Mood:  a-ok

Have you ever wondered...

What the secret is for winning the National Spelling Bee?

OR

How your child could ace the ACT or SAT?

OR

How to make lots of money writing books? 

Never fear because EDUDPS is here!

Ok, maybe EDUDPS (Educational Diagnostic Prescriptive Services) can't turn your child into a spelling champ,  or get them a perfect score on a college entrance test, or make them a millionaire author. But, EDUDPS has two programs that could sure help - Roots and Fruits, and Write With the Best - Vols. 1 & 2.

John Allen really liked Roots and Fruits. It's a very simple program that helps kids of all ages (even down to kindergarten!) increase their vocabulary by learning Greek and Latin roots and prefixes in just 15 minutes a day. On day one you introduce one or two roots or prefixes. One week we tried the roots amb/ambul - Latin for walk and aqua/aque - Latin for water. I simply wrote the roots and two vocabulary words for each root in large letters on a piece of paper that was to be posted on a wall the whole week. John Allen then had to look up the words, give two or three definitions, tell the parts of speech and identify whether the root was Latin or Greek. The next three days he reviewed the roots, meanings and vocabulary words, used them in sentences and completed one or two fun activities or games. On Friday we evaluated (again, using fun games) as to whether or not he knew the roots, meanings, and the vocabulary words and if he could properly use them in a sentence. All roots (over 670 of them), vocabulary words (1700+) and games are included in the book. But you may be asking, "Why do they even need to learn Greek and Latin roots. Read the next two examples to find out why.

Have you ever watched as a spelling bee champ asked what the root of a spelling word was. There is a reason for them asking. You see, someone may not know how to spell ambulance, but if they know that the root is the Latin word ambul - meaning: to walk then they will at least know that it starts with a-m-b-u-l! 

At the same time a high school student may be taking the vocabulary part of the SAT. They've come to the word hypnagogic but they have no idea what it means. But, they learned that the root hypno means sleep, so they chose the answer -that state between being awake and falling asleep.

Now you might be asking, "Well what about the million dollar book deal?" Remember, I said that EDUDPS may not be able to make you a million dollars. But, they can help you to be an outstanding writer! Another great EDUDPS product is Write With the Best.

The unique thing about Write With the Best is that it uses the writings of great, classic authors to teach you how to improve your writing skills! Write With the Best does that by using a simple, systematic approach that includes exciting activities. Each unit discusses a specific genre of writing such as descriptive writing, writing a dialogue or writing a short story and takes about two weeks to complete. Day one you simply read over a passage using that specific genre. In the following days, you discuss what makes that passage so interesting, identify parts of speech - especially discriptive adjectives and adverbs, and practice writing a good paragraph in the same genre. You then analyze your paragraph in the same ways that you did the original author's writings. It is all very different than any writing program than I have seen, but really seems to work! Now I know that most of your children are not going to grow up to become authors, but consider the following scenario as a reason why they need to learn how to write good paragraphs.

Let's take our friend who is still laboring over the SAT. He has aced the vocabulary section, but now he is on the essay section. While many students may dread this, our high school friend has no problem. He has learned how to write a good paragraph so he is ready to excell at the essay questions as well. 

The author of these two books, Jill J. Dixon, has a Master's of Education and has taught for over 20 years in the classroom and in a homeschool setting. It is her experience with underachieving students that led her to write these two curriculums and begin EDUDPS along with her husband. 

I want to attest that I found that these two books were both a new and very refreshing ways to teach these subjects that can sometimes be boring and tedious. They are also very reasonably priced. Roots and Fruits sells for $14.98 for the ebook, $17.48 for an unbound printed copy, or $19.98 for a comb bound printed copy. Write With the Best-Vol. 1 is currently $19.95 for the ebook, $22.45 for the unbound and $24.95 for a three-ring binder printed edition. BUT, for a limited time only, all of their ebooks are 25% OFF. For this curriculum, I think that is a great value! EDUDPS sells many other helpful educational tools and evaluations and their website even has free downloads and free samples of their curriculum to evaluate. But, as usual, don't take my word for it, to check out the EDUDPS website yourself, just click here or on any one of the highlighted sections above. You can also check out some of the other TOS Crew members reviews by clicking here. This is one of those products that you don't have to be a homeschooler to use and benefit from. Any student could use a little help in these areas. As I have said many times, we may not all be homeschoolers, but we all educate our children in some ways at home. So, with that, I'll say - happy schooling!

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