Spectrum Language Arts, Grade 3 Paperback – Big Book, 15 August 2014

Great books, amazing price, highly recommend for homeschool

great item

This book is just amazing. It’s best for summer vacation.

We purchased 9 of these Spectrum books (3 Reading, 3 Language Arts & 3 Writing, Grades 6, 3, &1) and we ended up returning all of them, except for Spectrum Reading, Grade 1. We started homeschooling on our own after the schools closed down due to COVID-19. I bought these books as a way to help the kids round out their school year since the public schools were in a scramble to adapt to online learning. While I love their set up, it required too much daily writing. We bought 9 of these books so this review is going to be copied and pasted on to each one. If you have a reluctant writer or are planning on buying several different Spectrum workbooks for one child, then I will warn you that the workbooks require a lot of writing. A LOT of writing. If you do love the layout of these books, then I would suggest that you alternate which ones your child works on in a single day. My oldest daughter (6th grade) is not a reluctant writer and even she dreaded having to do these books. So if you want to try them out I suggest only getting one at a time and doing only a page a day. A lesson is generally 2-3 pages. If you have a reluctant writer those 2-3 pages will take over an hour to complete. If you child has no issue with writing, then they might be a good fit. Or if you are just wanting one workbook to help your child brush up on certain skills it can be a great choice. I also noticed the the workbooks seem to stay on the same topic no matter which grade level book you are working out of. So if the 6th grade book was on a lesson about pronouns, then the same lesson number would also be about pronouns in the 3rd & 1st grade books. So this can be helpful if you have multiple children and want to keep them on the same lesson idea. Just be aware that while many line up exactly there are a few off here and there. The only one of these workbooks we enjoyed is the Spectrum Reading, Grade 1. There is little to no writing required in the book. The first half is an ongoing story about Little Duck. So you read three story "clips" and then ask your child the questions written below the clips. This is normally only a few minutes long, depending on how talkative your child is when it comes to the answers. The other side of the lesson generally has 1-3 photos in 3 rows and the directions are as simple as circling what goes together, number the sequence, write the beginning sound, write the ending sound, identify the cluster, etc. Very little writing. We haven't yet gotten to the second part of the book, but it looks like it is going to be longer stories with comprehension questions. I can update my review once we hit that part.If you need ideas for what else to look for in case you decide against these workbooks: We ended up switching out our 6th grade writing for an actual writing program (Essentials in Writing), our 3rd & 1st grade writing book was switched out for Writing with Ease (available on Amazon, highly recommend if you have reluctant writers). Our 6th grade language arts was switched out for the same program she does for writing. The language arts for 3rd &1st grade was switched out for Grammar Galaxy. Our 3rd grade reading workbook was replaced with 180 Days of Reading, 4th Grade (same comprehension workbook, but the answers are in multiple choice form instead of writing out long answers). Our 6th grade reading has been replaced for now with Evan Moor's Greek and Roman Myths Literature Pockets (also on Amazon).

I got several of these Spectrum Workbooks for my daughter at the start of the school year. We had to do some catch up because she was behind on certain skills (like writing) after distance learning last year and not practicing them enough.There is not too much writing in this book. It’s a school book, of course there is writing. Writing is a crucial part of education from kindergarten to college and beyond, so I can’t imagine why that would be a problem for anyone.My only real complaint about this book is that they don’t provide enough lines for kids to write on. If even your neat computer type takes two full lines, why would you expect a child to be able to fit all that on one line? My daughter was trying to squeeze in extra words beneath the line and on the sides when we started, but we have given up. Now I make her tell me what the full correct sentence is aloud, and write as much as she is able to fit on the line and then stop. This book would’ve been five stars if they used common sense when it came to providing adequate space to answer questions.Still recommended, just be aware you may need to either use extra sheets of paper or improvise like I did. As long as she knows the correct answer, I’m not too worried about her not finishing it on the sheet, but obviously I would prefer that she be able to get the full writing practice of finishing the whole sentence.