Beyond or Bigger for my 2nd grader?

[ruby2273]

Hi. I'm new to the message boards. I'm planning on using HOD next year with my 2nd grader and can't figure out where to place him. I've read the placement charts many times, but am still unsure. He has been in public school for two years and in a "good" district. They are whipping along in reading with the Trophies reading program, which seems like "phony phonics" to me and going slowly in math with Everyday Math. He is in the highest reading group in school and is advanced in math. I know he should be in Singapore 1B next fall. We are going through the 1A workbook to supplement what he's getting in school but I can't figure out if I should put him in Beyond or Bigger for language arts and history. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[lissiejo]

I'm using Beyond with my 1st grader this year, so she is on the young end of the guide. She is excelling and actually needed a little more challenge when it came to the spelling and language arts. I give her both sets of words for spelling as a pretest and then her spelling list comes from the ones she doesn't know yet, which are usually on the second year list. I am using All About Spelling in addition simply because spelling does not come easily to her (or me!) and it has helped to teach her rules. I wasn't even aware there were so many spelling rules so there is no way I could have taught that on my own. I'm not supplementing the language arts, just asking her to do more than the guide asks. It very gently introduces grammar concepts about sentences and sentence structure. Usually it asks the teacher to write the sentences down for the students to copy. Instead we make sentences together and she writes it first, then we go back and fix anything we need to. Grammar in Bigger is more formal in an actual grammar book, but it is still very gently taught.

The history is read-aloud and very minimal writing in Beyond. Most of the writing is making a time-line, which my daughter loves. I already have the Bigger guide for next year. There is a step up in expectations for the writing for both history and science. I believe my daughter will be okay with this, but I've heard not all students are ready for the writing in Bigger at second grade. There is a little bit of writing each day including things like the time-line, vocabulary, etc. I'm going to do a few weeks during the summer at half speed to get her ready for a full speed year in the fall. If your son is a strong writer then I would think Bigger would be okay for him. Beyond has been the perfect fit for our 1st grade year because she was challenged more than she was at school. We pulled her out in November and started homeschooling. Bigger will challenge her as well, but I don't believe too much. If it is too much for her I will just slow the guide down to half speed for a little while.

I hope this has helped you some!

[ruby2273]

Thank you for replying to me. It is helpful. My son is sharp and learns everything quickly, so my main concern with Beyond is that it won't be challenging enough for him in the area of language arts and science. I think the reading choices and history will be just fine. He is very inquisitive and wants to learn how everything works. He has writing assignments each week at school and once a week for homework. He has language arts and spelling homework every night, which I think is ridiculous for a first grader, but it takes him no time at all to do. Can you explain a little more how much writing is in the Bigger guide? My son is learning capitalization and punctuation rules, so that won't be new to him. He can copy full sentences and has no problem writing three sentence paragraphs, but doesn't come up with ideas for writing on his own very well. I have to help him with that with school assignments.

Would you mind telling me what kinds of words are in the Beyond and Bigger guides? Right now he is learning words ending with dle or tle, but he says they don't sound them out in class. This is a concern of mine. He has no trouble sounding out two syllable words and some three syllable words. He has spelling tests at school and has no problem with them at all.

Do you still think he would be okay starting with Bigger next year? It's hard to make a decision when you can't look at the full plans.

[lissiejo]

I'll answer as much as I can, but I haven't used the Bigger guide, so I'm mostly going by what it appears to be like.

The 1st year spelling words were too easy for my 1st grade daughter in Beyond. So far she has been able to spell everything on the 1st year list and usually half of the 2nd year list when I give her a pre-test. Then I just give her the words she doesn't know yet for her spelling, usually 5-8 words. The 2nd year lists are the same as the spelling lists given in Bigger. Then there is dictation once those words are mastered. Since we are covering those words this year I plan to do the dictation with her. I was a little skeptical of the dictation at first, but have read really good things about the benefits of it. I'm still going to continue all about spelling until we complete that program because I feel it will strengthen her spelling.

The grammar in beyond is introduction to sentence basics, nouns, proper nouns, things like that. It's pretty simple, and I felt like it was a good introduction for my daughter this year. I am looking for something more formal next year though. Language arts writing consists of grammar book practice using the Rod and Staff book in Bigger. I really like the looks of it. It is correcting sentences and things like I'm used to seeing in grammar books. I'm also a junior high English teacher and feel like this is a really good foundational grammar book series. The other writing is more for the history and science doing what is referred to a notebooking. It's sort of like journaling, some drawing, recording experiments, stuff like that. I think it will be really good and challenge my daughter. She really liked journal writing so I'm also including journal prompts for her even this year once a week. Handwriting start with cursive. I have chosen a different cursive program, but have heard wonderful things about Cheerful Cursive.

She is really bright and quick to catch on as well. Beyond would have been much to easy for her in 2nd grade. I think Bigger will be a challenge, but a good sort of challenge. Like I said, we're going to start in the summer and gradually work into it so she's not overwhelmed.

I hope I was helpful! Carrie, the writer of the curriculum, is very helpful and quick to respond to questions via e-mail. I'm also happy to answer any other questions to have. I don't have my hands on the guide right now because a good friend is considering it for her son next year and I'm letting her borrow it.

[ruby2273]

I think maybe Bigger is what I should use next year. It sounds like my son can handle it and maybe I should start it in the summer, too, to get him used to it. We live in the Philly suburbs and the schools here really move the kids along quickly. Thank you so much for helping me out with this.

[ruby2273]

I've changed my mind about next year. I think maybe I should put my son in Beyond, but do Rod and Staff 2. I looked at a sample of it online and I know it will be a good fit for him. I'm concerned the writing in Bigger might be too much for my son. Since it will be our first year homeschooling, it might be better to ease both of us into it. He also takes violin and piano lessons and I'm going to have him learn Spanish as well. Bigger might just be a bit too much with the extras. What do you think about that idea?

[lissiejo]

You know your kid best With everything else added that probably makes sense. I teach my daughter piano and she has a 2 day a week homeschool class she attend for half a day. I still plan to get school done in 4 days and use Friday for art, language, etc. I hope it goes well for you!

[Carrie]

Welcome to the HOD Boards! We're glad to have you here! Lissiejo did a great job of talking through some of your options with you. I'll just move this post over to the Main Board where even more moms will see it. All new posts begin on the Main Board.

Blessings,
Carrie