This post is all about a full curriculum review of Lightning Literature from Hewitt Learning.
Lightning Literature found me at just the right time. Nothing was actually wrong with the one we were previously using (Learning Language Arts Through Literature). However, I was in the middle of trying to find a language arts curriculum that could help one of my children improve in their reading comprehension.
One of the first things I check in a curriculum is their book list. Lightning Literature, from Hewitt Learning, had really nice choices for the grade levels of my children, which is what initially drew me in. Once I found out they had comprehension questions available in the teacher book, I was sold.
I’ll leave you with my honest curriculum review of Lightning Literature here, and if we’ll continue using it next year. By the end of this post, I hope you will have a much better idea if this would be the right fit or not for your family.
This post is a full curriculum review of Lightning Literature from Hewitt Learning.
[RELATED POST: Choosing the Best Homeschool Curriculum]
Overview of the Curriculum
Lightning Literature is a language arts curriculum that focuses on three key components: literature, grammar and mechanics, and composition. It helps students to expand their reading ability and comprehension, improve their communication, and prepare them for more advanced language concepts.
Moreover, the literature selections are age appropriate, and can be used as independent reading or read alouds, if you prefer. Equally important, I appreciated that there was diversity in genre, storytelling, and ethnicity and culture.
One thing that sets the student book apart is that it is in full color! It is even color coded by book, so when you switch to the next literature selection, it will show a different color. My children were into the student worktext immediately due to the playful aesthetic. However, the teacher book is black and white, which is actually great if you are purchasing the PDF, and printing yourself at home.
What to Expect
Weekly lessons can easily be completed in 4 days. It is designed for this convenience, with an optional day 5. However, the reading and student text can all be completed within the 4 day schedule.
With 36 weeks in total, here is what you can expect each week.
- Daily reading from the selected literature for 4 days
- Reading comprehension questions for the assigned chapter(s)
- Grammar and Mechanics exercises in the student worktext
- Composition assignment
What We Did and Did Not Do
What We Did
For the elementary grades (we used 3rd and 5th grade levels), we used the reading and comprehension questions. This was my priority. My kids would read their assigned chapter(s) independently. Then, I would go over the comprehension questions in the teacher book.
In the grade 5 student text, the questions are there for them to fill in a response. This was nice because I could just verbally check his responses with him using the teacher book. In the grade 3 level, the comprehension questions are only in the teacher book, so I would go over those with my daughter after she completed the reading.
Next up, my kids would completed the grammar and mechanics section, and I would check it with them after they completed it. This was fairly painless, except for sentence diagramming, which was very new to all of us. If you’re like me, and did not learn sentence diagramming in your education, I highly recommend using the teacher book.
For the grade 8 level, my daughter completed most of it independently. I proofread her papers, and asked her some of the questions in the teacher book from time to time, but not daily. She enjoyed the book choices and her own worktext.
What We Did Not Do
I never touched the composition assignments. Since we have been loyal IEW users for writing curriculum, I didn’t see a need to make them complete this section. The nice thing is this did not affect our enjoyment or effectiveness of using Lightning Literature at all.
Another thing we didn’t do was the optional day 5 material. This also did not have any affect on the functionality of the curriculum. It was actually nice to have the day off to work on writing assignments from IEW on Fridays!
[RELATED POST: Our Writing Curriculum for Pre-K Through High School]
Literature Based
Like I mentioned prior, the literature selections were really great for us. That, and the comprehension questions are what drew me towards it. We didn’t have any complaints about the books we were able to read this school year. I feel like my child who needed some help with reading comprehension received just that. Additionally, we have some new favorite authors and titles gained as well.
Lightning Literature Vs. LLATL
Both of these language arts curricula are literature based, and have great book choices for each grade level as far as I can tell. This may not help you decide between the two, but the fact is, my children liked both of these choices, with a slight preference for LLATL. Why?
My oldest daughter who likes to know as much as possible about an assignment felt that LLATL was a little more clear in directions for each day. As mentioned prior, we opted not to do any of the composition in LL, but we did choose to do the composition assignments with LLATL. Part of the reason was the clarity in directions and the variety in assignments. They were writing letters to businesses, composing poetry, conducting research for a paper, and overall it was something they wanted to do (even in addition to their IEW assignments).
We were also not used to the sentence diagramming in LL, which caused some stumbling for us at times. Once we got the hang of it a couple weeks or so later, it went a lot smoother.
My youngest liked the color and whimsy in LL, but she said she is fine using the black and white with LLATL too. I did like that LL gave us the page numbers or chapters to read each day. That helped me with planning properly. With LLATL, I didn’t see the pages assigned, but just had them read a chapter a day until they finished. It didn’t always line up perfectly with the student text, but it wasn’t a big deal either.
Make sure to check out the samples on both sites so you get a feel for both if you’re still torn. You want it to be something that is a good fit for your child, but also for you as the teacher!
Will We Use Lightning Literature Again?
This was a difficult choice, but we will not be using Lightning Literature. At least for next year, we won’t be. I feel it was a great pick because it helped solve the issue I had with reading comprehension, and I loved the required literature that supplemented it.
Since we didn’t use the composition section, I wanted to return to the combination of Learning Language Arts Through Literature and IEW for my soon to be 3rd and 6th graders. If reading comprehension becomes an issue, I would gladly return to Lightning Literature.
With Learning Language Arts Through Literature, or LLATL, we practice dictation, spelling, a bit of grammar, poetry, research, letter writing, etc. So we can use the curriculum in its entirety without feeling overwhelmed. I sometimes preferred the literature selections from Lightning Literature, but overall and in our next season, LLATL seems like the best fit (use “juicebox” for 15% off).
This post was all about our honest review of Lightning Literature.
Other Posts You May Like:
- 3 Things to Teach Your Middle Schooler
- Curriculum Review: CM Simple Studies
- Curriculum Review: Beautiful Feet Books Around the World with Picture Books
[…] [RELATED POST: Curriculum Review of Lightning Literature] […]