Schoolhouse Review Crew: Pearson Education

You may have heard of Pearson Education as they are a large distributor of textbooks to the public school system.  They are now reaching out to homeschoolers and have started a brand new website http://PearsonHomeschool.com. Over the last several weeks we have had the opportunity to use and review one of their new homeschool bundles 4th Grade Reading Street.

"Scott Foresman Reading Street is an all-new comprehensive Reading and Language Arts series for the 21st Century. Reading Street delivers classic and soon-to-be classic literature, scientifically research-based instruction, and a wealth of engaging student activities. Reading Street nurtures a love of reading. It helps you inspire confidence, build student knowledge, and motivate readers to keep on reading."

 The Homeschool Bundles Includes:

Student Edition Package: 2 hard cover volumes containing a variety of different types of literature selections that emphasize comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills.  Lessons are focused around a Big Question that connects reading, vocabulary, and writing giving the student a deep understanding of the material. 

Teacher Resource DVD:  contains lesson plans and scoring rubrics, printable activities and worksheets, vocabulary resources with weekly lesson alignment, practice books with games, quizzes, reading, and writing activities.

Guide on the Side Instruction Booklet:  handbook designed to support research based literary instruction.  It provides a framework of routines and example activities that utilize best practices.

Exam View Assessment Suite CD:  create, customize, and print tests and analyze the results.

The cost of the Homeschool Bundle is $124.99.  (website should be updated shortly to show this bundle.)

The two hard cover text books included with Reading Street are beautiful!  I love the variety of literary selections and the illustrations in the books.  New vocabulary words are high lighted within the text.  There are critical thinking questions, writing assignments, and a variety of worksheets to go along with each lesson that teach children to think deeper about the selections they have read.  Learning objectives are listed throughout each lesson helping the teacher keep the student focused on what they need to learn.

While I think it is wonderful that Pearson Education is branching out to homeschoolers and have created a site specifically for the purpose of making it easier for homeschoolers to purchase their products, I find many of their support materials irrelevant to me as a homeschooler.  The Guide on the Side Handbook would be a great resource for a classroom teacher, but is full of information that is written to teach a classroom teacher howto teach.  I personally have no need to create and make tests since we do all of those orally.  The DVD Rom is full of worksheets, transparencies etc..that make wonderful tools for a classroom teacher but are not necessary for a homeschool parent.   

Members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew reviewed several different materials from Pearson Education including: Reading Street, Social Studies, and EnVision Math.  To see what crew mates had to say about these products click here.

Disclaimer:  I received a complimentary copy of the 4th Grade Reading Street Homeschool Bundle for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation.