Evan-Moor publishes workbooks for all areas of language arts for kindergarten through sixth grade. You can purchase various language arts bundles for each grade, bundles that cover all core subjects (language arts, science, social studies, and math), or individual products.
There are language arts bundles for reading, language (with a primary focus on grammar and usage), writing, and spelling, with two or more books per bundle. (Note that vocabulary bundles have the teacher and student books for only one title.) All these bundles, except phonics, are included in the complete grade-level packages covering core subjects. You can purchase phonics bundles or other individual resources separately. Homeschool and subject-area bundles include access to a digital and customizable planner developed by an experienced homeschooler, with suggested pacing for the books and an editable planner.
For many of these series, the teacher’s guides have student pages that can be printed or copied. Answer keys are generally at the back of the teacher’s guides. Some series have printed student books, which saves you the bother of printing out what is often a large number of pages.
Students who can read on their own should be able to complete most activities in these workbooks independently. However, the teacher’s guides generally include suggestions for teaching group classes in a more interactive fashion.
Reading
Bundles include the grade level book from three series: Reading Comprehension Fundamentals, Daily Reading Comprehension, and Skill Sharpeners: Reading.
Workbooks in the Reading Comprehension Fundamentals series are large, illustrated books with more than 150 pages. They cover a wide range of comprehension skills appropriate for each level. Weekly units usually include one substantial reading passage from fiction or nonfiction as the basis for the activities that follow. Lessons provide both instruction and practice, with about five pages per unit. The activities have many different formats, a feature that will appeal to most students.
Daily Reading Comprehension books for second grade and above provide a reading passage each day followed by comprehension questions. First and second-grade books present questions in a multiple-choice, exam format, while the other levels require students to construct their own responses, usually in complete sentences. These books have close to 200 pages each, and daily lessons should take 10 to 15 minutes.
The Skill Sharpeners: Reading series works on comprehension, phonics (in the younger grade levels), fluency, and vocabulary. Lengthy stories and nonfiction articles are each followed by activities in many different formats, including some puzzles. The books are printed in full color and generally have fewer than 150 pages.
Language
The language bundles include Language Fundamentals and Daily Language Review (the grade-level book from each series). Books in both series have black-and-white pages.
Language Fundamentals books for grades one through six are aligned closely with the Common Core State Standards and present skills one area at a time. For example, the first-grade book has lessons under the headings handwriting, grammar, mechanics, usage, and vocabulary. (The second-grade book skips handwriting but adds spelling, then fifth- and sixth-grade books drop spelling.)
Each lesson has instructions, examples, and practice exercises. Students will write some answers as complete sentences, often constructing their own. These black-and-white books have more than 200 pages and are available only as reproducible teacher editions.
Daily Language Review books for grades one through eight are intended for ten to fifteen minutes of practice every day. Each lesson is designed as a five-day process. For the first four days, students will complete a half-page per day with two sentence-editing exercises and two activities focusing on grammar, usage, or vocabulary. Day five has a full page with more practice on vocabulary and composition using the vocabulary.
The Daily Language Review books can be used for review and reinforcement alongside most language-arts programs, but they should be especially useful alongside Language Fundamentals. Language Fundamentals teach only one topic at a time, so the Daily Language Review books help keep students current on all their skills. Printed student books are available for these titles.
A more colorful option for review is the Skill Sharpeners: Grammar & Punctuation series for kindergarten through sixth grade. (These are not included in the bundles.) These full-color, heavily illustrated workbooks review grammar, punctuation, and usage in lessons based on topics such as flight, gardening, and sports (in the Grade 4 book). The many types of activities include reading, writing, editing, critical thinking, filling in blanks, completing charts, and filling in punctuation. They serve best as supplements and provide a visually appealing break from the other Evan-Moor workbooks that are mostly printed in black and white.
Writing
Writing bundles include three books. Daily 6-Trait Writing is in every bundle, and Text-Based Writing: Nonfiction books are included for grades two through six—the grade level book for both books. The first-grade bundle includes the two books How to Write a Story (1-3) and Write a Super Sentence. The third books in the bundles for grades two through six are Paragraph Writing, How to Write a Story (1-3), Writing Fabulous Sentences and Paragraphs, How to Write a Story (4-5), and Giant Write Every Day: Daily Writing Prompts, respectively. I provide details for only the two primary series in these bundles.
You can read my separate review of the Daily 6-Trait Writing series here.
The Text-Based Writing: Nonfiction books for grades two through six have twelve units, each with a nonfiction article, comprehension questions, a writing prompt, a graphic organizer (to help students organize their writing), a checklist, a dictionary, and a self-evaluation activity. The writing prompts require students to write a paragraph or more in different formats, such as compare and contrast, cause and effect, and argumentation. This series has both teacher’s editions and student practice books.
Spelling
Spelling bundles include Building Spelling Skills and Skill Sharpeners: Spell & Write—the grade level book for each title. You can read my separate reviews of both series.
Vocabulary
Evan-Moor publishes two vocabulary series, A Word A Day and Daily Academic Vocabulary. For both series, a black-and-white teacher’s edition is available in print or PDF formats, and you can purchase printed student workbooks. Evan-Moor’s vocabulary bundles include printed teacher and student books for each level, with A Word A Day: Grade 1 for first grade and Daily Academic Vocabulary for the other grades.
Daily Academic Vocabulary books are available for grades two through six. The books have lessons and quarterly reviews that together will take 36 weeks. Aside from the quarterly reviews, each lesson follows the same five-day format.
The words studied are those students are likely to encounter within the educational process. Four words are presented each week on an introductory page, although the same word might be presented separately to teach an alternate meaning. For instance, the word "standard" is taught as a noun and as an adjective, and the word "composition" is taught as a noun with two distinct meanings.
The introductory page is followed by four half-pages with questions or activities for one of the words each day. Day five has a full page with four multiple-choice questions and a writing prompt. Review lessons take a week to complete using exercises and puzzles to cover all words taught that quarter.
Vocabulary: A Word A Day books are available for grades one through six, and they all follow the same format. Each week introduces four new words with their part of speech, definition, and example sentence. The words seem quite advanced for each level, so I recommend choosing a lower-level book for most students. For instance, the first four words taught for second grade are dainty, pounce, generous, and rambunctious.
There is one exercise for each word, one of which uses a graphic organizer. A review page has another set of lengthier exercises covering all four words. A weekly assessment has four multiple-choice questions and a writing prompt. A reproducible student dictionary is included as well as an index.
There are instructions for teaching a class, but I expect most homeschoolers will work independently through these books.
Phonics
See my separate review of Evan-Moor phonics resources.
Summary
Using workbooks like these for all areas of language arts might work for some students, but it’s likely to be too much workbook activity for many. For the sake of variety, my recommendation would be to use some of them alongside something other than a workbook approach for the other areas of language arts.
