FEATURE 2008 Practical Homeschooling Reader Awards t s time once again to discover ELEMENTARY CURRICULUM Language Arts which products your fellow home- First Place The Three Rs by Ruth schoolers have chosen as the very GRAMMAR LANGUAGE ARTS Beechick (Mott Media) best. But first, let s thank those of Second Place TIE! My Father s First Place TIE! Professor you who cast the thousands of World, Sonlight Curriculum Klugimkopf s Old-Fashioned English votes—whether1 online or using our print- Third Place TIE! Five in a Row Grammar (Oregon Institute of Science ed ballot—which made this all possible. Beyond Five in a Row (Five in a Row), Medicine), Daily Grams (Easy Grammar As promised, we picked a ballot at ran- KONOS Curriculum (KONOS, Inc.) Systems), Easy Grammar (Easy Gram- dom to win a copy of Master Books Honorable Mention World of Adven- mar Systems) splendid edition of Ussher s The Annals of ture (Learning Adventures), Rod Staff Second Place Winston Grammar the World. The prize winner is Chalee elementary curriculum (Rod Staff), (Hewitt Homeschooling Resources) Giles of Jerome, ID. Congratulations, BJU elementary curriculum (BJU Press) Third Place Rod Staff Grammar Chalee! (Rod Staff) MIDDLE SCHOOL CURRICULUM Honorable Mention Editor in Chief As always, readers rated all the prod- (Critical Thinking Company) ucts they voted for from one to ten on the First Place Robinson Curriculum (Oregon Institute of Science Medi- basis of product quality. So you ll be HANDWRITING cine) learning which products have the highest Second Place Sonlight Curriculum First Place TIE! Getty-Dubay Port- user satisfaction ratings, not just which Third Place Veritas Press land Italic (Continuing Education Press), products happen to have the most users. Honorable Mention BJU middle Reason for Writing (Concerned Com- We also thought you d enjoy a peek school curriculum (BJU Press) munications), Handwriting Without "behind the scenes" at some of the Tears (Handwriting Without Tears) HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM award-winning companies, so we ve in- Second Place TIE! Draw Write Now cluded interviews with the folks behind First Place Robinson Curriculum (Barker Creek Publications), StartWrite four of them. Enjoy! (Oregon Institute of Science Medi- (IdeaMaker) And now . . . the winners of the 2008 cine) Third Place TIE! BJU handwriting courses (BJU Press), Classically Cursive Practical Homeschooling Reader Second Place Sonlight Curriculum (Veritas Press) Awards, by category: Third Place BJU high school cur- riculum (BJU Press) Honorable Mention A Beka hand- Honorable Mention Heart of Wis- writing courses (A Beka Book), Grade Level dom, KONOS History of the World D Nealian curriculum (Scott-Foresman Curriculum (KONOS, Inc.), Tapestry of Grace Company) (Lampstand Press) KINDERGARTEN/ LITERATURE READINESS/PRESCHOOL Bible First Place Robinson Curriculum First Place Ruth Beechick books (Oregon Institute of Science Medi- (Mott Media) BIBLE CURRICULUM cine) Second Place My Father s World Second Place TIE! Beautiful Feet Preschool/Kindergarten (My Father s First Place Beginnings/Questions Books, Sonlight Curriculum World) (Answers in Genesis) Third Place Vision Forum Second Place TIE! AWANA (Awana Third Place TIE! Sonlight Kinder- Honorable Mention Teaching the Clubs International), Bible Study Fel- garten (Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd.), Five Classics (Center for Literary Education), lowship in a Row Before Five in a Row (Five Mantle Ministries, Five in a Row series in a Row) Third Place TIE! Doorposts materi- (Five in a Row), Progeny Press study als, BJU Bible courses (BJU Press), Honorable Mention Get Ready, Get guides Chronological Bible Cards (Veritas Set, Go for the Code (Educators Publish- ing Service), Rod Staff Press) PHONICS PROGRAM Honorable Mention The Young Preschool/Kindergarten (Rod Staff), Peacemaker (Peacemaker Ministries), First Place Explode the Code (Edu- Sing, Spell, Read, Write (Pearson Little Hearts for His Glory (Heart of cators Publishing Service) Learning), KONOS Curriculum The Three Rs Dakota), Discover 4 Yourself Inductive Second Place by Ruth (KONOS, Inc.) Bible Studies (Harvest House) Beechick (Mott Media)
