BJU Press Blog

early learning curriculum

Getting a Head Start with K4

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K4 head start
I always knew I wanted to homeschool my children, and I even knew which curriculum I would use. Having worked in the marketing department at BJU Press for three years, I had become convinced of the excellence of their materials. But there was still that nagging doubt in the back of my mind: Can I really do this? I have no idea what I’m doing! What if I mess up and my kids turn out to be ignoramuses? K4 would be my first test.

When my older daughter was four, I bought a preschool workbook and taught her from it for several minutes a day. She was catching on quickly with letters, simple words and numbers. But I felt she still might not be ready for kindergarten. So after looking online at BJU Press materials, I decided the K4 DVD program would provide a solid bridge between “pre-preschool” and K5. I thought it might also help me as a first-time homeschooler to establish a consistent routine.

Happy K4 Kid

The K4 DVD program didn’t disappoint—in fact, it exceeded my expectations. The DVDs kept my daughter interested and engaged with colorful graphics, animal characters, puppets, and fun songs. She was always eager and excited to do her daily lesson. Her teachers presented the material in a way that was easy for her to understand. I love that the program taught my daughter to listen, pay attention, and follow the teachers’ instructions. It also introduced basic but important concepts of English, reading, and math through emphasizing the alphabet and counting. Finally—and most importantly—it centered on God’s Word and incorporated its truth into every lesson.

Happy Mama

As the parent, I appreciated the fact that the program was well organized and easy to follow. I also liked the length of the DVD lessons, about sixty minutes—not too long, not too short. Using the DVDs was convenient as well; I was able to pause or rewind the program as needed. And since there were only 153 lessons, I enjoyed the flexibility of choosing how many days per week to have school.

Ready for K5

By the end of the program, I felt confident that my daughter would be ready for kindergarten the following year. She had a good grasp of the fundamentals of phonics, reading, and math. She had also developed a love for learning that helped her look forward to kindergarten with great anticipation. We had established a good, consistent school routine that helped me to plan for the next year. And I felt much more confident about this whole homeschooling thing. Kindergarten went great (I decided to stick with the DVD format); and when my younger daughter was approaching school age, there was no doubt in my mind about where to start. Using the K4 program was one of the best decisions I’ve made as a home educator, and I would highly recommend it to both new and experienced homeschoolers with preschool children.

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Jennifer is a pastor’s wife and mom of two young girls and loves being able to homeschool them. During her own twelve years of homeschooling, Jennifer developed a passion for reading and writing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and relishes writing during her free time.

Unlocking the World with Phonics

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teaching phonics with k5 beginnings

Before I learned how to read, I pretended to read books aloud. With some of my favorite picture books, I could quote the text by heart as I turned the pages. The actual process of reading was a lot harder than rote memorization—it involved forming connections, remembering patterns, applying principles, and a lot of phonics. I still remember the thrill as the pieces clicked into place, and suddenly I was reading for real.

Your child already knows how to speak English and understand it. Now, as a homeschool parent, it’s your job to teach him to read and write it well. As you prepare your child for success in reading, you have to start with what he knows—the sounds of language, or phonics.

Sights and Sounds

You may have begun teaching phonemic awareness earlier than K5. But if not, don’t worry. The BJU Press K5 Beginnings program will help your child learn to listen for specific sounds and connect those sounds with letters and letter combinations. Before long, your little one will begin to realize that the letters of the alphabet don’t just have names; they represent sounds. Combined together, those sounds can form words.

BJU Press curriculum emphasizes phonics as the basis for reading excellence, but the Beginnings program incorporates plenty of sight words as well. Learning these common, recognizable words helps kids move more quickly through a text and gives them a head start with building their vocabulary.

Exceptions and Rules

The English language is full of strange rules and odd exceptions that can be very confusing for kids who are just learning to read. If your child is struggling with remembering some of those rules and exceptions, it’s time to turn the lesson into a game.

