Customer Reviews

Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills, Grade 5

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Comprehensive" Curriculum is kind of a misnomer here. These books lack a lot of information and tend to concentrate on the "topics de jour" rather than either depth or breadth of subject.

Homeschoolers should not be mislead into thinking that they can use these books as a basis of a complete curriculum.

Some children enjoy these worksheets. Sometimes mom is burnt out from devising meaningful lessons and just wants to hand the kids something to keep them busy and quiet. Sometimes a homeschooler will forget how boring public school is. These are all good times to assign a few pages of Comprehensive Curriculum.

My kids found the worksheets to be boring. I found some of the assignments incomprehensible. Significant numbers of the assignments to be of the "fuzzy, feel-good" variety without real academic merit.

There is inadequate math practice for a year long homeschool program.

There is inadequate history

The science concentrates on ecology, politically correct issues such as waste and the ozone and gives too little attention to the basics of physical science or biology.

The tone of the writing is patronizing. The author tells the children what they should think and feel. The vocabulary is dummied down. Ideas are simplistic. There is a definite "politically correct" bias in both subject choice and presentation.

In conclusion, this book could be used (sparingly) as a supplement to a complete curriculum but cannot by any stretch of imagination (except the publisher's) be called a "comprehensive" curriculum.

Karen Crowthe

This is a good book to use with homework assignments. My son does a page a day along with his homework and I see a difference in his grades. Great practice for the State Grade Tests. If your child needs to sharpen his basic skills, this is the book.

This book would be best used as reference index to supplement a variety of publications. It has a diversity of material that can help point to areas of specific interest for further research. The core areas of interest to the teacher and student can then be studied in more depth using publications that are specific to that area.

Despite the claims of the editor/publisher, it is unrealistic to expect that a single volume can be "comprehensive" in sufficient detail to satisfy all questions and demands for knowledge. As described in the promotional text on the back cover, this book limits itself to the "Basic Skills". It is up to the teacher and student to pursue knowledge in other areas of interest.

A useful addition to most educational library collections.

I have found that this book, although, not deep in instruction, is fine for review for children over the summer, so as not to forget skills learned in the previous school year.

I wish they would include tests. Other than that, I love this curriculum. Obviously, it's not the only thing we do. I add and supplement, but with this I do not have to come up with everything cold turkey. I have a guide. It does not take hours on hours to complete the day's worth of assignments, and the price is so reasonable. The pages are colorful. My children actually like this curriculum, and my oldest feels cheated because we used a more expensive and less effective curriculum for her.

This is just how the title describes it. It covers the basics for the 5th grade. You are not going to be able to use this as the only textbook if you are homeschooling but it is a really good workbook because it has everything all in one and a glossary and answer key in the back.

Nice visual supports. Reading passages are at the grade level reported. I teach Specific Learning Disabled English Language Learners in Middle School and these books are the best supports. 95% of my students are able to complete the activities independently. Great tools for fostering literal and inferential comprehension as well as basic math skills. I am using these to support Language Arts and Math instruction. Students are assigned 20 pages per week. Each grade level has some repetition of subject, scaffolding instruction to a higher level.

This is a workbook that I would recommend to anybody with children to help them practice the new things they have been working on and learn new things. I have four little boys of which I homeschool and bought one for each on there grade level.

Basic skills in a compact book. My children love these. The assignments are well structured and easy for them to understand. Too bad they only go up to 6th grade.

I bought this book for my Grandson who is starting fifth grade, and he loved it. It had all the different subjects he will be doing in grade 5. He works on improving his reading, math, and English skills everyday.