This is my second child I’ve taught to read, but my approach has been completely different from my first. This year we used Logic of English Foundations A to teach reading, and I’ll be sharing how it worked for us.

This is not a sponsored post. I chose Logic of English on my own and plan to share my honest opinion about it with you.

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Why Logic of English?

I was actually pretty stubborn about teaching reading. I did not use a reading curriculum with my first daughter, and I was certain I could follow the same path with my second daughter. Alas, I have learned that each of my children is unique and their gifts of learning vary greatly! What works for one does not always work for the other.

The summer before my daughter’s first grade year, I decided to purchase an inexpensive reading workbook to complete casually throughout the summer. As we did it together, the thought came to my mind that it was so nice to have directions to follow each time we worked instead of coming up with my own activity like I was used to.

This was my realization that a reading program would be helpful for the both of us, and I had to let go of my stubbornness. Unfortunately, these programs can get pretty costly!

Years ago, I heard great things about 100 Easy Lessons, purchased it, and didn’t really like it. I wish I would have because it costs a lot less! So, I wanted to choose between the two price-y ones I heard the most about – Logic of English and All About Reading.

Here’s Some of the Reasons I chose Logic of English:

• Low prep for each lesson
• Handwriting included (manuscript/cursive)
• I can easily re-use it with other children (minus the student workbook)
• Doodling Dragons Picture Book (my daughter would love this)
• Not grade-level focused, moves at the pace of my child
• Activities included are simple and follow my style of teaching
• Tactile Handwriting Cards and activities for multi-sensory learning

Items Included

The Foundations A set comes with a handful of items that I will discuss in this post. To see my unboxing of this set, check out my YouTube video for a detailed look at each item.

Lessons and Assessments

Foundations A includes 40 lessons and 8 Assessments (A-H). Each lesson and assessment comes with a script for the parent to follow. With each lesson there is anywhere between 1-4 workbook pages for the student to complete. Each workbook page is very short and can be a simple as pointing at a picture.

One of the things I love about each lesson is that there are so may activities to pick from. I feel like at first this was a little overwhelming. As I get with every new curriculum, I felt like I had to do everything. After a while, I got used to the set up and was able to pick and choose things based on our own needs and schedule.

The assessments were actually the most fun! Isn’t that interesting? You assess your child using games and hands on activities, and we looked forward to each one. The assessments also made it easy for me to see what she understood and what needed more work.

Handwriting

Every lesson includes handwriting practice. Strokes and lowercase letters are introduced and there is space to practice in the student workbook. My child is not a fan of writing, and the amount of handwriting practice was perfect for her. It’s very minimal. For example, the workbook may say to write the letter a few times on your favorite line. So it’s not rigorous by any means.

The Tactile Cards that go along with the handwriting lesson are so fun. We didn’t use them every time, but my daughter loved them! It’s almost like a sandpaper feeling and it really helps learn the letters using multiple senses.

We chose to use the manuscript version. (You have the option to choose manuscript or cursive) I was happy with this choice, but I will say that the handwriting that is taught is very unique. It’s slanted and curvy, which is excellent in preparation for cursive, but it matches nothing else that we have. This would be my only negative thought about the handwriting (more on this later).

I’ve heard of many parents that skip the handwriting all together, but learning the strokes and using the tactile cards was so helpful to my daughter that I decided to stick with it. They do offer a handwriting book separately, and now that she is more confident in writing, I may add that in as practice.

Spelling

Spelling is introduced in lesson 21 and continues with each lesson after that. The lesson comes with 3-5 words that follow what you’ve been practicing, so it really sets the student up for success. I will say that once spelling was introduced the lessons felt really long. We ended up splitting them up into two sometimes three days.

Games and Activities

I love the variety of games so much. It matches my teaching style, and I think that’s why we enjoyed it. Every game option they give you uses the cards that comes with the set. So you’re never having to cut a bunch of things or laminate or find a list of supplies.

