My first grader is an active guy who loves nature study and the outdoors. And while he loves listening to a story, reading on his own has been quite a struggle. Remembering letter sounds and sequencing those sounds has been a challenge, and his writing skills were such a painful struggle last year. In the back of my mind, I’m wondering about dyslexia and/or dysgraphia, since it runs in our family. But I’m waiting to see how much is just developmental. After all, even if I knew for sure, there wouldn’t be anything in my current approach that I would change.
I’m customizing his reading and writing curriculum to match his struggle. I’m using the resources and strategies that helped his sister with her dyslexia challenges, and I’m making adjustments to fit his needs and his pace rather than strictly adhering to grade level. All the screenings for him have indicated an elevated risk for dyslexia but not profoundly so. It’s going to be a year of just doing the next thing and seeing what happens. Our first grade homeschool curriculum choices reflect this struggling start and the tension between his strengths and his weaknesses.
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum for Language Arts
I’m mixing Abeka with Logic of English this year. My son has incredible phonemic awareness, and I credit that to Logic of English. He can break a word into its specific sounds and blend those sounds together again. However, he struggles to remember phonemes, which sounds go with the correct letters, especially the way LOE teaches them without any visuals. He needs something visual to anchor those sounds in his head.
We were at a complete standstill last year—as in 3/4 of the way through kindergarten and he could not recognize the letters or remember the sounds to much of the alphabet. So I pulled my old Abeka charts and readers out of my homeschool closet and gave it a go. He seemed to connect with the picture prompts that accompanied the phonetic sounds, and we gradually got our “mo” back toward the end of the year. Listening to him read, though, he is clearly struggling to process all those sounds.
So for this upcoming year, our first grade homeschool curriculum for first grade looks like this:
- Abeka 1st grade reading (at a reduced pace, with a mix of K4 and K5 readers; hopefully we’ll progress to first grade readers by the end of the year) and a mix of Logic of English Foundations B as we make progress
- Abeka Writing with Cursive K4 and K5
- Nessy.com Reading and Spelling (He’s been using this through the summer with great results.)
- Heart of Dakota, Beyond Little Hearts (spelling lists, basic grammar & punctuation conversations)
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum for Math
In spite of his language struggles, my little guy is a whiz in math. While writing the numbers is a struggle for him and includes lots of reversals still, the concepts of math he understands easily. I’ve loved using RightStart with him because he can progress with his knowledge of math through the games and manipulatives and still practice the writing component without getting frustrated or behind.
I do like to supplement our math curriculum with games and apps that review the computation facts. I love the RightStart game apps for this, but additionally it’s our family tradition to start our kids in Reflex Math in first grade. My little guy has especially been looking forward to this milestone.
- RightStart Math, Level B
- ReflexMath.com
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum for History, Science, Poetry, Bible
Heart of Dakota is our choice for all the extras. We switched to Heart of Dakota during the last term of last year, and everyone loved it. At the first grade level, it is a lot of read-aloud and oral narration with a mix of hands-on activity ideas. It’s my little guy’s favorite time of day, and takes me about 30 to 45 minutes to get through the various components. Then, I’ll get him started on his computer work or his hands-on project while I turn my attention to his older sister. I do have an extra science curriculum that is not part of Heart of Dakota, Exploration Education. We follow a four day school schedule for the most part with video extras, field trips, and nature walks on our fifth day.
So on our fifth day of the week, little guy will be working with his older sister through Exploration Education online, building a car, a magnet boat, a top, and several other projects to learn about the basics of physics.
- Heart of Dakota, Beyond Little Hearts (We will be covering American History, colonial to pioneers.)
- Exploration Education Science
- NaturExplorers (We love using these for our nature studies throughout the year. Read about our spring study of our local ponds here.)
In spite of his struggling start, we enjoy doing our homeschool together. He loves the focused attention when mommy is all his, and I love soaking up these last few months of littleness before he gets independent. The first few years are teacher-intensive, but so fun, too! I’m looking forward to diving into our first grade homeschool curriculum and to seeing what all he learns this year.
Check out the rest of our curriculum this year:
- Fifth Grade Homeschool Curriculum for ADHD & Dyslexia
- Seventh Grade Homeschool Curriculum for Classical-Charlotte Mason education
