Subjects
Language Arts
Types of Language Arts Curriculum
Language Arts curriculum covers a variety of topics: phonics, handwriting spelling, composition, grammar, and vocabulary. These can be purchased as complete programs or combined from different sources to create a complete curriculum. The advantage of doing the latter is that the levels can more easily be tailored to your child's level. For example, if they are doing well with reading, but need help in spelling, it may be beneficial to piece together different curriculums to meet your children on their level.Legend
$ - Below $50/year$$ - Between $50-$100/year
$$$ - Between $100-$150/year
$$$$ - Above $150/year
Free 
Religious 
Editor's Choice
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Abeka is a solid, traditional Christian curriculum that has been developed and refined over the years. It is well organized, thought out, and thorough. Worksheets can be done without a lot of parental involvement and with its spiral approach, it uses a lot of repetition to reinforce previously learned concepts.
Grade:
PreK-12th
Style:
Textbook & Workbook
BJU is a solid, traditional Christian curriculum that has been around for many years. It is loved by many homeschoolers for its high quality material. Used in many Christian private schools, it has a reputation as a tried and true curriculum.
Grade:
PreK-12th
Style:
Textbook & Workbook
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BookShark is a literature based curriculum, developed as a spin off from Sonlight. A non-religious version of Sonlight, it includes weekly overviews, daily lesson plan scripts, and rubrics to help guide parents in teaching.
Grade:
PreK-10th
Style:
Literature
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Brave Writer is a complete curriculum in that it teaches all the components through literature and dictation. Dart, Arrow, and Boomerang are teaching guides that have been tailored for teaching a particular aspect of language arts through literature. Handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and craft grow through reading great literature, copying some of it in your own hand, and then attempting to handwrite it correctly while listening to someone read the passage aloud. Copywork and dictation practice are strategies for mastering the mechanics of writing, using quotations from quality literature.
Grade:
3rd-8th
Style:
Guides & Literature
Easy Peasy is a complete and free online curriculum. Easy Peasy takes away the financial burdern and rigorous planning aspects of homeschooling. You choose the level and theme for each of your children and it will tailor the courses to fit. Your child just clicks on the lesson link for each course and starts their assignments.
Grade:
PreK-8th (High School as All-In-One High School)
Style:
Literature
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The Good and the Beautiful
The Good and the Beautiful's language arts curriculum emphasizes family, God, high character, nature, and wholesome literature. It requires no daily prep time-just open the book and follow the instructions.
Grade:
PreK-12th
Style:
Workbook
Grammar Galaxy is a complete language arts program for kids in 1st grade through 7th and up. The program uses short, entertaining stories to teach language arts concepts in a memorable way. The accompanying workbook is no workbook at all, but a Mission Manual asking your student to help save the galaxy from the chaos the Gremlin creates.
Grade:
1st-7th
Style:
Textbook & Workbook
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Heart of Dakota
Heart of Dakota features open-and-go daily plans, engaging books, and fun activities with God's Word at the heart. Using Charlotte Mason-style living books and lessons with unique hands-on activities, the program challenges your children's hearts and minds.
Grade:
PreK-12th
Style:
Workbook
Thousands of free, printable reading and writing worksheets to use at home. Covering spelling, reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and writing.
Grade:
K-12th
Style:
Workbook
A fully integrated language arts program that teaches grammar, reading, spelling, vocabulary, writing mechanics, creative writing, and thinking skills. These skills are taught using the context of real literature.
Grade:
1st-12th
Style:
Workbook & Literature
Logic of English encompasses phonics, fluency and high frequency words, handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. It is designed to be an easy-to-follow, logical, and systematic approach.
Grade:
PreK-12th
Style:
Workbook & Readers
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Moving Beyong the Page
Moving Beyond the Page is a complete homeschool curriculum that uses literature to teach the different subjects. It is especially designed for the hands-on, creative and gifted learners.
Grade:
PreK-8th
Style:
Workbook & Literature
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My Father's World
My Father's World recognizes the Bible to be the foundation of wisdom and education. The curriculum uses hands-on, unit studies to teach multi-age groups of children, combining Charlotte Mason's ideas with classical education.
Grade:
K-8th
Style:
Multisensory & Workbook
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Sonlight takes a natural approach to language arts, modeling to write by learning from good models of writing. Look, listen, and copy good writing, then finally write your own.