To give you an example you might practice your phonograms by hiding the cards around the room and having a scavenger hunt. Or you might lay the cards on the table and slap the correct one. They’re all just really fun and easy to do.

And there are so many!! The Teacher’s Manual provides you with a variety of games to pick from for each lesson. When you finish an assessment, there’s a whole page of ideas on how to practice different skills using the games. It’s so helpful!

Readers

The readers are created by the students! This is the cutest thing to me. I believe there are 6 total and each one comes with a set of pictures and then a group of blank pages with the words to read. Your child reads the words and matches the pictures to each page.

There’s cutting and pasting and matching. This makes the reading so fun! Not only is the process of putting it together unique, but the pictures are so silly. We really got a kick out of these!

Doodling Dragons

This picture book has a page for each phonogram. There are silly pictures and rhymes that use all the sounds of the phonograms. It’s very cute, and my daughter loved looking at each page. On YouTube, there are songs that go along with each page as well. These were wonderful, but we usually forgot to listen to them. I believe you can purchase a CD, so if you have a CD player or like listening to things like that in the car, it may be worth the purchase.

Sometimes I think that if we would listen to them in the car, my younger kids would catch on and begin learning them as well.

The Not-So-Great Things

Can you tell we loved this? I could go on and on about how easy it was to use and how much my daughter enjoyed lessons. My complaints are so minimal, but I’ll share in order to give a thorough review.

LONG LESSONS – This was an easy fix, but it also could vary with the child. We simply split the lessons up into a couple days. The book encourages you to do this as well, but if you feel bound to a lesson number and completing one a day, that will get tougher as you work further into the book.

LOTS OF PIECES – When I received the box for the set, I was immediately overwhelmed by all of the cards and pieces that come with it. There’s a lot! So, finding a way to organize it all was key. I went with a plastic container that allowed me to keep the cards in their own box but still altogether. It’s been great!

HANDWRITING – I mentioned this earlier, but the handwriting is unique. It really doesn’t match any other writing in other books we do. So, it’s something you’ll have to decide if you want to do or not. We stuck with it, and I just plan to get their handwriting book at some point to practice.

SO MUCH TO DO – This really isn’t a bad thing, but I will say that there are so many options of things to do, and it would be very difficult to do it all. So, it’s important to look through and pick what’s best. For example, with every letter the child learns, the book provides ways to “celebrate” the letter. We never did this. The ideas were so cute, but ultimately it didn’t fit in the schedule of our family.

COST – A program like this doesn’t come cheap. It’s one of the reasons I hesitated to get it in the first place. It’s also tough because set A is only 40 lessons, and although it took us until Thanksgiving to finish (we started in July), it’s kind of a bummer to already have to spend another $100 to keep going. My hope is that the cost will eventually even out when I am able to use it for my next two kids, as well. All I will have to purchase in the future is the student workbook.

Other Random Things I Love

WHITEBOARD: The miniature whiteboard that comes with the set got used every day. It was so helpful and I love that it had a giant set of handwriting lines and then smaller ones on the opposite side.

MOMMY IS LEARNING: I’ve learned so much with this program. I never knew every sound of every letter. I learned about voiced and unvoiced sounds. We’ve learned things about consonants and vowels that I had no idea about. I love learning alongside my kids!

TEACHER’S MANUAL: The Teacher’s Manual is bound in a hardcover. Almost every spiral book I have ends up coming apart in some way, and this one has no spiral. It makes me happy knowing it will last through the years!

Final Thoughts

My daughter’s attitude about reading has changed so much since we started this. Her and I were both frustrated the year before this, and using Logic of English has given us so much joy. I can specifically remember a lesson where we giggled and had fun, and when I told her she could get up to leave she ran up and hugged me! I just melted – so thankful for the progress we were making and continue to make to this day.

It took me a while to finally bite the bullet and pick a reading program, but once I did I felt so much less pressure when it came to teaching reading. It gave me confidence each day knowing a plan was in place, and it built up my daughter’s confidence each step of the way.