Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post. The blogger received product and compensation in exchange for this honest review.
In the summer of 2016, I stumbled upon Apologia’s Writer’s in Residence™ creative writing curriculum and quickly purchased it for my oldest daughter to use as her fifth grade creative writing curriculum. We were very happy customers, and were delighted when we discovered Apologia was releasing a reading curriculum in the summer of 2017. I was thrilled when I was asked to take a look at the new curriculum and review Readers in Residence™: Sleuth for Apologia!
While Writers in Residence™ was a perfect fit for my oldest daughter as a fifth grader, Readers in Residence™ doesn’t quite fit her needs as she moves into sixth grade, and my third grader is not ready for the material at this point. We are a literature loving family, though, and after taking the time to study through the Readers in Residence™ curriculum, I’m greatly anticipating walking through the course with my middle daughter next year!
An Overview of Readers in Residence™
How is the curriculum designed?
Readers in Residence™: Sleuth contains six units, one unit per book. The curriculum guides you through three assigned books, and three books of your own choice. Each unit is broken into several modules, each with its own checklist and assignments.
The Units of Readers in Residence™:
Unit 1: Sarah, Plain and Tall – Historical Fiction
Unit 2: On Your Own Historical Fiction
Unit 3: Charlotte’s Web – Animal Fantasy
Unit 4: On Your Own Animal Fantasy
Unit 5: Because of Winn-Dixie – Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Unit 6: On Your Own Choice – Fiction
While Readers in Residence™ is a stand-alone guide, when combined with Writers in Residence™, it creates a full year of Language Arts studies.
What is the Readers in Residence™ Experience?
Delving into Readers in Residence™ is not simply opening a study guide or a literature guide with comprehension questions and vocabulary to define. Au contraire! This curriculum will have your child creating story boards, building character maps, designing a set, analyzing paragraph structure, hosting book clubs, inferring word meanings, discussing the book with family members, making predictions, completing Venn Diagrams, and too many more activities to name. This curriculum takes your child deep into each book you focus on, and helps your child fall deeply in love with the written word.
Who should use Readers in Residence™?
Readers in Residence™: Sleuth is a wonderful starting point for the child who has completed the basics of phonics and reading instruction, and who is ready to join the literary world. In our home, we use a phonics based program to the end of third grade, then move into literature studies as our Language Arts foundation. While my oldest has missed this strong introduction to literature, this curriculum is now going to be my standard literature curriculum as a child moves from learning the basics of how to read to learning how to intelligently digest what they read. I will also be pulling several activities out of the guide for my oldest to use to strengthen her literary foundation.
Using Readers in Residence™ in the Homeschool Classroom
This curriculum can be used in a multitude of ways in the homeschool classroom. The first is simply to work through the suggested plan with your child and complete the course during a single school year. This is likely what my family will be doing next year as my middle child begins fourth grade. The curriculum can also be used with multiple children on different grade levels. The assignments throughout the book can be completed to the child’s individual ability. Finally, the “On Your Own” sections can be used with many different literature studies and can be used multiple times to help your child evaluate and compare and contrast the books they read.
The Benefits of Using Readers in Residence™
As a growing reader, your child will benefit greatly from a year spent in Readers in Residence™: Sleuth. Your child will learn to read for deep understanding, be able to see patterns and plot development, develop reading strategies to deepen their understanding of a story, build a stronger vocabulary, and build a strong literary base for the remainder of their education.
How to Obtain Readers in Residence™ for Your Homeschool Classroom
Parents can purchase Readers in Residence™: Sleuth on the Apologia website by visiting this link, or a FAQ and product sample can be found at this link.