Christian Light Education: A Comprehensive Curriculum Overview
For home educators seeking a curriculum that combines academic rigor with Christian values, Christian Light Education (CLE) offers a comprehensive and flexible option. This article provides an in-depth overview of the Christian Light Education curriculum, its structure, key features, and considerations for prospective users. If your lofty goals are growing dim and your focus turning to survival, this collection of articles offers encouragement and practical help, written by home educators who have learned valuable lessons.
What is Christian Light Education?
Christian Light Education is a Mennonite owned homeschool publishing company that offers comprehensive curricula options for K-12th grade. Christian Light publishes a curriculum, much of which is similar in concept to Alpha Omega's LIFEPAC curriculum. Originally an adaptation of that curriculum, Christian Light has gone on to create much of their own original material. CLE also provides very practical resources to train students for real life that are unique and necessary for the homeschool community. It is designed to be both academically sound and biblically based, reflecting Mennonite beliefs (Anabaptist doctrine) throughout much of its curriculum. As a 1689 Reformed Baptist, one reviewer greatly appreciated just how transparent this publishing company was concerning which curricula contained Anabaptist theology and history. This makes it even easier to pick and choose that which aligns and pass over the few that do not.
Curriculum Structure and Key Components
The Christian Light curriculum is structured around the concept of "LightUnits," which are smaller, self-contained workbooks that allow children to feel accomplished as they work through each successive unit to complete the whole. It seems so simple, but it does give the student a sense of achievement in a way that larger workbooks do not. This approach breaks down learning into manageable segments, fostering a sense of accomplishment and encouraging independent learning.
Light Units: Each LightUnit contains eight lessons, one review for the test, and a short test to help one measure what the student has learned. The workbooks are mostly black and white but are full of engaging activities to allow the child plenty of practice. For a young child that is just the right amount of time to keep his or her attention.
Subject Areas: First graders begin with ten Learning to Read LightUnits. After completing these, they are ready to move into five basic strands of Lightunits: Bible, language arts (with a separate literature strand), math, science, and social studies. Christian Light has its own hardcover texts with matching Lightunits for high school literature, as well as for a number of other courses.
Read also: A Look at Christian Light Education
Teacher Resources: The Teacher’s Manual provides directions for administering the diagnostic test and scoring the test so you can place your student in the proper level. The Teacher Planner consists of 40 weekly spreads with 8 period/subject blocks for each day of the week, 42 spreads of 10 weeks each for recording grades, a classroom. These handy charts allow teachers or homeschool parents to map out a student’s work for the week by writing in each day’s lesson or page numbers to be completed. Sold in packs of fifty sheets. Each sheet is double-sided. For teachers not acquainted with phonics, we recommend working through Learning to Read Training-a training LightUnit introducing Learning to Read methods and procedures. The set includes the LightUnit, Answer Key, and an audio CD of the training. The eighth Training LightUnit is for first-grade teachers. This gives a thorough introduction to the Learning to Read curriculum and also includes a section of phonics for teachers with an accompanying CD. For first-year teachers, it is highly recommended.
Key Features and Benefits
Biblical Worldview: One of the defining features of Christian Light Education is its integration of biblical principles and values across all subject areas. The program does talk about God often and believing in Him and making good choices that please Him. It teaches good character and provides short readings for the kids, teaching about manners, kindness, and good study habits.
Affordability and Flexibility: You can buy individual units for less than $5. I loved this because I could buy a unit and test it out with my daughter without really breaking the bank or feeling like I wasted a workbook. That’s exactly what we did. I started with one unit, and we kept going from there. There are also optional materials you can purchase. Christian Light curriculum is available by grade level, subject, or individual unit. They also offer school services through Homeschool Plus.
Diagnostic Testing: Diagnostic tests are used as placement tests in Christian Light curriculum. We recommend beginning the test at least one grade below the student’s grade level. Tests 100-400 are for students in Grades 2-5. The Teacher’s Manual provides directions for administering the diagnostic test and scoring the test so you can place your student in the proper level.
Learning to Read Program: Christian Light Education provides what they term Light Units for much of their curriculum which I believe psychologically allows children to feel accomplished as they work through each successive unit to complete the whole. It seems so simple, but it does give the student a sense of achievement in a way that larger workbooks do not. The workbooks are mostly black and white, but are full of engaging activities to allow the child plenty of practice. For a young child that is just the right amount of time to keep his or her attention. A favorite feature of ours are the rhymes and stories that are provided at times in the teacher guides to help the child remember and retain the information learned. These are often funny and my older children get in on these to read the stories in funny voices which of course my eight year old loves.
Read also: Generation of Disciples
Mastery-Based Learning: This means that a topic is introduced and practiced again and again throughout the year. You do not master a skill and move on. Instead you are working on a variety of skills every day and repeating them here and there throughout the program. For example, we can learn and practice alphabetical order and 2 months later we end up practicing it again. I also like this because every section in a lesson is just a few practice problems for each skill.
