A comprehensive literature course, this program allows students to enjoy literary texts from a variety of genres while assessing the reading from a biblical worldview. Students develop strong critical thinking skills through silent reading, finding support answers with evidence from the text, practicing reading orally, and learning to understand vocabulary in context. The last 20 lessons of the curriculum (160-180) include lesson plans for a novel of choice (with different Lexile Reading Levels). The complete kit includes Teacher Guides One, Two, and Three, the Student Book, Activities Book, Activities Answer Key, Assessments, and the Assessments Answer Key. It also includes three novels: The Book of Three, A Single Shard, and The Island of the Blue Dolphins.
The Student Edition is centered around six unit themes: relationships, knowledge, courage, leadership, overcoming evil, and making choices. The text is structured around the Reading Process Approach, involving close reading for deeper comprehension. With this approach, students encounter questions and other information before they read, questions within the margins during reading, and review questions addressing genre, literary elements, comprehension, and biblical worldview shaping after reading.
Activities to reinforce reading skills are included in the Student Activities book. Most selections include two pages of activities. Choosing correct vocabulary, answering questions, multiply choice, completing charts, and writing summaries are just some of the activities in this consumable book. Activities Answer Key includes a copy of the activities book with answers in red.
The organized, spiral-bound Teacher Editions come in three separate books and provide complete lesson plans. Although written for a classroom, parents can easily adapt for homeschool use. The reduced student pages are also included as well as complete answers to questions in the student book. Useful instructional aids are in the back of each teacher book. Some of these instructional tools include vocabulary preassessments and reviews, graphic organizers, and informal reading evaluations. The lesson plans for the novels are in Part 3 of the Teacher Editions.
Assessments provide a reading check for each selection consisting of five short questions. There are also six comprehensive assessments that include a short reading excerpt and multiple- choice questions following the reading. Lastly, six unit tests include a combination of multiple choice, matching, true/false, and short answer questions. The Assessments Answer Key includes all the assessments with the answers in red.