Read testimonials from schools and homeschools teaching with the Simply Classical Curriculum …
It is so, so good to see things slowly starting to click with First Start Reading in the Simply Classical Curriculum. Honestly, I can’t thank you enough. – Tamara
I have been so happy with my son’s (age 9) success this year! As long as they continue making levels, we will continue using the Simply Classical Curriculum. I feel like this is “his” curriculum. – Jessica T.
I love the Simply Classical Curriculum. It is wonderful to hear the program will continue through high school. My heart rests easy now, knowing that my two children will always have the educational guidance they need. This is such a blessing to me. Wonderful fine-motor, multi-sensory suggestions included. Thank you. – Martha
It is a WONDERFUL curriculum. – Jessica N.
Lots of repetition, great stories, good pace, and appropriate accommodations as my little guy (age 5) struggles with fine motor skills and is preverbal. – Zeppy
Before coming to the Simply Classical Curriculum basically all I had done with my special-needs child was reading and math. I’m thankful to be broadening my child’s exposure through Level 3 with American history, literature, composition, Bible, grammar, and cursive. The American history series really is a great selection of stories. – Kellie
When at six my daughter had no interest in learning and was still not willing to do anything I tried Simply Classical Curriculum. She now loves to learn. Zoomed through A and B and is now on Level 2. We have had great success with the gentle approach of the Simply Classical Curriculum. This curriculum is derived from the inspiration of the book Simply Classical: A Beautiful Education for Any Child by Cheryl Swope, which I would recommend to anyone. Whether your child is diagnosed, different, or apparently average there is much wisdom in these pages. – Margaret
The language lessons are absolutely wonderful! His comprehension has soared! It’s the perfect pace for my son. He loves spelling and the stories we read. His expressive language is greatly improving! My son sits at the table each morning to wait to get started! It’s a wonderful sight. Thank you for everything. Just everything! – Nubia
So my son went from never even wanting to pick up a pencil or crayon to drawing! Huge improvements with this program. Moments like this let you step back and really see something amazing. – Aurora
I’m really glad I chose Level 1 of the Simply Classical Curriculum. I’ve seen a growth and confidence in him this year that I’ve never seen before. Something just clicked with this curriculum and I’m so glad we found it! – Erin
I am using Book One of Simply Classical’s Myself & Others: Lessons for Social Understanding, Habits, and Manners with both of my boys with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome/FAE. Lessons are basic but very good: washing hands, taking care of your nose in private, being kind, having good table manners. Each week there’s a read-aloud that goes with the lesson. My boys LOVED Rikki Tikki Tavi. Thank you! – Lillian
I had not found anything else like the Simply Classical Curriculum in the homeschool market. I am the parent of a child with severe mental insufficiency and developmental delay. She is also visually impaired and has autistic tendencies. She is six years old who functions basically on a two-year-old level, but without as much cognitive reasoning skills. I just wanted to thank you for making this special needs homeschool journey a little less lonely. Someone finally gets it! Thank you. – JB
Our son is 14. He has low-functioning autism, is non-verbal, has auditory processing disorder, muscle spasms, sensory integration disorder, and sleep disorder. Your book and curriculum have been an answer to prayer. – Elaine
The pre-writing skills are one of my favorite things about the special needs readiness curriculum!! I was thinking, “What? This can be FUN?” Because we were not having fun before the Simply Classical Curriculum. – JA
Grateful for the excellent books we get to dive into with Memoria Press! We use Myself & Others Book One. I love that my autistic 5-year-old and his neurotypical brothers all learn so much from each week and their love of good books continues to grow! Thank you for putting together these Myself & Others sets. They are wonderful for everyone! – Jeannette
This is our family’s fourteenth year of homeschooling. Our fifth child has Down Syndrome and is twelve years old. We are so grateful to have found the Simply Classical Curriculum. Last year we did Simply Classical Level B and it helped our son become more acquainted with academic work, reciting and listening. This year with Level C we are so excited. Up until now I would piece together a mish-mash of materials and activities, which would vary drastically according to my energy levels and his tolerance. We have hope finally that our son can feel proud to join his siblings in school work that is his level and he is really working! Perhaps most importantly he will be able to grow in good habits of learning. We promote this program to anyone with children who have special needs. It is just wonderful to have the practical format for skills and goals along with lesson plans that are easy to follow and allow for adding other special learning tools and therapy. Thank you VERY much for helping many special needs students including our son! – VH
I’m loving it! It’s been a joy to do with my daughter. I appreciate the open and go of well crafted plans. – FA
My twins made more progress with Simply Classical Level One than in any other year with any other programs. – Jennifer
Tomorrow will mark the end of 6 weeks and the difference in my son is remarkable. Yes, we are still working through some of the big issues but life is much better. The suggestions for the daily schedule, the picture cards, ideas for managing his anger and a beautiful curriculum have been a much needed breath of fresh air. The Simply Classical Curriculum is a wonderful fit and it is so wonderful to see him thriving in exciting ways. – Heidi
