Abeka Reviews

This was our first year using Abeka for 2nd grade. Love the phonics, my daughter has learned so much. Too much seatwork, my daughter was so overwhelmed with the seatwork, we stopped doing seatwork half ways through the year. Great cirriculum and covers so much, but too much work for some kids. Would love to continue to use it, but I am afraid we will get behind again this year as we did last year.

This is a thorough curriculum that makes sure children learn the task at hand. Repetition is good for retention and practicing helps in learning new concepts. It mixes fun with diligence and hard work. This curriculum is great in Bible stories. The children know what to expect when curriculum is followed. I do not recommend for parents who are unorganized and like to fly by the seat of pants. It is laid out very well and basically tells you what to do and when to do it..you just have to follow it. DVD’s are very well made and easy to keep up with as a parent. You make sure the students follow along and are comprehending. You grade papers to see where help is needed. The DVD’s helped me out when I had baby #4 at the beginning of the school year. I have been impressed with the outcome of this curriculum so far. Both my 3rd and 4th grader love reading and supplement Abeka with tons of books about things they are interested in. They even do Science experiments on their own from books they have. We have tried our best to instill a love for learning in our children and Abeka has helped in that.

The ABeka K5 phonics program is wonderful. I have used it it with my oldest daughter, who is 6. She is now in the first grade and is a great reader.I just started using it with my four year old. I highly reccomend it!

I am using Abeka for Phonics, Spelling, Reading and Math. I suppliment Abeka science and history with other Unit Studies. I am VERY impressed with the Phonics program for ABeka. My daughter went to a private preschool and a public school for kindergarten. When we started with ABeka Phonics this year she looked at me SO confused. I wasn’t sure I was doing everything as I should. Then I realized she didn’t have Phonics in kindergarten. I pressed on and I cannot express enough how pleased I am with her progress. She is reading so well because she is understanding the “phonics” rules. Spelling with Abeka is not intense enough. There is not enough practice the first time around. I have to create extra work sheets for my daughter so she can practice with the words and she still isn’t spelling well. Beyond three letter words, she gets lost. However, she is in first grade so I know she has a little time to learn to spell. ABeka is very repetative in Phonics, Math, Spelling and Reading. As for Spelling I know she will have the same words in another lesson down the road so I don’t worry as much. I actually ordered a different Spelling program, but went back to ABeka because the words follow along with the Phonics and Reading they are doing. I would not call Abeka fun but we try to make it fun in our own way. Abeka Math is very good. My daughter is doing very well in math. Again, one thing I have learned with Abeka is it is very repetative. If your child does not get it the first time it will come back around again and they will pick it up then. If my daughter mastered it the first time we quickly review and move on. If she did not then we go over the whole lesson again and continue to work on it. The reading books that go along with Abeka are great. They work right inline with the Phonics lessons your child is learning. Over all with this being my first year homeschooling I wanted a cirriculum that told me exactly what to do each day and for my daughter not to fall behind. Abeka does all that. The teacher lesson plan literaly tells you exactly what to do. Everything with ABeka works together and I think that is what has helped me stay with it. Phonics, Reading, Spelling and Lauguage Arts all work together so that your child is actually doing work that they are currently learning.

This is the second year we used Abeka, and my daughter loves this ciriculum. It is easy to use and she actually enjoys going to school. Love Abeka!

MY DAUGHTERS LIKED USING THE ABEKA SCIENCE CURRICULUM AND MY YOUNGEST LIKES THE ABEKA MATH ALOT.

I do Love Abeka and have used it for many years. I have 9 children in various grade levels and Abeka is used by all. I use additional material to expand on things because I want them to learn more, retain better.

I have not seen anything as thorough as A Beka!
These are the wonderful resources that I use over and over and over with my children as they start out:

K4 readers- are *awesome* to teach beginners how to build words!
K4 ABC Writing Tablet-I prefer this in K because of lighter work load.
K5 Letters and Sounds workbook- starts with the basics and builds…interesting and colorful…its easy to assign a page at a time
Handbook for Reading- *the most important* phonics tool for everyone in my opinion….covers the short vowels and consonants for K level all the way through to teaching the complex phonetic sounds that some other curricula leave untaught.
1st grade readers- adds step by step practice, making learning to read well easy
2nd grade Letters and Sounds- builds the confidence in advanced phonics
2nd grade readers- these *really* make reading enjoyable to the student
(Basic Phonics Charts- nice to have, good practice)

This is my complete phonics program using A Beka. If I left anything out that they make, its because I used it and found it to be excessive for the individual home education setting. I am beginning this process with my fifth child now:)

We also have all the reading books through 5th, and my children love them!

We use the dvds and it makes learning so much fun. It spirals and my daughter is able to retain the information. The teachers are amazing.

Abeka is really great for K-6. The curriculum for high school can be a lille challenging to teach especially Plane Geometry. There are not enough explanations for each lesson. A video for this course would be helpful.

Pros: very indepth; lots of repetition; lots of review before a test;
Cons: repetition is sometimes too much; Also, I’d prefer not to have so many different books & booklets. For example, why not have all the history tests, quizzes & skill sheets in the history book, rather than 4 different books? And there are several books for most every subject. For this reason, it’s a pain if we are going to be doing school work away from home because you have to look in the curriculum for that day and figure out which quiz books, test books, skill sheet books, & text books to bring.

My oldest daughter will only use Abeka for her science. We got it for her when she was in 4th grade and she has never wanted to use anything else since. She loves the pictures and the way the lessons are laid out. Very easy for her to understand and retain.

We have used Abeka since the beginning and have loved it for the most part. I use the eclectic approach so I have not used the complete curriculum, but Phonics, the readers, Science and Health and some History have been a good fit for us.

Loved their program on teaching to read! Went at child’s pace, not theirs. We have boys and the seat work became too much for boys. A lot of writing and a lot of repetition.

We have used Abeka books in many subjects areas and enjoy most of them. Our particular favorites have been the Science texts, and, the Health, Safety and Manners texts. The page layouts are easy to read with a good choice of font,use of color and pictures. I actually use just the Teacher Editions, as they include all the student text material. I give the chapter quizzes orally as the T.E.s have the answers. I also do not choose to do all of the suggested activities. We supplement heavily, and at times the Abeka is actually the supplement. I like the Health, Safety and Manners books very much. They nicely reinforce what we her parents are harping on! We have used Abeka for grades 1,2 and 3, in addition to our other resources.

I still use Abeka materials. Some of them are so good I come back year after year. My kids have learned alot over the years, and the consistant Christian instruction is very reassuring. (I don’t have to look over shoulders for fear of what may have changed)

I really enjoyed using the Abeka materials. I found it easy to teach and they really enjoyed learning esp the Christian perspective. I would recommend to others. The only problem I had was so much details in the history for my daughter – she really was challenged to learn so much.

If you follow everything in the Grammar book you will definately learn and learn it well. There is just so much repetition that my child was bored beyond belief and we will not be using it another year.