level E is one of those products.
We have used Language Smarts™ products before with my middle son Joshua and he loves them. In fact, he was just talking about Language Smarts™ a couple of weeks before we were invited to review it again. We have tried other Language Arts products from other companies. Some of them have worked fairly well, but none of them have been a great fit for him. Language Smarts™ is the only one that he absolutely loves.
You see, Joshua is autistic and needs the right balance of work and play with his curriculum. If it is a boring, all worksheet/workbook, type program where all he is doing is filling in blanks or writing sentences, then he falls apart. There can't be too much writing and there has to be a level of fun in what he is doing. Language Smarts™ Level E has a perfect balance that he loves.
First of all, let me tell you that just because challenged child loves this curriculum does not mean that it is all fluff and no content. It has plenty of content. Level E - which is listed as a fourth grade level (I've found that most Critical Thinking Co.™ products are advanced though so make sure you view sample pages before making your choice), has nearly 400 pages that covers:
- Capitalization
- Part of Speech
- Punctuation
- Reading
- Reference Materials
- Sentences
- Spelling
- Vocabulary and Word Usage
- Writing
I like the fact (and so does Joshua who has small motor challenges) that, although writing is involved, each page/lesson has just the right amount of fill in the blank, choose from the wordbox, etc. questions. I also like the fact that every few pages there is a puzzle activity such as a crossword puzzle or word search. Probably the biggest thing that drew me to Critical Thinking Co.™ is the fact that it teaches, well, critical thinking! That is something that Joshua definitely needs help with. However, they teach it in ways where Joshua doesn't even realize he's learning critical thinking skills! So, he is getting the best of many worlds! He's learning Language Arts and critical thinking skills in a fun way that is perfect for him.
Joshua likes this so much that he does two to three pages a day so, although there is no suggested time schedule for this book, he should complete it in a year. The introduction to the book suggests that Language Smarts™ Level E can be used as a core curriculum or a supplemental resource. However, because I feel that it is very complete on its own, we are using it as our core Language Arts book.
As you can see, we really like Critical Thinking Co.™ and Language Smarts™ Level E. To find out more about this awesome company just click on any one of the highlighted links above or visit one of their social media sites listed below. Other members of the Homeschool Review Crew reviewed other products from Critical Thinking Co.™ and you can see what they had to say by clicking on the banner below. Happy Homeschooling!
Social Media Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Critical-Thinking-Co/46128092293
Google+: https://plus.google.com/114500823774999703181
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/source/criticalthinking.com/
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