WWW.HOME-SCHOOL.COM MARCH/APRIL 2008 PRACTICAL HOMESCHOOLING 13 FEATURE 2008 Practical Homeschooling Reader Awards Third Place A Beka reading curricu- my), Rod Staff Readers (Rod Staff Honorable Mention Rod Staff lum (A Beka Book) Publishers), Dr. Seuss books (Random spelling curriculum (Rod Staff), A Honorable Mention Alpha-Phonics House), I Can Read series (HarperTrophy) Reason for Spelling (Concerned Com- (Paradigm Company), Phonics Pathways munications) (Jossey-Bass Publishers) SPELLING VOCABULARY PRIMERS READERS First Place Professor Klugimkopf s First Place Robinson Curriculum Vo- First Place Sonlight Readers Spelling Method (Oregon Institute of cabulary Exercises (Oregon Institute of Second Place Pathway Readers Science Medicine) Science Medicine) (Pathway Publishers) Second Place Spelling Power Second Place Vocabulary from Classi- Third Place Bob Books (Scholastic) (Castlemoyle Books) cal Roots (Educators Publishing Service) Honorable Mention McGuffy Read- Third Place TIE! BJU spelling cur- Third Place Wordly Wise (Educators ers (Mott Media), Christian Liberty Acad- riculum (BJU Press), Phonetic Zoo (In- Publishers Service) emy Readers (Christian Liberty Acade- stitute for Excellence in Writing) Honorable Mention Word Roots (Critical Thinking Company)
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16 PRACTICAL HOMESCHOOLING MARCH/APRIL. 2008 WWWIIMIESCHOOL.COM FEATURE 2008 Practical Horneschooling Reader Awards Oregon Institute of Science S Medicine Winning the most reviewing all the relevant awards by far this year is atmospheric literature. the Oregon Institute of Then the Robinsons start- Science and Medicine ed sending out petition re- (OISM). OISM has been quests, asking those in the on our Reader Awards scientific community who list since 2005. Their were not convinced of the CD-ROM-based curricu- man-made global warming lum has also been on our scenario to stand up and be Software Awards (now i- counted. (At www.oism. Learn Awards) list since org/project you can see the 2000. review article, petition, Those of you who have and list of over 30,000 been PHS readers for a signers.) long time are already fa- In spite of the furor it has miliar with the founder of created, the petition project From left to right: Dr Arthur Robinson, Matthew (20), Noah (29), Bethany (26), Zachary (31), OISM, Dr. Art Robinson. Atynne (28), and Joshua (26) with his wife, Fama was only a sideline for Famed among home- Robinson, His major inter- schoolers for his "Robinson Method," "an estimated 3 percent of all home- est is research into the biochemical which involves teaching children to learn schooled students in the United States." "clocks" that are built into proteins, at- independently as early as possible, Art (They also have since added CD-ROMs tempting to find the cause of aging. "In was a PHS columnist some years ago. of out-of-print Henty books and newer the last 7 or 8 years with Noah, Zachary, Art's background is that of someone products for teaching spelling and vo- and the other children working on it, naturally drawn to academic excellence. cabulary.) What you might not know is we've made a lot more progress," Art After earning the Ph.D. in Chemistry from that Art launched the first serious blow says. His proudest moment: co-authoring U.C. San Diego, he was immediately in- to the "deadly man-made global warm- a scientific paper with all six children that vited to join their faculty and taught there ing" crowd. In 1998, covering the first was published in the Journal of Peptide for a number of years while also working Kyoto meeting, the Wall Street Journal Research. at Stanford. Nobel Prize winner Linus asked Art to write an editorial, which he Art also is the moving spirit behind Pauling and Art founded a biomedical re- did with the help of his son, Zachary. Access to Energy, a newsletter founded search institute, later named the Linus The response from those with a vested by the late Czech refugee (and electrical Pauling Institute. After falling out with interest in the global warming scenario engineering professor) Petr Beckmann. Pauling (when Art's attempts to verify was vicious. "We realized their program Originally intended for a scientific read- some of Pauling's wilder theories about had only three elements," Art says. ership, in later years it also adopted an the proper dose of Vitamin C for humans "First, all scientists agreed with them. "explaining science to the layman" focus. actually ended up disproving them), Art Second, they were trying to save the Now about ? of the readership is scien- moved with his wife, Laurelee, to a farm planet. Third, anyone who disagreed was tists and 2/3 is laymen. Donations from a in Oregon, to provide a better life for their just trying to make money. So we decid- yearly appeal to the subscriber list allow children. In 1980 they founded their own ed to show there wasn't a scientific con- OISM's work to continue without gov- small research institute, the Oregon Insti- sensus." First, Zach, two astrophysics ernment or "big business" support. tute of