Language Arts Program: Beginning in Level 2, the Language Arts program includes handwriting, spelling, AND writing. How nice to be able to have that all in one! This is not the case in their level one, so I was happily surprised when we figured this out. The handwriting sections start off with manuscript writing. It is a very short section in the lesson Next, it moves into curves and lines to get ready for cursive writing. The writing program becomes part of the lessons beginning in unit 3, as well. It’s so nice that I do not have to rearrange days or routines in order to incorporate writing practice. The process is broken down in the unit and easy to follow.
Subject-Specific Highlights
Math: The math courses are particularly popular among homeschoolers.
Social Studies: Christian Light publishes some textbooks designed primarily to meet the needs of Mennonite students but of interest to many other home schoolers: God's Marvelous Gifts (fifth grade science), Living Together on God's Earth, Into All the World, North America is the Lord's, and God's World - His Story (social studies texts for grades 3-6). An elementary-level Canadian social study unit is available, and Canadian studies are also covered in a set of four special Lightunits used typically at seventh-grade level.
High School Electives: Elective courses include keyboarding, accounting, practical record keeping, computer literacy, electricity, agriculture, woodworking, art, home economics, Spanish, consumer math, practical math, Greek, carpentry, home repair and maintenance, small engines, basic automotive service and systems, and Christian ethics.
Read also: DCS Tuition Information
Considerations for Choosing Christian Light Education
Religious Perspective: Christian Light Education reflects Mennonite beliefs (Anabaptist doctrine) throughout much of their curriculum. If you are unfamiliar with church history, Mennonites were born out of the Anabaptist movement, which does not align with our 1689 Reformed Baptist confession of faith. Therefore, I would not use their curriculum for our Church History instruction, I have no qualms utilizing Christian Light Education’s curricula as it does not diverge so much with our confession in the same way that a Roman Catholic or Mormon curriculum would. I actually like CLE even more for its immediate transparency in its shop descriptions for where these instances occur.
Curriculum Design: If you are looking for a variety of art and nature and song and poetry throughout your lessons…well, this isn’t for you.
Practical Tools for Organization
- Tidi Files: Organize your space and keep chaos at bay by storing schoolbooks in a Tidi File. These cardboard storage file boxes are approximately 9.5” tall x 4.25” wide x 9.25” deep. They ship collapsed but fold together easily. They work well for Light.
Personalization and Flexibility
Adaptability: You can make it what you want! Honestly, that statement stands for almost anything! For example, let’s say the review section is something that really doesn’t need practice. Or maybe you’re feeling crazy and want to add some movement. Come up with a scavenger hunt or an activity to help get through some of the questions. Change up your routine and have fun with it! Or MAYBE your infant won’t stop crying and your 3 year old is having a melt down and it’s raining outside and you haven’t even cleaned up breakfast yet…let your child work on it independently! I LOVE love LOVE that there are days that she can just practice on her own. As a mom of four, it’s so important to have this flexibility! However, with the lack of variety in the lessons, it does tend to bore us after a while. Every couple months, I step away from it for a week or two and dive into something different. I might read a book with my daughter or complete a mini-unit together.
Freedom to Choose: My point in telling you all of this is don’t ever feel like you have to do EVERYTHING!! You have the freedom to choose in your homeschool. If it feels like too much, cut it out. If it’s not enough, add to it. Do what’s best for your kiddo. Because of the way these lessons are set up, this is easy for me to do.
Spelling Adaptations: On the topic of spelling, I started the year by skipping the spelling section in the workbook completely and just having her write the words each day. We made this fun, and I can share more about how we did it soon. Even with fun spelling practice, we eventually tired of it after a few months and started only doing the spelling practice section in the workbook. We do not do daily list writing anymore.
Quiz and Self-Check Flexibility: After Christmas, I quit giving the quizzes and self-checks. It was a wasted day of lessons! My daughter was completing lessons well and was not struggling through the skills. (If she were, I may have kept doing them for practice). One day, I just completely forgot about giving the quiz, and it affected us in zero ways. So, I stopped! We also skip the penmanship sections most days. I do this because we already have a handwriting curriculum that I love (A Reason For, Level T). Completing the penmanship was overkill to me, so we only do it if we want a super short handwriting day and skip our handwriting book.
Teacher's Guide: A Helping Hand
The guide is very thorough. The answer keys are actually on the same page as the lesson guide, and I really like that. You don’t have to flip back and forth to check answers. Each lesson in the guide starts with scripted review questions. Next, it moves into a script for teaching the new skill. It provides questions for discussion as well as an explanation for each section in the lesson. If there is any prep, it explains it at the beginning of the lesson guide. It also gives you optional activities to do during a lesson. When I first received the guide, I was extremely overwhelmed. It’s a lot. However, once I read through the explanations and figured out how it worked with the lesson, I felt much better. The guide is very helpful, but once we got in a groove, I didn’t feel like we needed it as much. It would be hard to have the program without it though.
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