Children love stories, so why not make phonics seem like a wonderful story filled with lovable characters? In the K5 Beginnings program, you’ll find Miss Silent E and Bossy R along with other characters who serve as guides for phonics comprehension. By lending personality and depth to these abstract concepts, the program helps children remember and apply them.

Memory Hacks

Songs are wonderful tools for remembering important facts and ideas, so the Beginnings program incorporates plenty of catchy tunes about phonics. You can use the phonics songs CD anytime to reinforce and enhance learning.

You can also hang up the provided charts displaying word-family rhymes, so your child has a clear reminder of those patterns. Word families are a major emphasis of the BJU Press phonics program, and with good reason! Knowing word families builds an excellent foundation for more accurate reading, whether the words are familiar or new.

Phonics Drills

In order for your kids to excel at phonics and reading, they must practice. The phrase “phonics drill” may not sound pleasant, but it can actually be an enjoyable experience for you and your kids. When you read sentences, your child can fill in the easy two- or three-letter words. Talk together about Mr. and Mrs. Short, who illustrate the rule that “a short vowel is always followed by a consonant or consonants.” You can look for Mr. and Mrs. Short, Miss Long, and the other phonics characters wherever you and your children are—at the grocery store, in the car, at the park, or on a walk through the neighborhood.

At first, the phonics drills will feel like a challenge; but before long, your kids will begin to realize how much of the world opens up to them when they remember their phonics word families and friends. And just like that, they’re reading.

Explore what you need to know about the K5 Beginnings program.

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Ready to Learn: A Benefit of Preschool Curriculum

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image of young boy working on a BJU Press preschool textbook

When my oldest daughter completed kindergarten last summer, I was ready to make sure that she wouldn’t experience any of the summer learning loss that I had read so much about. I had purchased BJU Press’s Vacation Stations: Beyond the Back Door workbook and carefully planned a daily summer schedule that would allow us time to review concepts and practice reading.

I also planned to do preschool with my three-year-old daughter to help keep her occupied and to prepare her for four-year-old kindergarten in the fall. I talked to some friends about my intentions, and they suggested that I purchase a preschool workbook from a store like Walmart® or Sam’s Club™.

Unlike complete curriculum packages, workbooks do not include instructional materials. However, I was pretty confident in my ability to teach preschool-level skills. After shopping around, I found what I thought was the perfect workbook. Designed for ages three-to-five, it contained almost three hundred pages of full-color, perforated pages. The activities looked fun. It promised to help my daughter learn skills such as the alphabet, shapes, numbers, colors, and more. It even included a CD-ROM. Best of all was its price tag—$5.99.

My daughter was excited to do “school” along with her big sister, but that excitement soon turned into frustration. The workbook was asking her to do things that she was not prepared to do. For example, the first page in the section designed to teach color skills directed her to color a picture of a crayon blue, trace the word blue (the font being only 2-3 inches high) and draw a picture of a blue house. She had not developed the fine motor skill needed to do the tracing or the drawing. We ran into another such difficulty in the number section. At the top of the page she was shown three objects and was directed to circle the object that only appeared once in the larger picture at the bottom of the page. My daughter was utterly confused.

After a few weeks of repeated frustration, we completely abandoned the workbook. Even though my daughter didn’t learn the alphabet or her numbers over the summer, she’s learning them now with the help of BJU Press’s Footsteps for Fours curriculum. Her experience with this curriculum has been completely positive—she enjoys it so much that she wants to do school all day long.

It’s easy to think that the concepts taught in preschool and kindergarten are so basic that you don’t need a curriculum, but this experience taught me differently. One of the biggest values of an early-learning curriculum is in its sequencing. Within a good curriculum, skills and concepts are taught in certain order; they build on one another. The result of sequencing is that children are prepared for the introduction of new skills and concepts. They don’t get frustrated because they have been given all the tools they need to succeed. And succeed they will. Not only will they gain new knowledge and skills, but they will have the confidence they need for continued success.