Do you have a more reluctant learner? Who isn’t really interested in learning to read? Or maybe you have a child who can’t wait to read and is itching to start, but you’re trying to find the right program to help you teach them? The process of teaching your child to learn to read can feel overwhelming and daunting. I remember when I was first starting out homeschooling, I was so afraid of “messing up” my daughter and teaching her wrong. I wish I had had something like this program when she was little, but it also gave me the opportunity to see what worked and what didn’t work. Fast forward to now, my first is flying through 4th grade and is an amazing reader! One of the best things to me, is seeing them take off reading and watching them grow in knowledge! 🙂
My next daughter was equally a child who loved learning and wanted to read early on. She wanted to keep up with her older sister and flew through anything I gave her. Then I start my third child, thinking that my experience with my first two was how homeschooling was and kids couldn’t wait to learn to read. But he wasn’t interested in the slightest. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, he just didn’t want to. And because he didn’t really want to try, it just wasn’t clicking for him. So I realized I need to take a step back with him, do more games and hands on things. Then I switched him over to The Good and the Beautiful level K. We started out and he loved it, but it moved very fast for him. By the time we hit the unit 1 assessment, I could tell he just wasn’t ready to continue to move on. I wanted his foundation to be strong and not rush him through a program. I also didn’t want to discourage him and felt like we needed to pause and just focus on read alouds and reading through the Beginner Book A set from The Good and the Beautiful. We also worked through the Hook on Phonics level K program. Doing Hooked on Phonics gave him the confidence to see that he could read, so once we finished we jumped back into The Good and the Beautiful and haven’t looked back! We are over 75% of the way through it now. And I cannot believe how fast he is moving and how well he is reading! I went from wondering if it was ever going to click, to seeing him last night grabbing books to read himself!
There have been a few things I have learned that have been a help through using their level K, so I wanted to share them with you. I also wanted to share what this curriculum looks like up close and how each part flows into each other.



























































I will end with my biggest piece of advice… go at the pace of your child. If they want to fly through things, let them. And if they need a bit more time to bloom, take a step back and don’t feel the need to check boxes for the sake of checking boxes. Enjoy this time with your child that you have. Cultivate a love of learning. Find what your child loves and use that in teaching them. Most of all, stop and just be with them. I know this is hard in our busy culture and if you have multiple kids. But you would be amazed how some one-on-one time will not only fill your child’s soul up, but it will also fill yours up as well. 🙂 One of the reasons that I love The Good and the Beautiful curriculum, is that it gives me that one on one time with my child to just focus on them. Does it take longer? Yes. Do I have to be better with my time during the day since I have five kiddos? Yes. Do I regret the time I spend with them? Not in the least. Out of anything I can do in my day, that time with them will mean the most. When my kids are all grown, my hope and pray is that they will know that I loved spending time with them and how important each of them are to me. That if it’s between my phone, social media, or laundry pile, time with my children and pouring into them will make the most lasting impact in our family, and in turn generations to come.