Grade:
K-12th
Style:
Multisensory, Workbook, & Literature
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Online, interactive lessons teach everything from phonics to writing a high school research paper. Practice writing, develop vocabulary, reading comprehension, and communication skills.
Grade:
PreK-12th
Style:
Online Interactive
All About Reading is a fun and engaging program that explains the rules of phonics while using games to drive home the lesson. Each lesson builds upon the last to advance reading skills. It uses the Orton-Gillingham approach to help children with dyslexia.
Grade:
PreK-4th
Style:
Multi-Sensory, Workbook, & Readers
Explode the Code helps to develop comprehension skills by reading in context. There's lots of practice and reinforcement of new words. It is available in print or online. The print version is more handwriting intensive while the online platform is more interactive.
Grade:
K-4th
Style:
Workbook & Online
Pathway Reading is a complete reading program, which also teaches many good moral and spiritual values. You can also buy the readers seperately. The first few grades feature continuing stories about Peter and Rachel on their farm, at school, and with friends. The remaining stories contain stories and poems from Amish setting, Anabaptist heritage, the Bible, and other literature.
Grade:
1st-8th
Style:
Workbooks & Readers
Phonics Pathways is an all encompasing phonics program for learning to read and spell. The book is well laid out with a simple sequence and easy-to-follow progression. Get little tid-bits of advice from Mr. Bee as you progress through the book.
Grade:
PreK-2nd
Style:
Textbook
Thousands of free worksheets to put together your own phonics program.
Grade:
PreK-3rd
Style:
Worksheets
Progressive Phonics is an all-in-one reading program that's available online for free. Readers, worksheets, and sight-words are all available for download.
Grade:
PreK-5th
Style:
Worksheets & Readers
Reading Bear is an online, interactive way to learn to read. For those who love the colorfully visual environment, Reading Bear is a great way to go. It covers all the phonics rules in 50 lessons.
Grade:
PreK-2nd
Style:
Online Interactive
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Reading Eggs provides a comprehensive range online reading lessons and e-books. The program combines a progressive sequence of learning activities with animations, music and rewards.
Grade:
PreK-8th
Style:
Online Interactive
The Reading Lesson is similar to Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Lessons except that the pages of The Reading Lesson are less cluttered. The text is large and the lessons flow well. It's a no-frills book that gets to the heart of literacy.
Grade:
PreK-2nd
Style:
Textbook
$
Learn to read with Backpack Bear, Zac the Rat and others as you play games, sing songs and watch videos. Math is also included.
Grade:
PreK-3rd
Style:
Online Interactive
A phonics-based book with silly stories help your children learn to read. This book is loved by many homeschool moms as a primer for teaching children basic phonics.
Grade:
PreK-1st
Style:
Textbook
Every weekly lesson begins with a story - a contemporary theme story that develops key principles found in that week's Scripture verse.
Grade:
1st-6th
Style:
Workbook
All About Spelling teaches encoding skills and spelling rules while using multisensory materials to help learning stick. It uses the Orton-Gillingham approach, taking the struggle out of spelling.
Grade:
1st-7th
Style:
Multi-Sensory & Workbook
Soaring with Spelling is an age-appropriate program that teaches spelling with instruction and practice. There is a pre-test on day one, activities for days 2-4 and a test on day 5. Level 1 relates to grade 1.
Grade:
1st-8th
Style:
Workbook
Spelling Power was developed by a home educator for home educators. It emphasizes learning to spell the 5,000 most frequently used words in the English language.
Grade:
3rd+
Style:
Multi-Sensory & Textbook
Uses five developmental stages of spelling, children progress through the levels as they are ready. Children are introduced to stories and learn to spell words. Short daily activities integrate copywork, reading, speaking, and listening.
Grade:
K-6th
Style:
Workbook
Sequential Spelling is based on the classic Orton-Gillingham approach of multi-sensory instruction and follows the instructional focuses of Structured Literacy, including its focuses on phonology and sound-symbol association (word families); syllable instruction and morphology.
Grade:
1st-8th
Style:
Textbook
Short daily lessons that are designed to teach and reinforce grammar concepts. Easy Grammar Plus is a junior high through adult grammar book that contains higher level concepts. It is ideal to begin in 7th grade and used through high school. The Ultimate series is used for 8th-12th grades.
