Catholic home educators who want to use Emma Serl’s Language Lessons should check out Hillside Education’s editions. You can read my review of Lost Classics Book Company’s editions (LC) of these books where I describe the methodology. Yet another version is published by Living Books Press (LB). However, Hillside Education has made more changes to these books than either of the other publishers to update and enhance them as well as to add elements supportive of a Catholic education.
The Hillside Education (HE) editions are spiral bound like the LB editions so they will lie flat as students copy or read from the book. Books are not consumable, so students need to maintain a separate notebook for their written work. The HE editions have some full-color pictures and some reprinted in black-and-white like LC and LB editions. Some poems and lessons have been updated, and entirely new lessons added such as a “conversation lesson” with discussion questions based on a quote from St. Dominic Savio that lead in a spiritual direction. Note that HE’s Primary Language Lessons is used in Mother of Divine Grace's 3rd grade curriculum and in the Mater Amabilis Charlotte Mason curriculum.
As with the LC and LB editions, Primary Language Lessons is intended for second and third graders while Intermediate Language Lessons is for fourth through sixth graders. The sixth grade portion of HE’s Intermediate Language Lessons has been edited more heavily than the rest of the book so that there is a smoother transition into HE’s own Lingua Mater 7.
Free downloadable teacher’s guides and answers keys are available on the HE website.
