Homeschool Review (Preview): Essentials: The Logic of English

Essentials: A Systematic Approach to Reading, Spelling, and Writing (The Logic of English) by Denise Eide

A few months ago, I read and reviewed Denise Eide's book, Uncovering the Logic of English. Immediately, I knew I wanted to implement her ideas in my reading instruction for First Son, but I was reluctant to figure out how to modify the information in the book for him. When I saw she had a curriculum, I wanted it! I received a discount on the materials in exchange for an honest review, so I'm going to do something I don't usually do here: I'm writing a homeschool review for a product we haven't actually used yet. I didn't want to wait until the end of next school year to post about it. Instead, I'm going to pre-review the curriculum now that I've read through the introduction and written lesson plans for the first five lessons.

The program systematically teaches how and why English words are spelled in a particular manner and how to build words into phrases and sentences, thereby providing students with the tools needed to decode, spell, and write.

This curriculum could easily be used in a homeschool, as a supplement for a struggling reader (perhaps with a tutor or parent at home) or in a very small classroom. Many of these activities will work best with only a few students, which is probably the best way to teach reading to any student.

You have to read the introduction to understand how the lessons should be implemented. Otherwise, you'll overwhelm your students. For example, Ms. Eide clearly states young emerging readers should use large motor skills, a whiteboard or a salt box to practice writing rather than writing by hand until they have developed physically enough to handle the fine motor skills.

The introduction provides sample schedules for older students not reading at grade level, older students struggling with spelling, emerging readers (6-7 years old), young emerging readers (5-6 years old), and ESL students. The recommended sample schedules are still pretty intense for all but the emerging readers. Ms. Eide's program is designed to bring students up to speed very quickly, with an upfront investment of time and resources: 75-130 minutes a day, to complete the forty lessons in the book in 8-16 weeks. Because First Son is not what I'd call a struggling reader, but more someone who needs supplemental instruction to cover what we neglected the first time around, we'll be following a more relaxed schedule. I intend to complete one lesson every week or every other week (depending on the content of the lesson) with about thirty minutes a day.

A large section in the Introduction explains all the skills students should have before beginning Lesson 1 in the book. Before you despair, all of these skills, and nearly everything you need to know to teach them, are presented in the Introduction. She encourages teachers to move quickly through these, especially for older students. Though all the phonograms A-Z should be introduced, students do not need to have memorized every sound for every phonogram before moving on to the Lessons. We'll be spending one week on phonemic awareness exercises, many of which I expect to be new to First Son, but only because we haven't spoken of them explicitly. Then, we'll spend two weeks introducing the phonograms and finishing up his cursive instruction on the lower case letters. (He's about two-thirds of the way through the alphabet now.) During this time, First Son will be reading other lessons out loud to me or independently in addition to our work with the Essentials curriculum. I'll include First Daughter (a kindergartner) in any of these lessons she likes as well. If she has trouble with any of the phonemic awareness exercises, I'll add them to her lesson time for extra practice.

In the phonemic awareness, phonogram exercises and throughout the book, Ms. Eide includes a recognition that students learn best in different ways. Many activities combine two or more of these modalities and all of the optional activities are labeled to show whether they are particularly good for kinesthetic learners, visual learners, auditory learners or creative learners.

Finally, we get to the lessons themselves! The book contains forty lessons. Every fifth lesson is an assessment and review (Lesson 5, Lesson 10, etc.). The other lessons are composed of three parts.

Part One includes: Phonograms, Exploring Sounds, and Spelling Rules. In Part Two students learn fifteen spelling words and how to analyze their spellings. Part Three integrates the spelling words into a Grammar Lesson, Dictation, Composition, and Vocabulary Development Activities. 

The lesson plans are very detailed with example scripts and expected responses from students. They are extensive, which is why hours are necessary to complete a single lesson and why they are spread out over many days for younger students. I haven't actually used these lessons, of course, but it seems like they will provide a structured and organized way to learn the logic of English. Notice there are no sections called "Reading." Students will be reading in every section, but the reading itself is broken down into decoding the phonograms and learning how the phonograms stand for sounds. The Spelling Rules meet two needs: helping students think about how a word will be spelled when they hear it and recognizing the spelling rules in the words they are reading so they can determine which of a phonogram's sounds are in a particular word.

