| | |  | Software | Home » » Rosetta Stone Homeschool Hebrew Level 1 including Audio Companion | | | | | | | Description: | | Rosetta Stone Homeschool features a foreign language curriculum specifically designed to provide homeschool students with a rich, fully interactive and engaging language-learning experience, while giving parents the tools and resources needed to manage student progress without extensive planning or supervision. Rosetta Stone Homeschool is self-paced and designed to make it easy for parents to offer language learning even if they don't speak the language their students are studying. Students are instantly captivated by Rosetta Stone so they stay engaged. Plus, with positive reinforcement and quick results, their language-learning confidence soars! | | | Features: | |
• Rosetta Stone Homeschool teaches your student a new language naturally, the same way they mastered their first language.
• Innovative solutions get them speaking new words, right from the start.
• Rosetta Stone Homeschool moves forward only when your student is ready--you set the schedule and your student drives the pace.
• Parent Administrative Tools allow you to formulate lesson plans, manage your student's progress and track their success.
• Audio Companion CDs let them reinforce the Rosetta Stone experience anytime, anywhere.
| | | Product Details: | | | Package Length:
| 7.7 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.5 inches | | Package Height:
| 3.0 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.45 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 2 reviews |
| | | System Requirements: | | | Platform:
| Windows Vista / Mac OS X Intel / Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard / Windows XP | | Media:
| CD-ROM | | Item Quantity:
| 1 |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 2 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Great ProgramJul 04, 2011
By Emily W.
I haven't been using Rosetta Stone very long (maybe a week and a half), so I'll have to update this later, but so far I think it's an excellent language program. I do want to mention though that the standard version is aimed at adults, and although the Homeschool version includes additional curriculum options and additional features for parents to administer the course, the content is the same as the standard version, and is not designed for young children. I'd recommend this for adults (using either this or the regular version), high school students, and maybe mature middle school students, but I think that for younger children there are probably better options available. Younger students could probably use Rosetta Stone easily enough, but might not find the content as engaging or the rewards (exclusively subtle positive feedback in the form of answering questions correctly) as salient. The program does assume that students are at least able to read English, although I think that with some help, a younger child who's not yet reading could probably do the program (especially using the speaking/listening curriculum) well enough to benefit some from it. However, even for somewhat older children who wouldn't have any trouble with the reading, I would recommend this for elementary school students, or probably many middle school students, simply because I don't think they'll find it engaging or enjoyable enough to really benefit from it, or to enjoy it and leave wanting to keep learning languages.
I purchased this for myself (a recent college graduate, not a homeschool student), but purchased the homeschool edition because at the time I bought it, it was marked down to a lower price than the standard edition, and includes everything the standard version does plus several extra features, and I wasn't going to pay more just to not have it come with some extra things I might not use. As it turns out, the homeschool edition is actually exactly the same software as the regular edition, except that it includes some extra materials (worksheets and parents guide), and some additional features (more curriculum options, and a parent control panel with progress reports and curriculum options) that have a separate activation code that you can choose to enter or not (until you enter the additional homeschool activation code, it is literally just the regular version, and once you activate the homeschool features, you don't loose any features from the standard version, you just add a few new ones). I have ended up using the Full Year curriculum, which is exclusive to the homeschool version, because this slower paced and includes more review than any of the standard options, and I wanted the slowest paced curriculum available.
