Horizons Phonics and Reading Review!

Decorating the book with stickers.  Making faces.  YES, he is wearing Super Mario jammies and a swimming shirt.

This is it.  Usually Woodjie hates reading, but the Horizons set I just bought for him really seems to be working well.  He likes to talk about the interesting things he's reading about, such as howler monkeys or Mt. Everest.  Don't let that sourpuss face in the pictures fool you; that's just him goofing for the camera.  You should see the crazy pictures I didn't post!

The set comes with two half-year readers and workbooks. Having a new reader and workbook for the second half of the school year is a nice touch. Getting something new in the middle of the school year to decorate, and being able to keep the old reader and workbook, will be exciting.  Having two smaller sets also prevents the workbooks and readers from being too unwieldy.

The workbook exercises are friendly and easily introduced.  They pretty well exactly match the readers in tone and colour.  The teacher's manual has some interesting class ideas and things to talk about, but parents who have been homeschooling for a while probably don't need it.  It's just the sort of thing a beginning homeschooling family would appreciate, however.  When I first began homeschooling, I used those manuals almost like a script.  Now it's just sort of second nature.

For an advanced reader, buy at least a grade up.  For a struggling reader, you'll probably want grade-level material, but check samples just to make sure. 

The entire set.  I separated "first semester" from "second semester" with the teacher book in the middle so you could see clearly what's included.

Woodjie at work.  The cloth on his head gives him something to pull on besides his hair.  It's working moderately well.