The assessment and review lessons are not for grading. Ms. Eide explains, "Reading and spelling are subjects that should be taught to the point of mastery for all students." So if a student is struggling, we don't just assign a "C" and move on, we provide supplementary activities for the skill. If a student makes fewer than two mistakes in the assessment, the review portion is skipped, moving on to the next lesson. If more mistakes are made, the teacher is encouraged to select the appropriate activities from the review lesson for additional practice.

One disappointment I had was the relative scarcity of games in the Essentials Teacher's Manual. Every single lesson has multiple recommendations for games, but they are all in the Phonogram and Spelling Game Book. The book is a reasonable $15, but all of the games actually require one or more of the specialized sets of game cards. The complete set is $45. I decided not to purchase the set, thinking I would be able to create something similar myself at home, but without instructions or even a description of the games, I really have no idea what kind of activity to substitute. So if you want to use the games, buy the set.

You absolutely need the Teacher's Manual to implement this curriculum. It contains all the lessons and instructions. The workbook is useless without it. The Phonogram and Spelling Game Book and Teacher's Manual are non-consumable. I can't speak for the game book, but the Teacher's Manual is very well-made. It's a hardcover book that looks like it will hold up to years of use.

The phonogram flash cards are not an optional part of the program. They are used to present all the phonograms and for review on a regular basis. I thought I would save some money here by making my own which seemed simple because the phonograms are clearly identified along with all the information for each one in both The Logic of English and the Essentials Teacher's Manual. For the most part, I hand-wrote the cards. Then I cut them with a paper-cutter, laminated them, and cut them again. Take my advice: buy the cards. Even not counting my time, there's a good chance I spent more money on card stock, ink and laminating pouches. And my cards don't look nearly as nice as the ones pictured.

I also made spelling rule cards. As with the phonogram flash cards, I'd recommend purchasing them.

I selected the Cursive workbook to use with First Son. As far as I can tell, it's "cursive" because the examples are written in a cursive script. You could definitely write answers either in print or in cursive (probably in either workbook). The workbook is large with lots of activities, all of which are referenced in the Teacher's Manual. If you are really motivated, you could do the program without the workbook because there's enough information in the Teacher's Manual to figure out what your student needs to do, but the workbook itself is well-done. It's thick and might be hard to complete without removing the pages. They are well-perforated and look like they'll come out very quickly, too, so I will probably hole-punch them and put them in a binder.

The Spelling Journal is also referenced in every lesson. I think this would be a nice addition if you intend to use Essentials as your only spelling program, but I also think it would be fairly simple to create a spelling journal at home that would meet the same needs.

I intend to discuss the spelling portions of the text with First Son and to use the rules to supplement his spelling program which does not explicitly teach any spelling rules. For now, I plan to continue with the grammar, spelling and writing programs we were using (none of which takes much time), but I am going to re-evaluate that decision regularly during the school year. I think this program could be enough for writing (dictation, not copywork or handwriting), grammar and spelling; I'm just reluctant to give up on ones that I know are working well for us.

Especially for young students, you will want to have a whiteboard, salt box, magnetic letters or other kinds of materials to involve large motor skills rather than fine motor skills as students learn to write the letters.

The cost of this program is substantial, especially compared to some of the non-consumable how-to-read-everything-you-need-in-one-book programs that are available, but I think this program is much more comprehensive that the others. I was discussing it with another homeschooling mother who has a severely dyslexic son. It seemed to compare very favorably with the program she used with him at a much lower cost. I expect this program to fill in every gap in First Son's reading skills and am very excited to use it with him. While I intend to continue with First Daughter's current reading program, I am going to supplement it with Essentials to ensure she never has the gaps First Son encountered.

I've read on the forums for Essentials that a program for young emerging readers that would incorporate real books is currently being developed. I can imagine how that would be the ideal reading program for me (hard to say if it would be perfect for my kids!) and would be very tempted to invest in it for Second Daughter and Second Son.

I will be sure to report back on Essentials when we've used it for a year. In the meantime, you can learn more about the books and purchase all the materials at the Logic of English website.


I received a discount on the Essentials Teacher's Manual and two Cursive Workbooks in exchange for an honest review. I am not an affiliate and will receive nothing if you make a purchase of these or any other products linked in this post.

