PLL is a very sweet little language book. It focuses on using the right tense in a sentence, retelling stories, using complete sentences when we answer people, and copy work. As copying is a really difficult area for my third grader, we do this work orally most of the time. Below is a picture of a typical lesson.
Hardcore Montessorians and grammar lovers will be disappointed at the lack of grammar terms, but this doesn’t bother me. I love the focus on conversation and speaking correctly. We’ll get to the grammar terms later.
My thoughts
I love this little book, but I don’t think I would love it without the Mother of Divine Grace Third Grade Syllabus. Laura Berquist has trimmed the lessons to include much less busy work than the text suggests. Additionally, she has cut out lessons that are repetitive if you’ve already done Aesop’s Fables in an earlier year. Schools like www.materamabilis.org use this text over two years. If you are using it as written, without Berquist’s expert trimming, then I agree that this is a two-year book.
However, I’m not sure this book is 100% necessary. If you use a lot of narration (written and oral) in your schooling, write actual letters to relatives with addressed envelopes, and don’t allow grammar mistakes in conversation, then maybe you don’t need it. I like it just because I don’t like to leave things up to chance. I do best overtly covering a subject, rather than trusting we’ll hit it along the way.
Conclusion
If you want a text that gentle covers all the bases in primary language, this sweet book is for you. Especially if you’re partial, like me, to those black and white old illustrations like in McGuffey’s. However, if you aren’t going to cut it down, 160 lessons is just too much for one year.
