Today I want to share 5 online language arts must-haves for your homeschool that I think you’re really going to like. I know a lot of parents are looking for online language arts curriculums that are as robust as some of the best online math programs like Beast Academy and Teaching Textbooks. Unfortunately, it’s harder to find an all-in-one online language arts curriculum.
If you’re just looking for an online reading program, that’s no problem. But if you want to teach your kids grammar rules, writing skills, reading comprehension, and that sort of thing, it can definitely be harder to find. So here are 5 online language arts programs for your homeschool that you should really check out.
Essentials in Writing
First up is possibly my favorite homeschooling curriculum of all time, Essentials in Writing. This is an online language arts program that teaches grammar and writing skills including essay writing and other composition skills. It uses video lessons that are short and to the point and printed worksheets to go along with the videos.
It’s completely open and go. Nothing for parents to do other than get the video loaded and print off the worksheets. And if you’re not keen on reviewing or grading your student’s work yourself, they offer a scoring service as well, although I will warn you that it tends to sell out quickly every year.
In our family, we do this program about 3 or 4 days a week, one lesson per day, and it’s been working out really well. It’s taught my older daughter about the different parts of speech, sentence structure, how to write paragraphs and essays, and this year she’ll be learning how to write a research paper. And I don’t have to teach any of it, I just review what she’s done and help her when she has questions. So it’s been a really positive experience for both myself and my daughter.
Essentials in Writing offers their writing curriculum for kids in first grade all the way through high school. The full-year curriculum is just $99 for the digital version or $119 for the year if you prefer to have the worksheets printed and mailed to you. They also offer a complete literature curriculum for kids in grades 7 through 12, and you can purchase these separately, or bundle them with the writing curriculum.
Scholar Within Online Language Arts Program
So you’ve got grammar, writing, and literature covered with Essentials in Writing, but what about reading comprehension, vocabulary, and reading fluency? Well, a really great online program I’ve found for all of this is called Scholar Within.
We’ve been using this since the beginning of this current school year, and I will admit, at first I was kind of intimidated. It honestly seems like a lot, like it’s going to take up so much time. I even did a full review of this program before we actually really got into it, and if you watch that video you might notice how I thought it was going to be just so much work.
But after using it for about 6 months, I’ve found it’s actually not anywhere near as time-consuming as I thought it would be. And I think that’s because I’ve learned you can definitely tailor it to meet your own family’s needs, and you don’t have to do every single thing in it.
Once of the reasons we use this program is because of the daily fluency drills. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes, but it’s something that I think is so important to help your child become a better reader. And we don’t always get to it every day Monday through Friday, but as long as you remember where you left off in the program you’ll be fine. I also really love the reading comprehension and note taking. I think taking organized notes is an important skill for anyone to learn but maybe especially for homeschoolers. And the reading passages they’ve chosen for the program are a really interesting mix of fiction and non fiction.
They also have new vocab words every week, and this part of the program was a little time consuming but we’ve made it our own by only doing the exercises on the weeks when my daughter didn’t know all the words. So I basically gave her a chance to spell the words correctly first before we did the lesson, and if she got all of them or most all of them right, we just skipped it for that week. There are also a few other parts of the program included that we don’t use much, but it’s nice that they have them if you want them.
The Scholar Within reading and spelling program is available for kids in Kindergarten through 8th grade, and you can pay monthly or yearly. You can also choose whether to print the materials at home or have them shipped to you. We had them shipped and I do appreciate the quality of the printing. It’s not just cheap computer paper, and the workbooks are put together for you. But of course, printing at home is less expensive. And if you want to get just the spelling portion of the program, you can do that too.
Night Zookeeper
If you’re looking for a way to help your child tap into their creative writing ability while also working on their grammar skills, Night Zookeeper is a really fun program to consider. Kids will get to create their own zoo animals, and receive prompts to create fun stories about the animals in the zoo. They’ll also play games that will help them practice their grammar, vocab and spelling skills.
What I love about this program is that it’s kind of sneaky. A lot of the writing that happens doesn’t seem like schoolwork. I remember when my older daughter was using this program, she kept asking me why I was having her do it for school because she didn’t think she was actually learning anything. But then you go in as the parent and see all the words they’ve written and the writing they’ve done, and you realize they’re actually learning a lot. It’s so cool.
Night Zookeeper is designed for kids ages 6 to 12, and some homeschool families have been able to use this as their main homeschool curriculum for language arts, although I view it more as a supplement. There isn’t really any direct instruction that would make it feel more like a complete program. But if you have a child who is kind of reluctant to do a more formal language arts curriculum, this could be a great choice because it’s really a lot of fun for kids.
You can get a 7 day free trial of the Night Zookeeper program, which is nice. After that you’ll pay $119.90 for a full year, or $14.99 a month. They also have a 3 month payment option for $36.99 every 3 months.
Lightsail Online Language Arts Program
If you want a program where your kids can read books online, but you’re concerned about the content and don’t trust a random online program where you have no idea what types of books your child might be reading, you might want to check out Lightsail. Out of all the online reading programs out there, I have never found another program with the type of extensive parental controls offered by this program. So you can rest assured that your child won’t be exposed to inappropriate content or any type of content that you don’t approve of.
There is a lot included in this program, including classic books and audiobooks, a Worldbook encyclopedia, unit studies, and videos. The program also teaches writing, vocabulary, and reading fluency. So you get a lot for the money. You can also get a 7-day free trial with no credit card required, and that’s something you don’t find in a lot of online programs.
There are several different pricing options to choose from, but the premium option will include everything, and you can get that for $15 a month or $99 for a year.
There really is a lot to this program, but it can be a bit complicated, so I have a full video review on my YouTube channel that you can check out if you want to learn more.
IXL
Finally, last on our list is one of my favorite homeschool resources and it’s definitely a must have online language arts program for homeschool. It’s called IXL, and it’s a great tool to help your child practice and improve all of their reading and language arts skills, from phonics to grammar to reading comprehension. And the best part is their real-time diagnostics tool which will determine where your child needs extra practice and even suggest specific activities to help them improve in those areas.
IXL has language arts skills for kids in PreK through high school. They also have short video lessons for some of the topics as well as games to practice what you’ve learned. You can go in order and have your child do all the lessons for their grade level, or you can just focus on a specific topic such as spelling or vocabulary. So there are a lot of ways to use this program to meet your needs.
A single subject membership to IXL is just $9.95 a month, which is really a great deal. And while you won’t find a free trial offer on the IXL website, I do have a link for you here where you can sign up to try IXL free for 7 days. Or, if you already know you want to purchase this program, I have a 20% off coupon for you as well.
So that’s my list of the top 5 best online language arts programs for homeschool. Hopefully, you found something new to try in your homeschool. If you have any questions on anything from this list, leave a comment and I’ll be happy to answer. Thank you!
