Homeschool Reading Program for 2nd grade

A while back on the Homeschool Crew, we had the option of showing interest in a number of curriculum choices from Pearson Education. I chose to ask for their 2nd grade language arts curriculum because Little Bean was finished with phonics and close to starting 2nd grade. Happily, I was chosen to receive their reading program, called Reading Street, and Little Bean has been enjoying it immensely.

If you've spent any time in the public elementary school classroom, you will be familiar with the layout of these books. I received two hard back volumes, put out by Scott Foresman, a leading name in the public school system. These volumes consist mainly of living books republished in an anthology form. The stories are broken up into units, each with a theme. Before and after each age-appropriate story are questions and information relating to language arts, such as predicting, talking about genre, story sequencing and comprehension questions. These can be discussed with the child, and then usually there is some light grammar and a writing assignment included. The copies I received were the student copies.

Pearson Education offers teacher's manuals to go along with these books, but really the books are fine to use without. There is a teacher's manual for every unit, and they are quite pricey, so unless absolutely needed, I wouldn't recommend purchasing them for home use. In the classroom, they may provide a little more structure for the teacher and help to extend the learning, but at home, they are not needed in my opinion.

What I like about these books is that they contain a lot of great children's literature, all in one small volume. Rather than collecting a lot of different books, this takes the guesswork out for you. The books also connect to other subject areas when applicable like science or social studies. And, there is a wide variety of genres, from poetry, to fiction, to non-fiction pieces.

Each volume is 43.87, and I believe that both volumes are meant to be done in one year's time. We only do Reading Street once a week, and the kids like to look at it on their own as well, so likely it will last longer for us. The upside is that even when you are done doing the activities, you still have an anthology of great literature to go back to whenever you like. See what my crewmates think by clicking here.