As an eclectic/Charlotte Mason homeschooler, we have used many wonderful resources over the years, but only two or three have always had a firm place in our home. One of those is Learning Language Arts Through Literature – The Gray Book by Diane Welch and Susan Simpson (published by Common Sense Press). We started on the Blue (grade 1) and Yellow (grade 3) books in our first year. Each year we were excited to open up a new grade level, browse through the pages and look at what books we would be reading alongside our daily lessons.
English lessons have never once been a chore with this curriculum – honestly! Our girls have loved each and every Learning Language Arts Through Literature (Llatl) book and I have to say that it has prepared them well, given them a solid grounding in grammar, writing, vocabulary and exposed them to lots of wonderful classical literature.
Learning Language Arts Through Literature – Gray Book – Eighth Grade Skills
There are 36 weekly lessons divided into daily lesson plans. So you will have Lesson 1 for the week and each day denoted by its number eg. 1. a, b, c. – 2. a, b, c, d, e – etc.
On the first day of the weeks lesson there is a dictation exercise which is fabulous. This trains the child to listen carefully to your voice for any pauses, inflections and of course being attentive to what you are reading.
In the beginning I found I had to repeat the sentences a few times but as their habit of attending to the lesson grew stronger they were able to listen to the sentence once and then write it out. The length of the dictation lesson increases with each grade and thus the child’s ability. Spelling words are taken from those that are misspelled in the literature passage, which is wonderful in my opinion as they are words taken within context and therefore mean something to the child – this in contrast to lists of random spelling words.
I love that through dictation the student learns all about punctuation, capitalization, parts of speech, grammar, creative writing and a love of classical literature is encouraged through the carefully chosen excerpts.
The teachers manual has all the same activities that the student book has except you have all the answers of course!
All the lessons are integrated, so you will cover grammar, spelling, study skills and higher order thinking every week. This curriculum is teacher friendly with just about no prep work needed. There are regular assessments throughout so that you can see how well your student is getting on and skills index which gives you an easy skills reference.
Using The Learning Language Arts Through Literature Gray Book In Your Homeschool
There are 4 book studies in this year. The books your student will read are:
- Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt (as of the update of this post in 2023 this book was replaced with Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster in the 3rd Edition)
- A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich
- Eric Liddell by Catherine Swift
- God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew
- This year the student will continue to build and improve on their spelling skills by covering 10 words a week from the Commonly Misspelled Word List.
- There is a 5 week writing unit! This is something I was very happy to see as it is essential that the home schooled student be able to stand out in their writing skills for college and university later on. You can never have enough writing practice in my opinion!
- Lots of vocabulary building exercises and continued study of suffixes, prefixes and root words to help prepare your student for college testing.
Just as a point of interest – I am a homeschooling mom who lives in the UK. Obviously Llatl is written for an American market taking into consideration America’s criteria for college admission etc. In the UK, students sit GCSE’s at 16 and then A-levels at 18. Students wishing to go to university would continue along an academic line and take their A-levels. Our daughter who is about to graduate our homeschool sat her English GCSE two years ago having only ever used Llatl and then working on a few past papers. She passed with no problem – not having done any of the UK curriculum and coursework that they cover in schools. I can only conclude that Llatl had given her a very solid grounding in her English skills.
We have really enjoyed the Gray Llatl and are looking forward to working through the Gold book (British Literature) in the next school year.
Check Out Learning Language Arts Through Literature For Your Homeschool
- If you would like to learn more about Learning Language Arts Through Literature hop on over HERE and browse through the Scope and Sequence page to get an idea of what each year covers.
- You can download sample lessons HERE
- If you are unsure of which book to purchase why not download a Placement Test
I hope this review aids you in your curriculum decisions for the upcoming academic year.
Also Be Sure to Check Out our Ultimate Guide to Homeschool Language Arts Curriculum!
~ Originally posted June 2016, written by Shirley Ann
We use LLATL exclusively as well and love it. We tried other programs in our early years and found them tedious and boring, but LLATL has been a big hit since we started it three years ago. We’re using the grey book this year as well, and I’m excited for the extra spelling and writing work as well.
the extra spelling and writing in this book is fantastic, we found it to be a huge help.
I started homeschooling in 2002, I found LLATL and I’ve used it from day 1 til now! All of my children have loved this curriculum!
My girls have loved this program too Amy 🙂 It is a wonderful curriculum.
My 6yr old doing first grade this year which one do I use and where/how do I obtain it?
First grade would be the Blue Llatl. If you are in the States you can get it from Christianbook.com or if you are in the UK you can purchase it from Ichthus Resources.
It is great to know this worked for the British system as well as American. I homeschooled my 2 oldest children in the UK for 8 years and now, after having been back in America for several years, we are looking at moving back to England where I will be homeschooling my youngest. This helps greatly!
Yes Beth it did a great job of prepping my daughter. I would advise doing lots of past papers though.