Schoolhouse Review- Reading Street

Pearson Publishing has been providing quality materials for schools for a while now.  They have now joined the ranks of homeschooling families and offering homeschool bundles of their products as well.  Take a few minutes to check out their website!  One of the things I loved about their website was a section called Resources.  Under that tab you will find a map link for each state's homeschool requirement, a must for this military moving family or just someone new to homeschooling.

Pearson makes it easy for you to inspire a joy of learning by tailoring homeschool programs to fit your child’s unique learning style.  This built-in flexibility lets you set the schedule and the pace that works for you and your child.  You can rest assured that all the fundamentals for success are included because our lessons are created by experts and scientifically developed and tested.  Plus, our award-winning homeschool curriculum is at an affordable price for your family. 

We invite you to explore the various homeschool programs we offer, to see how Pearson can help you build a rich foundation of learning in your home.- from Pearson's website

With our new CREW year beginning, our first vendor to review was Pearson!  Being the book lovers that we are, we were excited to be chosen to review their Scott Foresman Reading Street for 5th graders.  The homeschool bundle that we received included:

Student Edition Package

Teacher Resource DVD-ROM

Guide on the Side

ExamView Assessment Suite CD

The bundle can be purchased here for $124.99.

Let me tell you a little about each product.

The Student Edition Package is really two hardback books.  They are beautiful!  Think back to your school days.  Each book is divided into themed units and each unit broken down into 6 weeks.  Each week features a type of reading; in our case:

Week 1- Novel

Week 2- Tall Tales

Week 3- Novel

Week 4- Biography

week 5- Expository Text

Week 6- Reader's and Writer's Notebook.

At first glance, there is a lot to take in!  The thing I had to constantly remind myself was that under one cover were four subjects- grammar, literature, writing and spelling.

That takes us to the Teacher Resource DVD.  On it you will find any materials you will need to teach each unit, and then some!   From worksheets, to vocabulary flash cards, to lesson plan charts, Pearson has you covered.  This is a well organized and easy to navigate program. My only complaint- worksheet overkill.  I quickly found that we had to pick and choose the ones we wanted to use, hard for some of us to do, or it would completely overwhelm my child.

The Guide on the Side is basically a teacher's handbook full of instructional how to's.  It is the one component I quickly perused, set aside and did not pick up again.

ExamView CD is exactly that.  Test, tests, and more tests.  Again, well organized and easy to use.

So would I buy it?  That is a hard one for me.  I really love the way these books look and the stories in them are fantastic, but it does concern me that a child at this age needs to read a little more- a novel, not just an excerpt.  On the other hand, my son loved the reading. The worksheets, not so much.  A page on a subject was fine, but after that it seemed like busy work to us both.  One thing I would add though- if you are new to homeschooling, or if your child has come from public school, this is a great value for the money and probably much more of what your child is use to.  It may lead to an easier transition into homeschooling.

Disclaimer- I received the Reading Street Homeschool Bundle in exchange for my honest review of the material.  All opinions are my own and were not influenced by the company in any way.