Michael Clay Thompson: Levels & Homeschool Packages - Series by Royal Fireworks Press

The MCT Curriculum has five components: Vocabulary, Grammar, Writing, Poetics and Literature, and supplemental Practice books. Currently there are six levels.

The Levels: The books in the Michael Clay Thompson Curriculum can be studied individually and ordered separately. However, they are designed to integrate your child’s studies, and they complement each other to provide a full language arts curriculum. Therefore, to get the most benefit, many parents prefer to buy all the books at the appropriate level for their child or children so that they can teach across the spectrum of grammar, vocabulary, writing, poetics and literature. It is for this reason we have put together packages that cost less than buying separately.

 Where to start? There is no hard and fast rule for knowing with which level to start. It depends of course on the age and competence of your child but also on how much work he or she has done in language arts. For children who would be in grades 3 through 4, it is generally better to begin at the Island Level. For those who would be in grade 5, the Town Level is often the better choice, and to those in grade 6, the Voyage Level is often the best level to start. For children whose entry-point is later, the recommended starting point is Word Within a Word Volume 1, Magic Lens 1, Poetry and Humanity, 4Practice1, and Essay Voyage. Where appropriate, the use of Essay Voyage can be abbreviated and the child moved on to Advanced Academic Writing Volume 1.

There is further advice on where to start in the Homeschool Catalog, and help from other parents on the MCTLA Forum.  

The Complete Packages have a student book and a parent manual (or teacher manual) for each level of the curriculum. This is the way Michael Clay Thompson intended his books to be used—for the child to read in the student book and for the parent or teacher to raise Socratic questions based on the boxes or bullets in the teacher or parent manuals. With the exception of the practice books, these are not workbooks but books to be read with concepts as well as competencies for the children to absorb—hence also his emphasis on the look and presentation of the material in the student books and his desire that each child should have his or her own student book.

The Basic Packages have only the teacher or parent manuals for the most part, except where you absolutely need a student book. This enables you to implement the curriculum but rather eviscerates the Socratic design of the implementation. However, these are difficult times and many homeschoolers are making do with only one income, and economies have to be embraced wherever they can be found. Even in this configuration however, where the students are working out of the teacher manual and have access to the teacher materials, it is still possible to raise the Socratic questions and to pursue them with your children. And it is generally very well worth doing.