My son has severe anxiety and autism and is doing Simply Classical 3. We have time for him to go to extra therapies that are based on his needs, vision therapy, OT, PT, counseling, speech therapy, horseback (hippotherapy). The curriculum from Memoria is so much richer than anything they get in public school, too that I feel that he is getting a more robust education even if he isn’t learning any number of things the public school[s] are wasting time on these days. He’d likely be stuck in a self contained classroom due to his inability to cope with the larger environment (at least when he was younger). And those classrooms are notoriously bad at actually *teaching*. Especially for a child who has a high IQ. If he was spending every day in an environment that stressed him and caused him pain (like a noisy public school) then all of his at home time would be spent trying to recover and that’s not how I want to spend his childhood. I don’t believe he’d be where he is today if we had not homeschooled him. I strongly believe that homeschooling with Simply Classical is the single best option for an SPD/autism kid. – Miah
The Simply Classical Curriculum is the gentle approach to early learning we need right now. It complements my own educational preferences and offers an easy layout for my son’s day nurse and I to share. Thank you. – Kim
We love the way the Simply Classical Curriculum flows. It’s easy for teachers to understand to use in the classroom every day. We really liked the kinesthetic activities with the reading curriculum. – Erika (classical school)
He is reading!! My mom told me she didn’t think he would ever learn to read. It’s all thanks to this program. This curriculum makes no leaps in knowledge. It’s just little steps, one after another. I couldn’t be happier. – Michelle B.
My husband and I are now completely sold on this curriculum. My son is already making a ton of progress. He wakes us wanting to “do school” each morning. He said “please” to the lady at the store and is now saying simple prayers out loud. Your curriculum has helped so much! – Melissa
This curriculum is a beautiful, gentle approach for a beginning writer. – Dianna
Simply Classical Curriculum…it is so great! My son’s therapist is so frequently either recommending things that we’re already doing in Level C or, when I tell her what we’re doing she’s *so* impressed by it. Genuinely impressed. I would highly recommend the Simply Classical Curriculum. I feel like it’s teaching me to be not just a parent but a teacher. Things I just would not think to teach/do in a million years. – Sarah in Australia
I absolutely love the enrichment curriculum and how nicely it guides me through the comprehension questions. He does not like having to think and figure things out but the stories are so good that he never refuses to sit and read with me. My son is 6.4 years old on the spectrum. He was relatively nonverbal until about 4.5 and was all over the place with sensory functioning. We are a family of 5, 2 boys and a baby girl. – Denise
For the first time ever, she answered “What day was it yesterday? Tomorrow?” WITH NO HELP!!! She gets it!! She really gets it!! My daughter with Down syndrome is now age 10 in Level C. And loves it! – Jatina
Love this! I’m teaching Level 1 with an 8-year-old slow learner. Very impressed! Could also use this for a younger child who is ready to read. Very flexible. – ET
We teach our son with Down syndrome from Level A. It’s a really good fit. Lots of repetition and fun books. – Julie W.
For my son, working on pointing (in the first level, Simply Classical Level A) has been huge and now he can isolate his finger and point, and as a result is exploring his environment more, pointing at pictures (non-verbal) to ask what is on the picture. Thank you! – Cortney
You made it perfect for our asynchronous children! – Christine
I have found this curriculum isn’t nearly as time consuming as I feared and works really well with my son. Reading for him had been such a struggle. I had started considering the fact that he may never read well. Now I am so much more hopeful and have such a sense of relief. His printing and spelling have also greatly improved. He is even doing great with cursive. I have also been surprised with how much he likes doing recitations. This curriculum has been such a blessing, and I am overwhelmed with the results. So for those of you debating about trying this curriculum I highly recommend it. I plan on using every level SC comes out with. – Emily
Do you know what a MIRACLE this feels like to me and to our family? Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was trying to do homeschool by myself, piecemeal, and we were making progress but there were so many “holes” I didn’t know how to fill in his learning that I was overwhelmed. This curriculum has been a true answer to prayer. Not enough good things to say, truly. Thank you! His verbal output, processing, temperament, fine motor, organizational thinking, understanding, ability, PEACE and ENTHUSIASM have soared. We have a different child now. He is making actual conversation! (!!!!!). We absolutely LOVE IT and are seeing so much excitement, improvement, willingness to learn, and comprehension open up for him. Not enough good things to say. It has been such a blessing to find this curriculum. – Anita
I have found this curriculum to be the perfect fit for our needs. If I pull out his lesson book for the week he immediately comes over and plops down in my lap. The books chosen for each week are wonderful. Simply Classical Curriculum gave me exactly what I was looking for, something concrete to do with him to work on oral language skills. He has just grown so much in his vocabulary when we work with him on his lessons, we have gone down to every other week in speech therapy instead of every week; even his therapist has noticed a great increase in his vocabulary since we started working with him on this curriculum. I just get to see his little face light up each time we read a book. – Michelle V.
