Multi-Level English Curriculum

The Well-Trained Mind will instruct you, step by step, on how to give your child an academically rigorous, comprehensive education from preschool through high school--one that will train him or her to read, to think, to understand, to be well-rounded and curious about learning. Veteran home educators Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise outline the classical pattern of education called the trivium, which organizes learning around the maturing capacity of the child's mind and comprises three stages: the elementary school "grammar stage," when the building blocks of information are absorbed through memorization and rules; the middle school "logic stage," in which the student begins to think more analytically; and the high-school "rhetoric stage," where the student learns to write and speak with force and originality. Using this theory as your model, you'll be able to instruct your child--whether full-time or as a supplement to classroom education--in all levels of reading, writing, history, geography, mathematics, science, foreign languages, rhetoric, logic, art, and music, regardless of your own aptitude in those subjects.

Thousands of parents and teachers have already used the detailed book lists and methods described in The Well-Trained Mind to create a truly superior education for the children in their care. This extensively revised fourth edition contains completely updated curricula and book lists, links to an entirely new set of online resources, new material on teaching children with learning challenges, cutting-edge math and sciences recommendations, answers to common questions about home education, and advice on practical matters such as standardized testing, working with your local school board, designing a high-school program, preparing transcripts, and applying to colleges.

You do have control over what and how your child learns. The Well-Trained Mind will give you the tools you'll need to teach your child with confidence and success.

This story-based approach, focused on young students Claire and Micah, uses Charlotte Mason ideas for the modern homeschool student with character building themes. Each quarter has five stories, two picture studies (one of which is Bible-based), and two poems (one of which is a Psalm). Using the spelling words and the Dictionary Worksheets student will create their very own dictionary as they move week by week through the material.

Developing early reading and narration skills, by the end of the course, students should be able to comfortably write up to three sentences at a time.