For the past several weeks my family had the opportunity to review Essentials: Logic of English Complete Set by Logic of English. The Essentials program from Logic of English is designed to help you teach your children reading, spelling, and writing. The program is designed for children ages 7 through adults. It was designed with the intent that even struggling students, those with Dyslexia, ESL students or even those who simply struggle with reading and spelling) could excel. It truly is a systematic phonics program. To accompany the Essentials program we also received the Phonics with Phonograms App for the iPad or iPhone as well. I’ll discuss the app further on down below.
About Essentials: Logic of English
For our review we received the Essentials: Logic of English Complete Set which sells for $243 and comes with:
- Essentials Teacher’s Manual
- Essentials Student Workbook(s) in Cursive or Manuscript
- Spelling Journal
- Basic Phonogram Flashcards
- Advanced Phonogram Flash Cards
- Spelling Rule Flashcards
- Grammar Rule Flashcards
- Phonogram & Spelling Rule Quick Reference Chart
- Phonogram & Spelling Game Book
- 2 sets of Game Cards
The Essentials Teacher’s Manual ($95) is a sturdy hardcover book that should last you through years of use and several children. In total you will find 40 scripted, organized and detailed lessons. The lessons contain 3 parts including learning phonograms, spelling, and grammar.
The Essentials Student Workbook in Cursive or Manuscript ($25) is a softback book that contains the consumable workbook type pages that the children use every day. The ages are perforated for easy removal from the large workbook. We store them in a separate folder.
The Basic Phonogram Flashcards ($18) are pretty integral to the program. Remembering the many phonograms makes reading and spelling that much easier.
All of the many flashcards that complete the program come on sturdy shiny cardstock. They are color coded making them easy to identify quickly. I chose to keep the cards we were currently using in a coupon file folder and while the cards we haven’t gotten to just yet are rubber banded in a basket near by.
How We Used Essentials: Logic of English
At a first glance the program can look overwhelming. I carried the teacher’s manual around for a couple of days trying to wrap my brain around everything. In actuality this was probably not necessary. Once I decided to just dive into it with my children I realized that it program is really quite simple to follow and very much just open and go. I was looking at a very fat teacher’s manual and making things much harder than they needed to be. The teacher’s manual is extensive long before you even begin the lessons. There is a tremendous amount of information about how to teach the phonograms, phonemic awareness such and games that you can try.
Essentials offers you five different schedules. These are suggested and by no means required. You can choose from schedules for: struggling readers and spellers, struggling spellers, emerging readers and spellers, young emerging readers, and ESL students. I used the program with my two boys who are 8 and 6. I chose to pay attention to the struggling spellers schedule. Both of my boys are very advanced readers, spelling however is not their strong place. The teacher’s manual suggests the total time per day for this category is 35-65 minutes. This schedule says that one full lesson (with all three of its parts) should be completed every one to two days. This wasn’t our experience at all. Even the very first lesson which was a breeze for my children took us a good 2 or more hours. As we progressed in the lessons I found we could complete a lesson a week across 4 days. In the end I chose to open the book and just do a few activities at a time until my children seemed to be at a good stopping point and ready to move on for the day.
As I described before the lessons are broken up into three parts! The first part is all about learning the phonograms… or all of the sounds letters and letter combinations can make and when they make them. Part one also covers exploring sounds and learning spelling rules. In general my boys had a very good concept of all of the basic phonograms (A-Z) so they were able to breeze through this section of the early lessons. Part Two involved spelling dictation. This is where the spelling list is found. I took the words and posted them in our school space and encouraged the children to find ways to use them in other places. Part Three is all about grammar. We covered prefixes, suffixes, parts of speech and all of that fun stuff. Every fifth lesson is a review lesson which I found highly valuable. Spelling rules, grammar, and phonograms we went over a few weeks back came back front and center. I’m a big believer in repetition.
My boys especially loved the games that came out of the Phonogram and Spelling Game Book. Anything that makes our learning fun is a real plus. Sometimes our entire lesson would consist of playing just these games. There are quite a few optional activities peppered throughout the pages of the teacher’s manual as well. We mostly chose to skip most of these as the teaching was thorough I didn’t feel we needed the extra practice. However, as we cruise up in lessons I bet we’ll do more of them.
Overall What Do I Think?
Overall I think this is an excellent program and I intend to keep using it. I have no doubt that my boys will turn out to be excellent spellers. Actually, my spelling is going to improve as well. On top of that, we’ve all learned more about grammar than I ever imagined. For example, do you know what ar article adjective is? I do now! So do my boys.
This program appeals to the different ways in which my boys think. There are lots of visual, auditory and even kinesthetic activities. It certainly keeps things fun and engaging.
My biggest criticism of the program is how long you would REALLY have to spend each and every day to complete this program in a typical school year. There is a tremendous amount to do in each and every lesson and I do believe that as my boys venture further along the lessons will take us even longer. Even the recommended 35 minutes (minimum) per day can seem like a very long time to an active child. Some of the suggested schedules, such as the struggling readers and spellers schedule suggests students should work on the program for over TWO HOURS a day! Chances are if you have a struggling reader and speller they aren’t going have what it takes to dedicate themselves for that length of time. Personally I have no issues using this over two school years and just moving at our own pace as we see fit.
If you want a really comprehensive reading, spelling, and grammar program for your children.. this is it! Especially if you don’t mind a longer schedule or feel enough confidence to change the schedule as you see fit for your children.
What About That Phonics with Phonograms App?
This app is meant to accompany the Essentials program. It allows you set up multiple children so that they can practice their phonograms individual and at their own pace. The phonograms can be reviewed in two different ways. In one situation the child is required to touch each card that appears on the screen and the sounds will be played for the child to hear. The second option is to have all of the sounds spoken as each card is shown.
The child then plays something of a card game. The phonograms are spoken aloud and they are required to choose the card with the phonogram they just heard. If they choose the wrong one it is grayed out and they are given another chance to try again. The app collects information for you as the child moves along so the parent is able to see which phonograms the child answered correctly on the first try and which ones they need more work with.
There are a total of 10 levels covering 74 of the phonograms. New phonograms are introduced at each level though old ones are reviewed as well. The parent can even setup a customized list of phonograms for the child to work through. Some of the phonograms include spelling hints and suggestions for when it is appropriate to use them.
How We Used This
Each of my boys, ages 6 and 8, used this app several times a week. I often handed them the iPad when I found we had a bit of a gap in the schedule or while they waited on me to finish up something with one of the other children. I did not create custom levels for them as I thought a review of all of the phonograms would be most beneficial. The extra practice on the app really helped reinforce their phonograms which intern helped us speed along in our phonogram lessons during our usual Essentials routine.
My Overall Thoughts!
Over all, I thought this was a fantastic app and I appreciate having it in our educational app lineup. It compliments what we are doing in the Essentials program perfectly. A great reinforcer for those important skills that are so essential to reading and spelling. I love that we can use this with multiple children. The ability to create custom levels in very handy. Though it truly follows the Essentials curriculum I could certainly see using this as a stand alone program if one was using a different curriculum.