Building a Strong Foundation: Spectrum Workbooks for Kindergarten Learning

Discover a comprehensive learning resource with Spectrum Workbooks for Kindergarten, offering a wide range of subjects from math and language arts to science and social studies. Language Arts, Phonics, Reading, Sight Words, and Writing are reviewed.

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J’s birthday is in October.  That means he was too young to be considered a kindergartener in our state when he was turning 5.  

However, the beauty of homeschooling is that we can work at his level rather than let a state regulation dictate things.  

So, we are slowly easing into kindergarten-level work including the use of several Spectrum workbooks we were sent to review.

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About Spectrum Workbooks

Spectrum has been around for 15 years providing focused subject, and skill-specific practice for skill mastery and test success.

They are just one arm of the larger Carson-Dellosa Publishing Group which was founded over 38 years ago by two teachers.

They now have over 60 new titles for Pre-K to Grade 8 updated to meet current state and national standards in the subjects of math, English / language arts, science, social studies, and test preparation.

The lessons and exercises are designed to help students master the subject matter.

Each book is available in print format or as an ebook.

Looking at Spectrum Workbooks for Kindergarten Learning

For this review, we were sent the following subjects at the kindergarten level (recommended for ages 5 to 6):  Language Arts, Phonics, Reading, Sight Words, and Writing.

Language Arts

Spectrum Language Arts for Kindergarten includes focused practice for language arts mastery such as parts of speech, grammar and usage, capitalization and punctuation, and a writer’s guide.

Spectrum® Reading workbooks contain focused practice for reading comprehension, including letters and sounds, word recognition, integration of knowledge and ideas, key ideas and details, main idea, story structure, theme, and summarization.

Each lesson features an illustrated story followed by an exercise in comprehension skills.

A variety of fiction and nonfiction reading passages combined with standards-based learning make these workbooks an essential resource for school success. A complete answer key is included.

Phonics

Reinforce your kindergartner’s new skills with Spectrum Phonics.

With the progressive lessons in this workbook, your child will strengthen reading skills involving letter recognition, consonant and short vowel sounds, and ABC order.

The Spectrum® Phonics series provides your child with skill-building exercises that focus on phonics, structural analysis, and dictionary skills.

Phonics for grades K–2 guides students progressively through letter sounds, blends, and pairs and how they combine to form words.

Reading

Spectrum Reading for Kindergarten includes focused practice for reading comprehension such as letters and sounds, word recognition, integration of knowledge and ideas, and key ideas and details.

Spectrum® Reading workbooks contain focused practice for reading comprehension, including letters and sounds, word recognition, integration of knowledge and ideas, key ideas and details, main idea, story structure, theme, and summarization.

Each lesson features an illustrated story followed by exercise in comprehension.

A variety of fiction and nonfiction reading passages combined with standards-based learning make these workbooks an essential resource for school success. A complete answer key is included.

Sight Words

Reinforce your kindergartner’s reading skills with Spectrum Sight Words.

With this workbook’s targeted activities, including sight word sentence strips, your child will practice recognizing and writing commonly used words.

Spectrum® Sight Words will help your child master 300 high-frequency words that appear in books for early readers.

Based on Fry’s Instant Sight Words, this engaging workbook series includes fun activities, flash cards, and answer keys to help build fluency, reading, and writing skills.

Writing

Spectrum® Writing for kindergarten guides students through each step of the writing process as they write sentences, personal stories, descriptions, how-to instructions, book reports, and more.

Spectrum® Writing workbooks guide students as they write for a variety of purposes, including writing to tell a story, writing to provide information, and writing to state an opinion.

Lessons support current state standards. Step-by-step instructions help with planning, drafting, revising, proofreading, and sharing writing.

A Writer’s Handbook reinforces grammar and language skills, and a complete Answer Key is included.

Engaging, open-ended writing projects combined with standards-based learning make these workbooks an essential resource for school success.

All of the Spectrum Workbooks showcased here can also be ordered on Amazon.

Our Thoughts on Spectrum Workbooks

Now, not all of the kindergarten level books we were sent are ones that J is ready to use.

He’s still struggling at learning his letters while numbers have come more easily.

These books have been fantastic to bring with us on Thursdays for some school work while we are waiting for the older boys to finish their AcaDeca study group.  

One week when we brought these books with us I had a few homeschooling moms come over to take a look.  

Like me, they were impressed with the value and that a separate teacher key is not needed. Rather, the answer key is included in the back of each workbook with 4 student pages shown per page.  

Several of the kindergarten-level books have color illustrations.  

As much as I love ebooks, I recognize the cost of printing in color and can’t see how you’d find a better deal than the bound Spectrum workbooks.

So far, J has worked predominantly in the Phonics and Writing ones as those are the skills we are working on already.  

Both of these books are ones with full-color pages that help to engage the child and make it easier for them to recognize images.

He might be going slow, but considering the state doesn’t consider him to be a kindergartner until next August that’s just fine by me.

Do you use workbooks in your homeschool for any subjects?