Level A
Level A uses a multi-sensory approach to teach letters, letter sounds, and basic reading skills. One letter is emphasized each week with fun listening and writing games. This level requires the teacher's guide, student workbook, word cards and appendixes, and the McGuffey Revised Eclectic Primer. To complete this level, you will need the McGuffey Revised Eclectic Primer, the teacher's guide, the student workbook, the appendixes, and the word cards. The download includes the teacher's guide, student workbook, word cards, and appendixes. You will need to purchase or download a copy of the McGuffey Revised Eclectic Primer. Appendixes and word cards are available for download at no cost, or you may purchase in physical form. We know you will love our program! That is why we have included a free download of the first two weeks and the last two weeks.
Word Mastery:
Eclectic Foundations uses Word Mastery as a base for phonics instruction. These lessons begin with a four-day study of each letter. The activities from week to week are repeated. The capital and lower case letters are used as well in a game of tic-tac-toe. As the letter sounds are introduced, reading is gradually implemented. Finally, your student will "build" the words with a dry erase marker and game board. This program is designed to be as fun and frustration free as possible.
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McGuffey's Revised Eclectic Primer
The McGuffey's section usually covers one lesson per day. Your student will study the picture and color the word cards, and then spend as much time as necessary reviewing the word cards. Each color correlates with a different part of speech. Although most children will not learn grammar concepts this early, early introduction is extremely beneficial. Your child will be able to see that the red cards (nouns) name something, and that the green cards (verbs) are "action" or "being" cards. The function of words is repeated for all eight parts of speech.
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Handwriting
Play dough is chosen as a beginning activity for each letter it helps develop fine motor skills. The second day, your student is to cover the letter with something (colored sand is recommended). The third day, your child is actually writing the letters on something. Use your imagination. If weather permits, I like to encourage writing with sticks in the dirt, or using sticks, rocks, leaves, or sidewalk chalk to write/ build the letter. Finally, the fourth day your child sets the pencil to paper and writes the letters. The intent is to have your student "build" the letter for the first two days and then "write" the letter the last two days. After all the letters have been covered, simple copy work from the McGuffey selection are assigned.
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Mother Goose:
I always thought that my mother and grandmother were walking versions of Mother Goose. It seemed they had a rhyme for every occasion. Sadly, it appears that many children don't know very many of these beloved rhymes anymore. It seems only natural to include Mother Goose in this program. Each lesson concludes with a different Mother Goose rhyme.
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Biblical Approach
This curriculum will not replace your current Bible curriculum but will encourage a Biblical worldview. Cute little poems base on Biblical principles have been written for the letter search. The McGuffey stories are well known for their reverence of God and promoting high moral standards and patriotism.
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Teacher Friendly:
This program is designed to cover four days a week for weeks. It really is an open-and-go program! There is no prep work involved. Everything is laid out for you so you can focus your time on teaching and bonding with your children.
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"I have a daughter with special needs. It makes choosing curriculum a challenge. A friend told me about Eclectic Foundations. It sounded great, so I decided to give it a try. The first thing I noticed was that the pages were not cluttered with irrelevant information or pictures. These can be very distracting to a child with special needs. Next, the print is large and crisp, which helps her to see it better. The games make it a lot of fun to learn and because they are played over and over with different letters, she knows how to play them now. She can even do some of her work completely on her own!
I am also using it with my son. He has been so excited to be able to read some words early on in the book. It has encouraged him in his work.
Since I am homeschooling 6 children, I appreciate that there is not a lot of planning that has to be done ahead of time and the needed resources are free or at a very minimum cost."
Tina B.
"I was looking for a language arts program to introduce my two first graders to the grammatical parts of language. I was becoming discouraged until I found Eclectic Foundations. This carefully crafted program not only introduced my children to the parts of language with a fun color-coordinated approach but my children thrived in their new-found knowledge of grammar. It was exciting to see their expressions of joy as they learned through this intriguing approach. Eclectic Foundations over-exceeded in meeting my needs in the area that I was really hoping to teach my children and for that I am so thankful.
I was also very excited to see my kindergartener improve dramatically with her reading skills by using Eclectic Foundations’ approach to reading. She loved the mazes, tic tac toe game, and the smiley faces. These enrichment activities all made this program very fun engaging.
Thank you Eclectic Foundations for helping my children build a solid foundation in language arts. We are forever thankful."
Sarah B.
Our 6 year old daughter has benefited greatly from this training and our 3 year old is being prepped too since she likes to make the letters out of play dough, glue the pompoms, etc. just like her big sister.
The training paradigm is right on. I am not a teacher by vocation, but in my opinion it is always better to teach the child to build words before trying to teach them to sight read words. I was blessed to have a wonderful first grade teacher named Miss Alma Schuman who taught me phonics and the use of an abacus; something rarely done in those days.
I am attempting to pass on some of the rudimentary language skills taught to me to my daughters and build on these basics with Eclectic Foundations Language Arts.
We have supplemented the material in this course by teaching the fundamental mechanical skills of enunciating words. For example, the placement of the tip of the tongue when forming certain sounds such as tip of the tongue to the roof of the mouth behind the front teeth when pronouncing “D” or the placing of the tip of the tongue on the upper front teeth when making “th” sounds. These are only a couple of examples, but you get the idea I hope.
We are now working on how sounds sometimes come from deep inside such as the hooting of an owl and sometimes meaning is imparted by variations in the pitch or tone or how a little puff of air can make the sound complete.
This training system, i.e. the mechanical skills of enunciation and the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts curriculum will hold the childs interest and stimulate imagination. My 6 year old loves the mazes and the crafts; from the reader itself she is gleaning the ability to comprehend details from the short stories.
She now reads books to me that I read to her as a small child and writes me letters and notes every day. Successful use of the targeted skills of reading comprehension and writing by the student is it's own testimonial.
I am sure my girls will progress through reading words by sight and later, reading short sentences at a glance for ideas with the same ease. After all, they are receiving a form of training that is missing in many (most?) public schools. I am not criticising the teachers; they are shackled by a government that has run amock. I really never thought I would have to home school my children, but since I now deem it necessary I am grateful for resources such as the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts.
​James and Mary Joy M.
Brother was 3 years and 9 months old when he joined our family. His life before was incredibly traumatic, and there was additional trauma inflicted by leaving the family he knew to join and adjust to ours. We've done our best to comfort and help him heal.
One sweet blessing has come from Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level A. Each lesson ends with a nursery rhyme because the author of this curriculum believes these little poems are being lost but are of value to our children. I quite like that there is a consistent ending tradition to let Brother know that our school time together is done.
One day the lesson ended with Patty-Cake, Patty-Cake, Baker's Man. I started to sing and do the little finger-play actions that I thought were universal to American childhoods, but Brother stared at me blankly.
I was confused--certainly he'd at least seen me play this game with our babies!
But even if he had seen me, he hadn't picked up on it.
Slowly I taught him the actions and sang the words.
Slowly Brother copied and learned.
When he got it, a light turned on in his eyes.
In spite of all of the other finger-plays we've done in the year and a half since Brother joined our family, I got the feeling that this particular finger-play helped us touch some previously untouched part of his babyhood to initiate a healing that he needed.
He smiled a heart-melting smile, "Can we do it again, Mommy?"
Oh, yes.
Now we end every lesson with two rhymes--the rhyme of the day and Patty-Cake.
Anne F~ A Fly on my Homeschool Wall
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