Abeka English
The Abeka English program believes that students need to be able to understand the Bible, so they need a foundation in grammar, literature, vocabulary, spelling, composition and writing.
Emphasis - Their emphasis is on mastery in learning the rules and structure of the English language. They work on vocabulary development, spelling, exposure to great literature, writing and instruction in grammar and sentence structure.
Spiral Learning - As with the Abeka Math program, their English program uses a spiral learning approach. This just means that they introduce the same concepts each year with a little higher degree of difficulty each time. For some children this is a positive aspect and for others it is negative. For students that need lots of repetition, this is helpful. For students that understand concepts fairly well, it can be frustrating to keep having this information presented over and over again.
Writing - Some parents say that they felt that they needed to supplement the writing program and others said that there was enough writing instruction and practice included. If the writing program is not working for a family, they can always get a book like Any Child Can Write and use the principles and writing prompts they provide.
There are passages to copy throughout most of the books. Copy work helps children learn from the great writers. If they write down the passages of writing from great writers, they will develop good practice on how to write well.
- works well for students who like to use the read/write method of learning
- sometimes overwhelms auditory, kinesthetic, and visual learners
- introduces several concepts at a time and sometimes at a quick pace
- lots of drill work
- lots of repetition if the child needs it, but can be a chore if the child doesn’t need it
- solid curriculum
- stresses sentence diagramming
- comprehensive but not very engaging
- hard to customize
- clear, simple and straightforward
- colorful text
- great grammar program
Basically, this is a textbook method of teaching used by Christian
schools. If you want to mimic how teachers in public or Christian school
teach, then Abeka should work well for you.
If you want a more
hands on approach to English, you might want to look at other homeschool Language
Arts curriculum or adapt Abeka to fit your child‘s needs.