Tuesday, January 3, 2012

TOS Review–REAL Spanish

Speak Up Saturday

It’s Speak Up, um, Tuesday? I’m going to tag all my reviews with Speak Up Saturday, I just got behind this week…

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This week, the TOS review is REAL Homeschool Spanish. After the other Spanish program I reviewed, I was feeling rather skeptical and a little frustrated. BUT this product is completely different!

I was given the downloadable version of REAL Homeschool Spanish which included the book (featuring 10 units, 55 vocab clusters and 15 idea sections of ways to further your learning), a 179 page activity book featuring all kinds of activities from word searches, to crosswords, to word scrambles and lots in between, all the audio files you need, an answer guide and the daily curriculum guide/planner.

Each unit is broken up into multiple units and has vocabulary, a conversation, tips to the home educator, and a whole slew of practical ideas, including songs, activities, and more. There is also the activity book, which we did not use because Kahlen does not read yet, so these types of activities are a bit above her for the moment.

The audio included is great; it moves at a good pace and has appropriate inflection. It was interesting to listen to and easy to navigate.

One of the really nice features of this curriculum is the weekly and daily guide worksheets. They provide a place to write out what you are hoping to accomplish that week and how you are going to get there. The idea is NOT to get through one unit per week, it’s simply to get through the material at your and your child’s pace. There are a lot of suggestions and ideas at the beginning of the book as well as on each unit to help the teacher, whether you know any Spanish or not.

Spanish has been the most challenging subject for Kahlen. She gets frustrated with it because she has it in her head that she should just know it instead of it being a learning process. She doesn’t like when she can’t remember the word that we just talked about or what the English translation is. Using this curriculum has decreased the frustration and increased the learning. She has been able to use the vocabulary from the first unit to greet both her grandmas (who speak Spanish) and respond to them as well.

This program is something that I am excited to continue using and can’t wait to see where it will lead us! The only reason I am not giving 5 stars is because the activity book is just not useful for us at this stage, even though the program is marketed toward her age/grade group.

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There are number of different option for purchasing REAL Homeschool Spanish from instant downloads (with or without the daily planner) to hard copies with books and CDs so I invite you to visit their purchase page to find out more about products and prices. Currently the download sell for $49.95 and the hard copies sell for $89.95. There are also many samples available on their website.

See what the rest of the crew is saying here.

~S

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this product through The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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