The Old Schoolhouse® Lab
Product Reviews
Compiled and edited by Kate Kessler,
Product Reviews Director
Welcome to the November is- sue of The Old
Schoolhouse® Magazine’s
Lab! I am starting to
think about holiday prep-
arations; are you? I love
this time of year! I really
look forward to Thanks-
giving, and I hope you
enjoy yours.
This month we bring you
a great mix of products
from almost every area
of schooling. If you were
to purchase one of each
of the following products,
you would have a great
school year! We have reviews of programs in the
following areas: writing,
math, vocabulary, spelling, history, and computer
programming, as well as
some excellent books.
We hope you find
something helpful and
encouraging!
King Alfred’s English: A History
of the Language We Speak and
Why We Should Be Glad We Do
Laurie White
The Shorter Word
www.theshorterword.com
Stop! Don’t scroll through—this isn’t
“just another review.” So I’m going to
put it in the top paragraph. Buy. This.
Book. Read. This. Book. It needs to be
in your library. What is the book? King
Alfred’s English from The Shorter Word.
Go ahead and click over and just get it
and skip my review. You as the parent
need to read it. Your teens will enjoy
reading it.
Have you read through a book—and
on the last page had the regret of not
reading more slowly? Have you flipped
the last page and felt like you had a fun
afternoon with the author and wished
she lived in your town? This is how I
felt on the last page of King Alfred’s
English by Laurie J. White. But let me
back up. I was given the opportunity to
review King Alfred’s English as a part of
my tour with the Schoolhouse Review
Crew. The tag line on the book is as
follows: “A history of the language we
speak and why we should be glad we
do.” Researching word meanings and
origins is a hobby of mine. I love look-
ing up Greek and Hebrew words from
the Bible. I like to know which original
texts the words came from and to ob-
serve how the NIV translation is from
a different original text than the KJV
translation. Little things like that float
my boat. (. . .)
