When used together, Spelling Wisdom Book 1 and Using Language Well Book 1 create a solid language arts program. The first 70 lessons are intended for third grade. The remaining lessons are recommended for fourth grade, so you can get two years of instruction with these materials.

The printed spelling and language books are each $24.95, and the printed teacher book for language is $16.95. The student books are both spiral bound. Electronic versions of each are also available, with a slightly lower price point. The Spelling Wisdom book and the Teacher’s Guide are reusable for additional students, but the Using Language Well book is consumable. You do need all three components to complete the spelling and language study. Also, there is no literature instruction included, so you would need to add a separate reading curriculum to have a complete language arts course.

If you’re looking for a gentle way to introduce your child to dictation, this is it! The entire curriculum is composed of phrases, sayings, and poems from the great minds of history. As your child reads and copies each lesson, you’ll guide him into a better understanding of the rules of grammar and the way language works. The first half of the book uses transcription. Your child looks carefully at each word in the lesson, and then writes it. Since third grade is that transition year between wide ruled spacing and college ruled, the lines are an appropriate size to help encourage smaller letter formation without being overwhelmingly small.

My son worked through a couple of lessons each week, which is the recommended pacing. We pick a couple of words from each passage to study more in depth for spelling. On the days he isn’t transcribing, we continue to practice his words using some hands-on spelling activities.

It’s important to ensure your child is correctly spelling each word as he transcribes it, and carefully copies all punctuation. This attention to detail will help cement the rules of English is his mind. In the back of the book you’ll find an English Points Journal. Here your student can record important guidelines for capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

The teacher’s guide for Using Language Well Book 1 offers step-by-step instructions for helping your child work through each exercise. Scattered throughout are teaching tips and writing points, to encourage further study or encouragement in teaching. Many offer insights into Charlotte Mason’s style of instruction.

In the second half of the book (the fourth-grade material), your child will be introduced to composition. There are rubrics included to help guide the instruction, and plenty of instructions for how to help your child make the transition from oral narrations to written compositions.

At both grade levels, each lesson takes only a few minutes. It’s not overwhelming to a child just beginning transcription and composition. Despite their short length, if done consistently, the lessons will improve your child’s handwriting, spelling, grammar, and understanding of writing.

I appreciate how the instruction is designed to help your student discover key points of the English language independently. Occasionally, the instructions ask students to carefully compare punctuation or capitalization across several select lessons to see if they can pinpoint the pattern. I find this method of instruction leads to longer lasting understanding compared to blindly memorizing rules.

This curriculum has been a good fit for my son. The short length makes it very doable each day, and I’ve seen improvement in all areas of language since we began using it. We will continue to use this program throughout third and fourth grades, and I would recommend it.

-Product review by Lisa Tanner, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, October, 2017