Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.
Over the past several weeks, my son has been using English Communications Skills from Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum as part of his English program. As a seventh-grader, he likes to work independently, and this is an easy-to-use home school curriculum that allows him to do just that.
For this review, I received the physical copies of the Full Course Kit of English Communication Skills and the digital downloads. Usually, you must purchase the digital downloads separately. In addition, you also have the option of buying each Text and Activity book separately.
Table of Contents
- A Look Within This Easy-to-Use Home School Curriculum
- Did My Son Think This is an Easy to Use Home School Curriculum
- What Mom Thinks
A Look Within This Easy-to-Use Home School Curriculum
English Communications Skills curriculum is designed for seventh grade. However, it can be used in grades 7-12 if students need extra practice in these skills. It certainly could be used with this broad age range. The material wouldn’t be too” young” for older students.
Included in the full English Communications Skills kit were:
- 5 Text booklets
- 5 Activity booklets
- A Teacher Resource Kit
A Look at the Text Booklets
The Text is the student’s reading materials. Each section has a short vignette the students read. In addition, you will find vocabulary highlighted and defined along with pictures, charts, illustrations, and more.
After each reading, which highlights some individual of good character, students will have a grammar lesson. The lessons are clear and use examples from the text making the material relevant to the student.
Lastly, each lesson ends with a life principle. The life principles give the students something to think about.
Here is the Table of Contents. You can see how the books are divided into sections and topics.
The text makes this a very easy to use home school curriculum for students. It has a predictable format and is simple for students to complete independently.
Inside the Activity Book
The Activity Book goes along with the student Text. Kids have questions about the Vignette, vocabulary work, and grammar practice. To cap it off, kids copy down the Life Principle.
I received a helpful sheet with the program that gave some pointers on using the program. One tip was for the kids to stop every paragraph in their text and look in their activity book to see if they could answer any questions.
The questions in their activity book follow along with the text so kids can read and answer questions as they go along. This is another excellent example of how this program is easy-to-use for students.
When the student completes all five texts and activity books, they will have completed 75 Lessons!
Teacher Resource Kit
Along with the student text and activity books, you also receive a Teacher Resource Kit. Inside the kit, you will find:
- Table of Contents for each chapter (text booklet)
- Answer Key for all the student activities
- Quizzes for each section along with Answer Key
- Tests for each Chapter and an Answer Key
Did My Son Think This is an Easy to Use Home School Curriculum
So, in the end, did my seventh grader think this was an easy to use program?
Yes!
My son likes this English curriculum and has asked to continue using it. He loves reading through the text and answering the questions independently. For him, it is easy to grab it and go.
That’s precisely what he did, too; he grabbed his student text and activity book, and off he went. Then, he’d go off and work on his daily work and come if he had any questions.
This was my boy’s English program throughout the review period. Each day he worked on one topic. He’d read the text and do all the activity pages that went along with the reading. It usually took him around 30-40 minutes to complete.
I asked if it was too easy or too hard.
My guy said he sometimes read the text a few times while answering questions. It was easier for him to read everything first and then do the activities. However, this meant searching back through the text for the answers since he didn’t do as he went along. Honestly, I felt it was a good skill he was gaining. He learned to look back in the text for answers.
All in all, he enjoys the stories and feels like he is learning a lot. He feels he is challenged.
The only thing he didn’t like about the program was each chapter was its own book. He said he would prefer all the text to be in one book and the activities in another. Just a minor thing.
What Mom Thinks
I am impressed with this program. It is just what my son needed. It is simple to follow, predictable, and has some great people and life principles that are taught. I like the variety of the material, and the quizzes and tests do a nice job assessing student knowledge.
Another thing I like about the program is the grammar. The approach is slightly different from what we use right now but nicely compliments it. This program focuses on parts of speech and grammar rules like Infinitives, participles, types of pronouns, etc. However, our other program does an excellent job teaching editing skills. Both teach grammar in the context of a story.
The surprising thing is my son never complained about doing grammar twice. The approaches were different enough that he didn’t think anything of it.
I will probably continue using the other English materials from Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum for middle school and high school. It works for my son, and he finds success with it.
Other families reviewed a variety of materials from Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum. Take a look at their reviews and see all they have to offer.
Happy Homeschooling!
