Language
Language Smarts™
These fun, colorful books can be used as textbooks or comprehensive workbooks with your textbooks to teach reading, writing, grammar, and punctuation skills for Grades 1-4. Each book also develops critical thinking, vocabulary, and several other skills and concepts normally taught in the next grade.
The engaging lessons include easy-to-follow explanations, examples, and charts for visual learners—and require no lesson prep! Each lesson is followed by a variety of fun, colorful, mind-building activities that use different genres.
Reproducible. 350+ pages. Answer Key. View Grade 3 Table of Contents.
Editor in Chief®
Grammar Disasters & Punctuation Faux Pas
These fun and highly-acclaimed products teach grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and critical reading in a standards-based approach to language mechanics that emphasizes critical thinking about writing rather than the usual drill and practice found in competing products. The Beginning levels, and levels 1 and 2, include easy-to-understand lessons that explain and illustrate the mechanics of writing followed by activities that require students to carefully analyze and edit stories, letters, and articles that contain mechanical errors. The level 3 book does not have discrete lessons, but includes a 49-page grammar guide and a wide variety of challenging activities. These proven books enable students to gain mastery over concepts that will translate into their own writing, and will serve them well for a lifetime.
Reproducible. 100+ pages. Answer Key. View Grades 4 + 5 Table of Contents.
Word Roots
Learning the Building Blocks of Better Spelling and Vocabulary
These award-winning books teach the meaning and spelling of roots, prefixes, and suffixes that are the elements used to form words in English. Learning these word elements dramatically improves spelling and the ability to decode unfamiliar words.
The activities focus on using these words in context to help students incorporate each word into their vocabulary and retain the correct spelling. There are periodic reviews to make sure students retain what is taught in the lessons. Word Roots will add hundreds of words to your students’ vocabulary and greater depth to their thinking and writing.
Each lesson has the meanings of prefixes, roots, and suffixes used to form the vocabulary words. The activities following the lessons include:
A. Spelling and Defining Words
Match each given word to its correct definition.
B. Completing the Sentence
Complete the sentence by choosing the correct word.
C. Defining the Word Parts
Define the word parts.
D. Writing Sentences
Write sentences using the words in the lesson.
E. (optional) Creative Writing
Reproducible. 100+ pages. Answer Key. View Grades 3 + 4 Table of Contents.
Vocabulary Virtuoso
Vocabulary Virtuoso increases vocabulary, stimulates imagination, and boosts standards-based language arts skills. Each of the lessons teaches PSAT and/or SAT vocabulary words, which are made up of dynamic, real-life words students may encounter while reading or use in their writing.
Each lesson contains definitions, pronunciation keys, parts of speech, and alternate choices for each word made up of synonyms, idioms, and/or phrases. There are several activities, including a story involving students in a classroom setting.
Students complete a variety of exercises requiring critical reading and writing skills to contextualize the words. The exercises deliberately use other forms of the words as different parts of speech, so that students learn to recognize these forms as variations of the original words— further expanding their vocabulary and enabling them to use the words in more contexts. The correct spelling of vocabulary words are emphasized with the jumble activity that asks students to unscramble the word before writing the correct spelling.
Whether used in the traditional classroom, as a homeschooling resource, or for independent study, Vocabulary Virtuoso is a highly effective and fun vocabulary resource!
Primary Level (Grades 2-3) – 160 Vocabulary Words and These Concepts:
Geography Skills – map skills and landforms such as continents, islands, mountains, and deserts
Creative Writing Skills – symbols and poetry such as haiku, chinquapin, limerick, and free verse
Elementary Level (Grades 4-5) – 150 Vocabulary Words and These Concepts:
homonyms, homophones, homographs, hypothesis, key words, antonyms, hyperbole, fables, myths, folk tales, essay and speech writing
Middle School Level (Grades 6-8) – 180 Vocabulary Words and These Concepts:
alliteration, idioms, fallacies in reasoning, foreign words and phrases, mythology, journalistic writing
PSAT-SAT Book 1 (Grades 8-12) — 180 Vocabulary Words and These Concepts:
Literary – characterization, idioms, euphemisms, puns, aphorisms, jargon, allusions, irony, theme
Rhetorical – The Art of Persuasion in Speech and Writing, Using the Extended Simile to Write a Poem
History – The Renaissance, Renaissance artists
PSAT-SAT Book 2 (Grades 8-12) — 180 Vocabulary Words and These Concepts:
ancient Greek history, ancient Greek drama, Commedia dell’ Arte, mythological allusions in Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s London, Renaissance artists, epistolary writing, historical fiction, U.S. musical history, types of literary conflict
Reproducible. 150+ pages. Answer Key. View Middle School Table of Contents.
Spectrum Language Arts – Grade 8
This workbook for Grade 8 students is a collection of language arts exercises that provide Focused Practice for Language Arts Mastery in:
- Grammar and usage
- Parts of speech and sentence types
- Vocabulary acquisition and usage
Writer’s guide and Answer key included. 160 pages. Copyright 2015.