With Home School Navigator You Won’t Feel Lost Teaching Language Arts {Review}
I’d like to thank Home School Navigator Reading and Language Arts Curriculum for the access to their program for the purpose of this review.
Let’s face it – Language Arts can be one of the more complicated subjects to homeschool. Spelling, sentence structure, verbs, adjectives, semi-colons, subjects, predicates… and of course rules galore. Many of these items we don’t exactly think about on a daily basis even if we interact with and use them.
Yet, laying a good foundation, especially in the early grades, is extremely important. Even if you cannot remember why “i comes before e except after c.” And even if you cannot remember what the rules are for pronouns or subject/verb agreement, these are the concepts we still need to teach our children.
And then, of course, there is the vast plethora of books, novels, short stories, folk tales, and essays to consider. The literature portion of Language Arts can be enough to make any homeschool Mom fret. Are they reading enough? What about a struggling or reluctant reader?
This is where having a navigator comes in handy. Someone to truly guide you through the early years of Language Arts to fully engage your child in all aspects of this subject.
This is where Home School Navigator fits into your homeschool.
Homeschool Navigator – Literature Rich Education
The first thing I noticed when I visited the Home School Navigator Reading and Language Arts Curriculum website was the focus on literature. This is what drew me to this program and had me really wanting to participate in this review. I love to read, and thankfully all of my children devour books faster than we can find them. So to find a program that teaches Language Arts using literature as its base was amazing.
And they did not disappoint! My youngest child worked Level Red, which is roughly a kindergarten equivalent. And even though she is technically a little young, she thoroughly enjoyed being able to “do school” with her older siblings. As often as we could, she and I would use the program together.
We started with month 1 of the program. Here she was introduced to circular stories including If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, If You Give A Moose A Muffin, and If You Give A Cat A Cupcake. She found these stories to be wonderfully silly, imaginative, and enjoyable.
Even better, we were able to link to the read-alouds. For families who live in a small town or don’t have a large local library, this is extremely helpful.
In fact, our first trip to the library to get the books all three kids needed for this program was less than successful. While I would have preferred to have the actual books in our home to read, these read-alouds really saved us. It’s a fantastic addition to the program.
Along with the reading, we also worked on what a circular story is, played a game revolving around a circular story, and worked on phonics skills. Being the youngest in the house she did complete the least amount of work in this program yet enjoyed it none-the-less. And I can easily see how this is a great pre-k or kindergarten level program.
Fairy Tales
My son, who is in second grade worked in the Yellow level of the program. Yellow happens to be his favorite color, so we had that going for us.
The first story that we read in this level was also in month 1. The Elves and The Shoemaker is a wonderful fairy tale…well, at least I thought so.
My son did not enjoy the story and even commented that it was a “baby story.” However, I think that might be part of the point. By using books that might be slightly below grade level the students can easily comprehend what is going on. With comprehension taken care of you can start to look at other aspects of the story and Language Arts skills in general.
One of the big things in level Yellow was the word wall. The word wall consists of words that your student learns that week and practices. By the end of the week, these are “no excuse” words – words that your student should be able to write and spell correctly. While my son wanted to put up a word wall we were not able to do so as this review fell during the time we were moving. However, we did work on these words. He practiced writing them and using them in sentences.
And now that we have finished moving, he really wants to set up a word wall.
Other skills he and I worked on included using context clues; retelling the story; identifying characters, settings, problems, and solutions; freewriting; and making predictions.
By far my favorite aspect, however, in this level so far was the use of both Little Red Riding Hood and Lon Po Po. While most of us are familiar with Little Red Riding Hood, I personally had forgotten all about Lon Po Po and probably would have never thought to introduce my son to it.
Lon Po Po is a Chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood. It’s a fantastic variation of the story and also gave us the opportunity to use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the two stories.
Interactive Notebooks
My oldest daughter is technically a little old for this program, however, she is an avid reader and loves to be creative. So when I asked her if she would be interested in trying out one of the interactive notebooks she was really excited.
The book she chose was titled The Invention of Hugo Cabret and when we finally received our copy from the library she wasn’t quite as excited. The book was huge! It’s 533 pages long and she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to read the book and complete the interactive notebook.
I asked her to at least try.
She quickly learned that the book itself was an easy read. While there are a lot of pages, there are also a lot of pictures. The interactive notebook breaks up the story by chapters and has you working on things like looking up vocabulary words, making inferences, identifying foreshadowing and making predictions, and locating different types of writing such as irony and similies.
Not only was she able to read the story and work on most of the interactive notebook, but she also found that she thoroughly enjoyed the story. Even though she typically reads more challenging material and probably would have passed on this particular novel, it was a likable read.
In fact, the only part she did not enjoy was having to watch a 12-minute video on YouTube from George Melies titled “Trip To The Moon.” The movie was definitely not her style, but it did lead to a great conversation about how movies and entertainment have changed over the years.
These interactive notebooks are available as part of your subscription to Home School Navigator, or you can purchase them separately.
Virtually No Planning Required with Homeschool Navigator
One of the best aspects of Home School Navigator is the fact that there is virtually no planning required on your part. You simply log your child into their dashboard and print any necessary worksheets. We found that most days we were able to cover reading, writing, grammar, and spelling in about 25-minutes. Each week’s lessons build on each other and tend to focus on the story for the week. This builds a theme into the week that is nice.
The most prep-work you have is finding the books if you want to have a hard copy and printing the worksheets. The lessons are all on the student dashboard and Home School Navigator does all of the teaching and explanation. I simply had to sit with my children and make sure they were understanding the lesson and answer any questions they had.
Even my reluctant writer was quickly and easily making new sentences and trying new things. I think a lot of this simply has to do with the energy and excitement that Home School Navigator puts into their program. Watching the videos you feel like you are in a classroom listening to your teacher.
As much as we enjoy our current Language Arts programs, we are going to continue to use this program as well. There are elements of the Home School Navigator Reading and Language Arts Curriculum that I have yet to see elsewhere. And the focus on literature-based learning is one that fits very well with our learning style.
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Kelly Warner is a seasoned homeschooling mom from Maine, where she lives with her husband and their four children—two of whom are proud homeschool graduates. With years of experience navigating the ups and downs of home education, Kelly is passionate about helping families simplify their journey and find encouragement amidst the chaos of daily life. She shares practical tips, inspiration, and real-life homeschooling wisdom on her website, Hope In The Chaos, and across social media.
