Memoria Press Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set Review

It's time for lit in our homeschool. My oldest is doing Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set by Memoria Press. This is designed to challenge kits with reading so that they become superior readers. The study guides for each set help your student to become an active reader. It covers things like vocabulary spelling, and comprehension.

This is what is included in the Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set:
Dangerous Journey: Student Guide and Teacher Manual
The Blue Fairy Book: Student Guide and Teacher Manual
The Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set comes with the following:
Cricket in Times Square: Student Guide and Teacher Manual
Homer Price: Student Guide and Teacher Manual

As you can see it only has the student guide and teacher manual. You will need to get the actual
books from the library or you can buy them. They do offer an option on the website that includes the actual books they will need to read. I was able to find all the books for this set but one either at our local library or on the digital library.

For this review we mainly focused on the Blue Fairy Book. We chose this one because it was the first one available on our digital library and the others had a longer wait list. We are waiting on The Cricket In Times Square to become available. The Blue Fairy Book is composed of several short stories. For some reason the digital version we checked out had slightly different stories than what was in the student guide. We were able to use the majority of the student guide.  I like the selection of books that are offered with the fourth grade set. I read many of these books when I was a child and I feel that its a well rounded selection for this grade.

All the Student Guides are set up similar, but they cover different things for each book. I love that they all sort of work together to make one great Literature set. All the books together make a great well rounded lesson. The Student Guide for each lesson has Reading Notes. This section has words from the story and the definitions. The Vocabulary section is great. It offers a sentence with a vocabulary word in bold. Then they need to match that bold word with one of the definitions from the definition bank. The Comprehension section helps kids to consider what they have read and find the important parts of the story.  You will find a Quotations section where the child is given a quote from the story and they have to identify who said it. They are then given discussion questions to answer and an enrichment box where they are ask to do something like draw a picture that has to do with the story they just read.

The Teachers Manual has teaching guidelines for getting started. It offers answers to the student guide. But it also has test and test answer sheets in it. There is a quiz for ever two fairy tales. The final exam covered the last two fairy tales. I found both the quizzes and final exam to be well rounded.

My Third grader who reads on a upper 4th grade level really enjoyed this set. She says she liked the hole thing even the enrichment box where she had to draw something. The student guide really engaged her into the story. She wasn't just reading to read, she had to pay attention to the details of the story. She was no longer just floating through the stories. I found that a good portion of the vocabulary words actually stuck and she began to use them in day to day conversations. She got so much more out the books than she was getting before. I am excited to finish up the Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set.  We have reserved the last couple books on our digital library.

Other Crew Reviewers had the chance to try out other Memoria Press Literature Guide Sets so you should click the banner to learn about the others.

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Memoria Press Review

 

For the last few weeks the girls have had the honor of working with a great product by Memoria Press. We received a copy of new American Cursive 1. You can check it out here http://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/penmanship/new-american-cursive. This level 1 book is geared for grades 1+ and sells for $22.95.

American Cursive 1 teaches beginning cursive writing. The book was developed by Iris Hatfield. She has over 35 years of experience in handwriting. By using NAC's simplified strokes New American Cursive helps children learn cursive at a younger age. The book uses a character Mr. Meerkat, to guide your child through making letters step-by-step. The directions are clear and easy to understand. It uses arrows to show your child the correct directions for forming letters. It gives lots of practice pages for both tracing and free hand. The New American Cursive book is also bound at the top instead of the side. This type of binding is a HUGE thing for us Lefties. We don't have to fight the binding.

I am using this book with Snoopy my 5 year old lefty. Though I started out with Hotrod girl using it. Once Snoopy realized it was bound at the top she threw a fit that it was for lefty's only. She thinks all books with binding was at the top are for lefty's. Sister is a good sport and gave up the book. So now Snoopy is writing in the book and Hotrod girl is waiting for hers to come in the mail. Snoopy has declared that she loves the book. She says that it is much easier than the last cursive handwriting book we tired. The directions are written so simple that even Snoopy can read them on her own. She says the arrows really help her out a lot. Being left handed she tends to want to start her letters from the right hand side. The arrows are a nice reminder of where to start and which direction her pencil needs to travel in.

It takes snoopy about 20 min to do the days lesson. A teachers guide at the front of the book will help you get started. I like that the program uses steps to help your child learn the letters.
The steps they uses are:
Introduction: How to form the letter.
Practice: They trace and then write the letter.
Play: These are exercises with a free space for drawing or trying out a new letter.

The teachers guide has you use a simple multi-sensory approach to learning the letter. This is how we are doing it:

1. I say the letter and use a few words that begin with that letter. 2. We feel the letter: This means we write the letter in the air and on our boogie boards. We talk about the strokes that are used in the letter. Are they curved or straight etc. Then she traces over the large letter on the instruction page in the book.
3 Write the letter: This is where the practice pages come in. Snoopy will basically trace and write the letter free hand on these pages. While I make sure she is holding the pencil correctly and is sitting straight at the desk. I also check to make sure she has the paper angled the right direction. For my righty she would tilt hers to the left. For my lefty she tilts hers paper to the right. After she has  finished the practice pages she is free to draw or write what ever she wants in the blank play space.

This is a picture of the one hand writing pages HotRod girl
did before snoopy took the book from her. Snoopy wouldn't let
me post a picture of hers. She says its not good yet.

So far New American Cursive has worked out really well. Snoopy's hand writing is improving and most importantly she is having fun. Hand writing is something she struggles with. It is good to see her starting to enjoy writing in cursive. We cant wait to try the next book. Hotrod girls is waiting for her book to come in the mail.

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