I’ve written in the past that I am keen for us to follow some sort of structured approach for the core subjects and have shared details of the maths curriculum that we follow as well as some of the other things we use too.
One of the things that I have struggled with is to find something consistent for us to use for English. I don’t particularly agree with how English is taught in schools and I’ve not yet identified a non American English curriculum that I like and can use on a regular basis. About a year ago however, we started to use the Schofield and Sims books and I have found these to be the best thing that works for us right now.
Why Schofield & Sims?
Simply, they’re affordable and I find I can use them in short lessons for the children to keep them engaged. They cover a wide range of areas and I’ve found that using their different English books has been a really good addition to our home education.
How are the books organised?
There are a range of different books covering different elements of English learning. I have the comprehension, spelling and grammar books as well as English Skills book.
Each book has a suggested age range and I’ve found these to be pretty accurate for my older two. I find that they’re well presented and clear for the children, with plenty of space for them to write their answers.
There are additional teacher resources that I think I might check out (I kind of wish I’d know about these earlier!). I’ve not used these as I’ve not long discovered that they exist, but they look like they might be useful.
How we used the books
For the comprehension books, I treat each double-page spread as one lesson. The children read the text and then work through the questions. I like to get them to read this aloud to me. I’ve found that there’s a really interesting selection of texts provided, ranging from poetry, fiction and non fiction. The children are suitably challenged when answering these and it’s been interesting listening to their reasoning for some of their answers.
For the spelling and the grammar books we tend to teach each single page as a lesson. Sometimes they’ll do two pages, but I’m happy for them to do one a day. The spelling books have worked less well for D who has an innate ability to be able to spell, but I’m hoping that this approach will work for Em who is less confident with her spellings.
I’ve also got an English Skills book which I’m hoping to use with D soon. I’m also interested in the English Topics books and plan to order some of those soon, so will of course update on how we have found those. I like the aspect of looking in more detail at the different types of texts that they will come across. I intend to buy the supplementary teacher pack for these too.
These sorts of books won’t be for everyone, but I’ve found that for us, they provide a really good and logical pathway through English and it’s various components and it’s working well for us now.
I haven’t yet tried the Early Years books from Schofield and Sims but it’s on my list as H is ever interested in joining in, and I think these might be a good starting point here and there.
And finally, there is also a handwriting scheme which looks interesting. Em has reasonably neat writing but Daniel less so (he tends to rush) so that’s another for me to look into – if anyone has any experience of this scheme do let me know!
