I love to read. After teaching in public school for a few years and over 10 years of homeschooling my kids, I’ve learned something. The key to enthusiastic readers is having a wide variety of books available. However, building that personal library can get expensive. Even if you’re using the library, there are still late fees (come on admit you frequently have overdue books). Well, Lightsail for Homeschoolers has solved the problem of building your library with an online reading program you’ll love.
(this post is sponsored by Lightsail for Homeschoolers, all opinions are my own about this awesome online reading curriculum are my own)
You are about to be overwhelmed with awesome
This has been my key problem with Lightsail for Homeschoolers, there is so much content to work through I run into paralysis as I try to decide just what I want to use.
Seriously, that was my biggest problem with this reading curriculum, narrowing my focus as I kept clicking over to a new tab and finding something else cool to look at.
Don’t worry, though they have an amazing tutorial video, that I highly recommend you watch in steps.
But, getting back to what I truly wanted to tell you, they have an amazing library of books
I’m primarily looking at Lightsail for Homeschoolers for its reading program.
I’ve just spent the last 20 minutes looking up books we’ve either read in the past, or I want the kids to read in the future and a large majority of them are on here.
This site is a bonanza of books for any homeschoolers using Living Books, or Classical Education.
This is my selection of screenshots for the parts I really like of the Lightsail library.
First, they’ve got a tab just for books made into movie, which made me smile since I’m such a big fan of books made into movies.
I like their search and the ability to not just search by grade level, but also topics of all sorts from history, author, current events (like political topics), themes, and more.
But, the big thing that will appeal to homeschool moms of all stripes is the ability to pre-approve different types of books depending on different categories. I started to take several screenshots, but eventually realized I was going overboard, and so I’m just sharing with you these particular two categories. I have friends who are more cautious with what they allow their children to read, and this would allow them to eliminate books their kids aren’t ready for.
But reading good books isn’t just what Lightsail for Homeschoolers is all about
But wait, there’s more!
While I love all of the books available on Lightsail, it’s a full Online Language Arts Curriculum.
There are a variety of methods to check for both reading comprehension AND vocabulary development.
As your kids read the books they’ve chosen there are occasional questions that pop up to check either their comprehension of what they read (I was greatly amused by the comprehension questions for Pride and Prejudice, a book we’re reading this coming year), or vocabulary questions. Either to fill in the correct word that is missing (a Cloze reading) or defining a word used in the text.
Two features I’m brainstorming ideas of how to use take full advantage of this online reading curriculum
The one feature I haven’t played with yet, but I’m intrigued by are their fluency materials.
I was thinking this could be a great way for a hesitant reader to gain confidence as they work on their reading. They can record themselves and listen to how they sound. Since my kids love audiobooks I could see them having fun sharing their recordings with each other and coming up with ever more ridiculous accents to read their assignments.
Next are their writing materials. I’m still figuring this all out because there are so many possibilities (I’ve been mainly playing with the responding to books portion).
Here’s my short list of how I’m looking to use the writing component of this online reading curriculum:
- Reading response, there are journals attached to the books so they can write a short response after each day’s reading.
- Short essay questions in response to reading (again I was looking at the Pride and Prejudice essays and liked the questions chosen).
- Short research papers in response to World Book reading assignments, I particularly like the possibilities here because it can work on summarizing and work on citing sources.
Super great news about this online reading curriculum!
They have an amazing introductory price going on:
Special launch price ($99/year for Premium; $65/year for Standard) through 8/31/21.
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