Grade:
3rd-12th
Style:
Textbook & Workbook
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Brave Writer is a complete curriculum in that it teaches all the components through literature and dictation. Dart, Arrow, and Boomerang are teaching guides that have been tailored for teaching a particular aspect of language arts through literature. Handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and craft grow through reading great literature, copying some of it in your own hand, and then attempting to handwrite it correctly while listening to someone read the passage aloud. Copywork and dictation practice are strategies for mastering the mechanics of writing, using quotations from quality literature.
Grade:
3rd-8th
Style:
Guides & Literature
The First Language Lessons series gives you a scripted, simple curriculum to give your elementary student the vital tools of grammar. It provides a solid grasp of punctuation, capitalization, parts of speech, diagramming, and more. The next level, Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind, is a four-year curriculum that completes a student's grammar training.
Grade:
1st-12th
Style:
Textbook & Workbook
Growing with Grammar is an age-appropriate program that teaches grammar with instruction and practice. Each level contains 108 lessons with it being used three times a week. Level 1 relates to grade 1. Sentence diagramming is taught beginning with Level 3.
Grade:
1st-8th
Style:
Workbook
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Institute for Excellence in Writing
An enjoyable and effective writing curriculum that will teach you and your students to write. Through the process of learning to write well, students learn how to think clearly and to express themselves eloquently and persuasively.
Grade:
K-12th
Style:
Audio & Workbook
$
Mad Libs is a fun word game and a great way to learn basic grammar. Write in the missing words on each page to create your own hilariously funny stories.
Grade:
3rd-7th
Style:
Workbook
Shurley English takes a logical approach to Grammar and Composition. Practice and improve sentences, sing jingles to memorize grammar, and enhance communication skills.
Grade:
1st-7th
Style:
Audio & Workbook
The Winston Grammar Program is designed to help students understand the structure of language and comprehend the principles of traditional grammar. It does away with the traditional grammar textbook, lecture approach, and heavy emphasis on memorization. Instead, it gives students a set of color-coded clue cards and a book of exercises, which together generate multi-sensory activities.
Grade:
5th+
Style:
Multi-Sensory & Workbook
A Reason for Handwriting integrates Scripture with handwriting. Every week is built around a new Bible verse, adding more words until the whole verse is written by the end of the week. Attention is given to capitalization and punctuation.
Grade:
K-6th
Style:
Workbook
Manuscript and cursive writing is taught without the frustration of other repetitive programs. Kids can learn their letters and numbers in a way they'll be able to visualize and remember.
Grade:
K-5th
Style:
Workbook
The Good and the Beautiful's handwriting curriculum includes images, artwork, poetry, Bible verses, and quotes that support high character, faith, nature, and creativity.
Grade:
PreK-8th
Style:
Workbook
Mrs. Wordsmith takes vocabulary, spelling, and writing to the next level using hilarious illustrations that engage children in learning.
Grade:
K-8th
Style:
Textbook & Workbook & Games
Pathway Reading is a complete reading program, which also teaches many good moral and spiritual values. You can also buy the readers seperately. The first few grades feature continuing stories about Peter and Rachel on their farm, at school, and with friends. The remaining stories contain stories and poems from Amish setting, Anabaptist heritage, the Bible, and other literature.
Grade:
1st-8th
Style:
Workbook & Readers
Learn vocabulary words through cartoons! Presented in an easy-to-read format, and eye-catching, funny cartoons, vocabulary has suddenly become fun.
Grade:
3rd-12th
Style:
Book
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The words chosen for Wordly Wise 3000 were selected to expand critical grade level vocabulary and improve reading comprehension. Available in print or online.
Grade:
K-12th
Style:
Workbook
Four volumes of Five in a Row make up 70 unit studies linked to children's literature. It covers Social Studies, Geography, Language Arts, Applied Math, Science, and Art in a way that causes children to fall in love with learning. It is recommended to add a math and phonics program.
Grade:
PreK-7th
Style:
Unit Study & Literature
Gameschooling
Gameschooling is when board and card games are included in the homeschool experience to help enrich learning in a particular subject. Rather than just playing games for fun, gameschooling emphasizes the educational aspect of playing games. Since children tend to learn best while being engaged and having fun, gameschooling is seen as a great way to solidify material that may not be understood as readily if just reading it from a textbook.
Apples to Apples Jr. helps to expand vocabulary. This game can be hilarious as surprising adjectives can be used to describe the nouns! This is the junior version for younger players, up to age 12.
