Beyond Five in a Row Volume 1

  A Good Starting Point, but Not the Best Fit

Jennifer of Oregon, 5/3/2011

As a mother looking for an enriching, memorable preschool experience to share with my daughter, I was not entirely satisfied with Five in a Row.

I would love to rave about this curriculum as so many others have, but in too many respects I found it didn't meet my expectations. The lesson plan suggestions vacillate between unengaging and incomplete. On more than one occasion, the age-appropriate math activity consisted of little more than flipping pages to count objects in the illustrations. Often the author suggests that you start a dialog with your child about a relationship or a character's behavior when, in fact, these topics arise naturally throughout the reading of the book and do not merit more than brief discussion afterward.

At the end of the day, this curriculum was more milk than meat and I've got a daughter who craves more challenging materials.

On a positive note, we added many great titles to our home library while preparing to use this guide, several that I would not have considered for purchase otherwise. Not all were hits, but the ones we loved are real treasures.