Science and Medicine. In 1988 students from Harvard, and the famous Now, the big question. How have the Laurelee died suddenly of a rare disease, physicist Frederick Seitz wrote an article Robinson children turned out? acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis, leaving "I'm not trying to suggest we're per- behind a commitment to homeschool their fect," says Art, "but so far the six Robin- children but no full-time teacher to do so. son children have managed to remain At that time, the Robinson children were solid Christian young people who are 11/2, 6, 6, 8, 10, and 12. academically successful." That is a real- The story has been often told of how, ly big understatement. Consider this list 11 years ago, Art's children "decided to of academic achievement: clone their study system" by scanning • Zachary, age 31, holds a B.S. in their books and study materials onto 22 Chemistry from Oregon State Uni- CD-ROMs. This became the famous versity and a M.S. in Chemistry Robinson Curriculum, which has now and D.V.M. (doctorate in veteri- been used by more than 70,000 students, nary medicine) from Iowa State
24 PRACTICAL HOMESCHOOLING MARCH/APRIL 2008 WWWHOME-SCHOOLCOM FEATURE 2008 Practical Homeschooling Reader Awards
University (ISU). He currently two years to complete their Bache- ing just teach truths about the physical works part-time on OISM research lors degrees. Noah completed his world. America is desperately short of as well as in veterinarian practice. PhD at Caltech in three years (it people who are graduating in those sub- • Noah, age 29, holds a BS in normally takes five years or more). jects. Biology, however, has a lot more Chemistry from Southern Oregon Over the years, I've spoken to just propaganda. University (SOU) and a Ph.D. in about every Robinson kid on the phone. "Second: spend as little time in college Chemistry from Caltech. He is They all speak fondly of their life on the as possible. Two of my boys got their employed full-time by OISM. farm, with all its chores, animals, and Chemistry degrees in two years. This can • Arynne, age 28, has a BS in outdoors adventures. The 250-acre be done through taking Advanced Place- Chemistry from Bethel College spread was a great place to grow up, with ment exams. Prepare well, as if they are and is now in her third year of its sheep, cattle, horses, and dogs, not to SATs. With good scores on AP exams, an work towards a DVM at ISU. mention the wild animals and birds. In- ordinary student should be able to skip at • Joshua, age 26, and the only mar- spired by the books of the late Jeff Coop- least one year of college and possibly two. ried Robinson so far, has a BS in er, when they got old enough the Robin- "Third: do not live in the dorms and Mathematics from SOU and is son children all learned to "ride, shoot dunk yourself in the environment more now in his second year of study to- straight, and tell the truth" from Coop- than necessary. Even Caltech, still one of ward a Ph.D. in nuclear engineer- er himself. Theirs was a genuine old- the best places in the country, has de- ing at OSU. His wife, Fama, is a fashioned American childhood, with the graded greatly. When I took Matthew to homeschool graduate. "old" classic books you'll find in the the dorms, I was repelled by the noisy, • Bethany, age 26, holds a BS in Robinson curriculum, the old-fashioned animalistic atmosphere. My children Chemistry from SOU and is now farm life, and the "can do" American have either lived at home or rented a in her second year of study toward spirit of innovation always handy in their house near the campus. Having a good a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering at very own on-site research center. study environment is vital. Students OSU. should not always be in the midst of the • Matthew, age 20, is now complet- Art Robinson on craziness that will drag them down. ing his second (and last) year of College Education "I think what my children accom- study at SOU toward a BS in plished illustrates a point: stay away from Chemistry. He is currently consid- "In a homeschool, one can obtain a the subjects that mostly consist of brain- ering his graduate school options. better education. The dilemma: how to washing, don't stay in college longer than • Zachary, Noah, and Matthew all handle college. First, the dangers are not necessary, and stay in a place where you skipped two years of college, enter- in most math and science courses. can control the environment. You're there ing as juniors and requiring only Physics, chemistry, math, and engineer- primarily to study."
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