Breaking the Spanish Barrier Level 1 (Beginner) Homeschool Package + Digital Audio & Enhancements Online Access Code - 1 Year Subscription

As a mother of 2, Level 1 worked well for our family. We purchased the Homeschool Package and the print book + online. The start of the book covers simple words and phrases. Our favorite part was the flashcards, which have authentic audio and great pictures. Unlike other programs we've tried, my kids learned how to form sentences with verbs, instead of pure memorization of vocabulary and phrases.

As a homeschooling parent, I cannot recommend this Spanish curriculum highly enough. It has been an absolute gem for our family's language learning journey. The Level 1 program is thorough, yet it's presented in such a way that my son, who had no prior knowledge of Spanish, was able to dive in with enthusiasm. The interactive exercises and audio recordings by native speakers made learning Spanish fun for my son. This curriculum has been a game-changer.

I do not recommend this curriculum.

I myself took three different languages for 4-5 years each, including Spanish, so I'm accustomed to the "pace" of foreign language learning.

This moves too fast at first and glosses over the basics. My son is a quick learner and strong academically but it was too much for him and he ended up hating Spanish. I was sad to have spend so much money on this, only for us to abandon it after Lesson Two.

Too rigorous. My daughter aced Spanish 1 in local high school. We jumped into intermediate level BTB Spanish edition and it's going straight into heavy memorization. But there's no online lecture component and the lessons aren't very detailed. It's just a bunch of facts laid out. And some of the verb conjugations aren't laid bare. They need lessons to go along with it…the online portion is basically a replica of the book.

We purchased this program as a follow up to having used programs for younger students and apps so my student was not new to Spanish. However, it still started WAY too fast for us. There is a Level 0 that comes before lesson 1 that expects students to know and quickly learn new words, conjugate verbs, and read and write in Spanish from day one. If you make it to lesson 1, there are flash cards and some support in the computer program to assist, but those are not present for this section that the text believes will be review. These words include not only typical family words like madre and padre, but the words for brother and sister in law. Words that are not typical to see in other programs you may have used to prepare for this program.

The program does say to expect to take a few weeks to do this level 0 part, and if you are willing to figure out with your student how to divide these intense topics up into smaller chunks and review them, it may work for you. When I spent the money on this program (purchasing all the parts) I did not expect I would need to plan to make our own flash cards and create more materials to support my student like this would require of me.

I love the concept of this program with the workbook based lessons and if your student is already fluent in Spanish and just needs formal instruction for credit, this could be a great option. However, if you student has never studied Spanish or has any learning disabilities, I would not recommend this program. It is just too aggressive out of the gate unless you, as the teacher, are willing to put in a LOT of time and effort to help your student use a program that does not really have a teacher's guide (though there is an answer key if you purchase it).

We tried this program for several weeks before giving up. I wanted something my daughter could do completely independently and she was unable to make sense of it. She said the main problem was they were being asked to write out answers in Spanish to questions asked in Spanish before having learned anything. Not even the alphabet had been taught yet. We are going back to La Clase Divertida. It's not as polished of a program but at least it progresses in an order that makes sense.

Perhaps this is a Classical style curriculum, but my teens and I found this to be extremely "memorize this long list of words" heavy -- and not even the most useful words. Within the first two weeks of an introduction to Spanish, the students are expected to memorize the word for sister in law. Almost no reading exercises -- just memorization and some speaking.

The one thing that I did like was the online portion where the students can listen to native speakers. Everything in the textbook is duplicated online. It's odd, however, that the beginning pronunciation rules do not jive with the way the native speakers then pronounce the words!

As much as I invested in this curriculum, we have decided to cut out losses and use it as a secondary source.