Thank you! LLATL is one of the best options for literature out there. We tried Lightning Literature as well and had to drop it because (for 6th grade) it had too much emphasis on death and wars for our liking. We went on doing book reports eventually :)
We just finished the 1st reader and accompanying lessons in the Orange book. I’m very pleased with it so far. I do however supplement with Classical roots (book 4) and Time 4 learning language arts. Doing this makes me feel my daughter gets a full and robust language arts curriculum. I will most likely continue with CSP through elementary. I do find the 4 readers a very manageable amount but like u we do BookShark History. How do u balance the student readers from CSP & BookShark ? Will u be continuing with CSP for the new school year ? Thanks for your insight 😊
This is exactly what we do. Since we were only missing a literature curriculum, we use CSP mainly for this aspect. The rest of the sections are easy and straightforward enough that they don't feel cumbersome along with other curricula. We have a lot of extra reading from BookShark, we work on writing with IEW, and we do grammar with Growing with Grammar, and Fix it Grammar. So I feel Common Sense Press just ties all of that nicely together. I haven't thought about next year's curriculum yet, but we will go either with CSP or with Hewitt. Hewitt Lightning Literature is similar to CSP but suitable for kids that love LA. I am considering it just because my son will be in 7th grade and I feel we are fast approaching high school years where we will shift gears for everything... so I want him to be ready. At the same time, I am worried that Hewitt will be too much combined with our other programs. I don't want to give up IEW, Growing with Grammar, or BookShark. So for now, I'm torn between these two. I know CSP works well, so we might continue with that if I don't want to complicate my existence :). As for balancing the readers, I don't follow the suggested pacing. I just give my son the books in order and he is reading them as he feels like it. This way, we only focus on the comprehension questions when the time comes. This worked great for us this year and we will continue doing it like this.