My daughter has Down syndrome. With the Simply Classical Curriculum we now start each day with a prayer from the beautiful Little Golden Book Prayers for Children. When we talk about the baby birds and mama bird on the page, Kate practices her speech and her signing. From there, each day includes basic calendar activities (days of the week and weather), counting and alphabet recitation, as well as beginning memory work from Scripture. We then read the book of the week. Cheryl Swope has chosen wonderful books from authors including Beatrix Potter, Richard Scarry, Eric Carle, and Margaret Wise Brown, among others. Because these are board books, they are perfect for little hands and allow Kate to practice her fine motor skills by turning the pages for me. Fine and gross motor, oral language, and other therapies are wrapped into the weekly readings. We practice making a pointing finger to count objects; we jump, squat down, and push strollers to act out parts of a story; we discuss feelings and learn empathy while learning to read emotions on the faces of the characters. Cheryl Swope has taken those skills that need explicit instruction and woven them beautifully into activities springing out of the books we are reading. She has captured special needs preschool and bottled it inside something true, good, and beautiful. We knew early on that Kate needed an early start to build a foundation that came easily for her brothers. We knew her development was an uphill climb from the beginning. But we also knew that given the skills, the input, and the time, she would be able to fly…. For us, that takes the form of early reading instruction, explicit math instruction, and a beautifully written preschool special needs curriculum. And she is thriving.
Update: I just wanted to say how much we are enjoying the books – first from Level A and now in Level B. Kate has begun to enjoy longer stories…. And a special note on Owl Babies. Recently, she has been asking us to read it to her all the time. We obliged, mostly because she is so cute saying “Mommy” at the end of Bill’s lines. I’ve had to tell anyone who reads it to her (dad, brothers, and the young woman who comes and plays with her once a week) to stop after Bill says, “I want my … “ because Kate will chime in. Yay for encouraging oral language! Thank you for choosing such wonderful books, and for choosing ones that challenge our children just enough to gently push them in their growth and development. – Brit
My daughter (dyslexia, depression, low intelligence) has actually learned with the Simply Classical Curriculum and is now progressing one year at a time. She now tests on grade level in reading. This is due to your curriculum. – Jennifer
Such a beautiful curriculum! Thank you! – Sarah S.
Cheryl Swope, the creator of Simply Classical, starts out the curriculum much like you start school with a new class. You don’t jump in to everything right away, you slowly build up your routine, adding a new component every few days. That meant the first few days were fairly short. Now at the end of the second week we are working through a Core Skills phonics program, First Start Reading book, Arithmetic, and Copywork for penmanship. It is clear by now that the challenge level for my daughter is spot on. The work takes mental concentration for her, she gets slightly frustrated but not to such a degree that she gives up, and her accomplishments come with real pride because she has worked through hard concepts. The morning session is about an hour long, we generally do two subjects during that time. By the end she has reached saturation point and is ready for a break, but eager to come back in the afternoon for our second session. During the “down time” between our morning session and afternoon session, my kids are so incredibly creative and happy! I started this curriculum because the spontaneous, child-led learning approach wasn’t taking root. Now I walk into the living room to discover the girls drawing portraits of one another (after we talked about Michelangelo and sacred art, one of the lesson plans). They make complex magnatile structures trying to identify all the shapes and patterns they can combine. They dress up as bugs living in their natural habitat (nature lesson). They try to sound out words and make up poems. They whirl and twirl to celtic music on pandora while trying to count their steps. Wheeeee! THIS is what I was envisioning when I wanted to homeschool. Turns out my kids need a little structure and a dash of intentional wholesome beauty in order for their creativity and joy to take root and BLOSSOM. And my joy in teaching them has blossomed too. There are so many little suggestions in the lessons plans for how to intertwine lessons. All the multisensory, tactile, and play concepts mesh with my occupational therapy background perfectly. – HH
My son has dyslexia, apraxia of speech, sensory issues, and ADHD. I have taught from the Simply Classical Curriculum for several years, but I wish I’d known of MP and Simply Classical from the beginning! It would have made this journey smoother for sure. – Susan