Homeschool Review: Writing with Ease, Year One

Writing with Ease: Strong Fundamentals by Susan Wise Bauer

This book provides a four year course (generally for first grade through fourth grade) in writing skills. It's a well-constructed hardcover nonconsumable book that may be used in conjunction with four workbooks (one for each year). I remember being a bit dismayed at the initial cost, but it is a book that will be used for the entire family, four years for each child.

Last year, when First Son was in first grade, I attempted to implement writing preparation beginning with dictation and copywork. To be blunt, it was a complete disaster. We kept up the copywork a little, but I eventually gave up on dictation entirely.

This book would have made all the difference. I purchased it last summer and began the Year One exercises in second grade. After the first term, I sped up our work a little because I saw such enormous progress in First Son's abilities. We recently completed Year One and have begun Year Two exercises for our last term of second grade.

Ms. Bauer (famous for The Story of the World and The Well-Trained Mind) has outlined a course of study that begins with the most basic skills, guiding students as they learn to recognize the main points of a reading and formulate those thoughts into their own words (narration) as separate from the physical act of writing their own thoughts (both moving the hand and learning proper punctuation and grammar).

In Year One, students alternate days of narration practice and copywork. There is no dictation in Year One. This is not a book that follows Charlotte Mason's philosophy. Parents (as it is written specifically for homeschoolers) are encouraged to ask leading questions after a reading and to re-read sentences or paragraphs to guide children to the answers. I have mentioned before how horribly First Son fared at narrations. For nearly a year (all of first grade) he could only successfully narrate Aesop's fables. A narration of anything longer or more complicated nearly always resulted in tears. (I won't say whose.) I am loathe to admit I sometimes eliminated narrations completely. More often, though, I was using this strategy - asking questions to help him form an answer. I discovered he often knew exactly what happened in the reading but was unable to begin his narration and follow through from one thought to another. It was, therefore, a relief to see Ms. Bauer encouraging that very strategy. First Son's narrations have improved dramatically. Though we maintain a stricter narration practice for our Writing with Ease narrations, I often let him narrate entirely on his own for other readings and he does significantly better than last year or even the beginning of this year.

At the end of each narration, the parent writes out one or two sentences as the child narrates. The child watches and parents can then explain as how words are spelled or punctuation is used. One day a week, the child then copies their own sentence.

The book itself contains excerpts for narrations and selections for copywork for the first week of any new unit. There are workbooks available for each Year that provide the substance of the exercises for each week. For those who wish to select their own readings, Ms. Bauer provides guidelines for the lengths of passages and suggested elements for the week's copywork selections. For example, one week she may recommend finding sentences that use the pronoun "I" or days of the week.  By the end of the year, the students has encountered a wide variety of grammatical situations with little effort. No elaborate grammar lessons are required. It is enough to say (for example), "Notice how the I is a capital letter when it appears by itself in a sentence." I have found these small statements complement well the Primary Language Lessons we have also been using.

I opted to choose our own selections from our history, science or literature readings. In general, I use our Saints for Young Readers for Every Day (volume 1 or volume 2) for at least one Writing with Ease narration each week. I found selecting my own to be a bit time-consuming. I might spend as long as an hour (though usually much less) reading through our upcoming week to find appropriate selections for in-depth narration practice and copywork. As the year progressed, I became more proficient at it. I liked choosing my own because it allowed us to narrate selections in context rather than use books we may not yet have encountered. Also, it allowed me to incorporate Writing with Ease without really extending the time we would spend on lessons as the readings were ones we would do anyway. I also saved money by avoiding the consumable workbooks.

Have I mentioned Year One includes no dictation? (Yes, I know I did but I dreaded it so very much I still relish its absence.) Dictation begins in Year Two but it begins with a sentence the child has already encountered, one used for copywork the day before. Importantly, the child is not left alone to complete it. According to Ms. Bauer, the child should not be allowed to spell or punctuate incorrectly, so the parent should sit with the child, answer any questions and immediately point out mistakes. I'm not entirely certain what Charlotte Mason says about dictation, but last year I felt like First Son should write his dictation as well as he could all on his own which frustrated First Son and myself. I am much more comfortable with Ms. Bauer's recommendation.

I find Ms. Bauer's explanations and responses in this book encouraging and sensible. I appreciated many of her recommendations in the Troubleshooting Appendix. I intend to finish Writing with Ease by the end of fourth grade (completing it in three years instead of four). I highly recommend this resource, especially for a student who struggles with narration or a parent-teacher who would like some guidance in selecting passages for narration or for copywork.