The Total Language Plus study guides are immediately recognizable with their bright yellow covers, but it’s the inside of the guide where you will find gold! These comprehensive study guides from a Christian perspective focus on teaching thinking and communication skills using literature as a base.
It is typical to complete 3-5 novels with guides in a traditional school year. Each guide contains 5 to 8 units and will take about 8 to 10 weeks to complete.
In addition to reading comprehension and literary analysis, TLP guides offer practice in
Novels have been carefully selected to either display a high moral tone or to provide a basis from which to teach biblical discernment. Most are Newbery Medal or Honor books; all are generally thought of as quality literature, have depth, and are high interest.
One small Teacher's Manual presents the how and why of the program. It provides an overview and philosophy of the program, sample lesson plans for a typical week, and instructions for teaching each component of the program. The appendix contains a writing helps section and a summary of basic spelling rules. Also included are answers to common questions about the Total Language Plus program. Click here for a free download of the Teacher’s Manual.
The program requires minimal teacher involvement, as students work through most of the material on their own. While some work is done on separate paper, most exercises are worked on directly in the Student Worktexts (the yellow workbooks), which are not reproducible. The only condition when copying is allowed is when teaching multiple students simultaneously out of the same study guide.
The beginning of each guide contains a variety of critical thinking activities correlated to chapters in the novels, which include projects, drawing, writing assignments, and a puzzle.
Some of the writing assignments require research or lengthier essays, while “Personally Thinking” questions require shorter written answers to questions that apply concepts in the story to the student’s life or require the student to think and make judgments about story’s events and characters.
These activities can be used at any time during the unit at your discretion, but you will probably want to use several short writing assignments each week if you want to include composition skills in the program.
The rest of the guide is broken down into weekly units. Each week, the student:
Guides are available at five grade levels: grades 3-4, grades 4-6, grades 6-8, grades 7-9, and grades 9-11. High school guides contain more extensive writing activities that teach composition techniques, showing the student how to organize and plan their writing, as well as suggesting what points to include. These guides also contain oral readings for the selections to incorporate speech and drama into the program.
Focus Guides are lower-priced guides (see Animal Farm and Crispin: Cross of Lead) which “focus” on specific writing skills and omit many of the varied language arts activities found in the other guides. While containing comprehension and analysis questions like other guides, they also feature comprehensive writing assignments relevant to the novel. Focus guides have less content overall than other guides and take about 3 weeks to complete.