Number of Players:
4-10
Ages:
9+
This is the standard version of this great vocabulary game. The judge selects the best adjective to fit the given noun. This version includes more complex words than the junior version. This game would be more suitable with 6th grade and up, though younger children have enjoyed it as well.
Number of Players:
4-10
Ages:
12+
Bananagrams is great for practicing spelling skills. It's played like a Scrabble crossword game, but without the board. It is perfect for traveling as it doesn't take much space.
Number of Players:
1-16
Ages:
7+
Dabble is a fast, fun word game that is easy to play and helps with spelling skills. With 20 tiles, each player must spell all five words first to win the round.Score is calculated with point on each tile.
Number of Players:
2-4
Ages:
8+
Don't Say It! has three levels of play to increase the difficulty. On each card, there is a base word and four words that a team member can't say to describe the base word. Helps to build vocabulary skills.
Number of Players:
2+
Ages:
6+
Grammar Wise is a board game that teaches the parts of speech-nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adjectives. Play starts with a token in the center and you take turns to roll the colored die. Match a token to the colored face of the token on the table.
Number of Players:
2+
Ages:
6-9
Hangman is a classic game for practicing spelling. In this game both letters and the body parts are magnetic allowing you to play anywhere. This is a 2 player game, so the first person chooses the word and the other player has to guess the letters correctly before the cowboy is hung.
Number of Players:
2
Ages:
5+
Idiom Addict is the party game where players decipher idioms and common phrases in a race to cross the finish line first. In this game, it's not what they said, it's what you think they said.
Number of Players:
4+
Ages:
10+
Quiddler exercises both vocabulary and spelling skills. Be the first to arrange all of your cards into one or more words and go out. Each round, the number of cards increases, increasing the challenge.
Number of Players:
1-10
Ages:
7+
Scattergories challenges you to come up with words quickly. Role the die to choose a letter for the round, then choose words that fit categories using that letter. It's more challenging that it sounds, especially if you end up with the letter "Q"!
Number of Players:
2-6
Ages:
13+
Scrabble Jr. has a two sided board to encompass the skills of both younger and older children. Score is kept with funny player tokens on the board. The more advanced level, on the back, is more like the regular version of Scrabble.
Number of Players:
2-4
Ages:
5+
Scrabble is great for practicing both vocabulary and spelling skills. It is a classic crossword game, with special squares for double or triple points.
Number of Players:
2-4
Ages:
8+
Super Sleuth is a detective-themed vocabulary game with over 180 mysteries to solve! Practice synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and multiple-meaning words.
Number of Players:
2-4
Ages:
8+
Tell Tale is a card game allowing you to invent stories with characters, settings, objects, and emotions. It strengthems creativity, listening, and language skills for young kids. There are four variations of play with unlimited possibilities. Easy game to use and understand.
Number of Players:
3-8
Ages:
5+
Word A Round is a favorite of speech pathologists and is a great game for building vocabulary and improving concentration. It's for ages 10 and up, where you race to unravel the word. The challenge is to quickly figure out where the word starts and then read it aloud before your opponents.
Number of Players:
2+
Ages:
10+
Wordical develops word building and spelling skills, and helps to build vocabulary. It is similar to Quiddler in that you have a hand of cards and build words from them. Roll the vowel dice and combine the letters with the consonant cards in your hand. Build the highest-scoring word and you win the round.
Number of Players:
2-8
Ages:
8+
Wordplay for Kids fast, fun, and challenging. You have 60 seconds to choose words that fit into a category and start with a particular letter. There is no waiting your turn and everyone plays every round. Helps to develop word-buidling skills, vocabulary, spelling, and concentration.
Number of Players:
2+
Ages:
6-12
Wordplay is the standard version of the game. It is a fast-paced, challenging, and easy to learn board game where there is no waiting your turn. A category is chosen and you choose words that begin with certain letters.
Number of Players:
2+
Ages:
14+
Reading Programs
Reading programs can be great incentives to get kids to read. Children log the books, minutes, or pages they read and in turn they are able to win prizes. Depending on the program, the offers can be anything from free pizza to a free ticket to Six Flags.
Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program
Book It!
Local Libraries
Scholastic
Six Flags Read to Succeed
- Free book
Book It!
- Free pizza
Local Libraries
- Prizes Vary
Scholastic
- Digital Experiences on their website
Six Flags Read to Succeed
- Free ticket to Six Flags