I've always had a very hard time learning languages. I'm dyslexic, which, although best known as a reading disability, effects how I learn languages too (I could have actually been except from the foreign language requirement in high school because of this, but I didn't find that out until I'd already finished the required three years of Spanish). I have trouble memorizing things, especially details like the order of letters in a word, or meanings of words (I was pretty good at grammar in Spanish, as well as English, but I have almost no Spanish vocabulary, and although my English vocabulary is pretty good, I was never able to memorize the vocabulary words we were given in school each week once we were too old for spelling tests). After 6 years of French in Elementary school, followed by 6 years of Spanish in middle and high school, I can count to 29 in French, and although I do know several words in Spanish (double digits, I think, not even including letters or numbers -- I also know the alphabet, and can count to 199 in Spanish), it's still less than what my dad learned in a few weeks before we went to Spain, and nowhere near enough to get by in Spanish-speaking countries. In 5th grade French, all of my classmates could at least answer simple questions in French if not carry on a basic conversation; although I have forgotten some French since then, all I ever knew was the alphabet and numbers through 199. In 11th grade Spanish, my classmates were all at least conversational if not fluent or close to, although most had started when I did (6th grade) or later (mainly 9th grade), not in elementary school; I try (unsuccessfully) to speak Spanish often enough, both through travel, and living in an area with a large Spanish-speaking population that my Spanish is as good as or better than it was at the end of 11th grade, but I still can rarely communicate with more than a fairly small number of single words in Spanish (I'd say my ability to communicate in Spanish is comparable to that of maybe an 18-month-old child in his native language). So that's where I'm coming from with this.
However, I've become increasingly interested in exploring my Jewish heritage, and despite the trouble I have with languages, I really want to learn Hebrew. I started off studying on my own, and after a few months, I knew the alphabet reasonably well, and given enough time could sound out any Hebrew word, although I only know what maybe five of them actually meant. When the rabbi at my synagog offered a Hebrew reading course, I was way ahead of the other students since I already knew the names of the letters and (more or less) what sounds they make, as well as approximately what sounds most of the vowels make (although I didn't, and still don't, know their names), which is a rare experience for me in a language class -- I'm normally way behind the rest of the class (I was even behind in First Year Spanish in 9th grade, when I'd already had three years of Spanish in middle school!). However, while I can now read Hebrew words probably as well as I'm going to without knowing the words, I wanted more. At first, I just wanted to be able to read Hebrew prayers, but then I wanted to understand them, too, and maybe even be able to speak/understand a bit when I go to Israel (hopefully this winter). So after a bit of research, I decided to try Rosetta Stone.
I was hesitant at first. I haven't exactly had a lot of success learning foreign languages, and over the years, I've come to dread language classes. However, I was determined enough to learn Hebrew that when my Rosetta Stone CDs came, I forced myself to install and try the program the same evening. And to my surprise, I could do it! Not only that, but I was even excited to do the next lesson! Just today, I had to force myself to *stop* doing Rosetta stone after just two activities to do some chores around the house. In the past, I would have done just about anything (yes, including chores) to get out of foreign language class/homework, but with Rosetta Stone, I actually want to keep doing it. I'm actually learning the material, and can do most of the activities even when I've gone a couple days without using the program (I don't use my computer on Shabbos (Friday night to Saturday night), and don't always have time after work on Friday to do anything other than get ready for Shabbos); several times, I've even surprised myself when I could match a word/phrase to a picture, or even supply the correct phrase for a picture based on related phrases and what I've (apparently) learned about Hebrew grammar. I also sometimes find myself practicing what I've learned in my head, so I'm pretty sure I'm absorbing at least some amount of the material.
I'm using the absolute slowest paced curriculum available, and have already had to repeat an activity or two. However, my dad, who was exceptionally good at languages (I do know one person who I think is better at languages than he was, but she's a professional translator, and has some freaky ability to translate stuff while reading a magazine), used Rosetta Stone for Spanish, and while I don't find it too hard, as far as I know (I never asked him, but since he stuck with it, and he never did do things he found boring, I'm just assuming), he didn't find it too easy, either. If it can go slowly for me, just about anyone can do it (in some relevant areas, I score at the 1st percentile on standardized measures, so at least in those areas, I can say with reasonable confidence that 99% of people of age will find at least some aspects of the program easier than I do). And if it can go fast enough for my dad, I think that very few people will find it too slow.
****
Update: After just over 2 weeks, I'm just over half way through the first unit (out of four; this puts me part way through week 5 of the suggested full year lesson plan, which looks like it generally takes about 10-15 minutes a day, occasionally up to 30 minutes, 5 days a week; I've been averaging probably about 30 minutes a day, 4-5 days a week). Out of 33 activities (23 unique activities; with the full year curriculum, 8 of the 10 activities -- all but the core lesson and review -- for each lesson are repeated in the following lesson), I've had to repeat two because I didn't achieve a passing score (which I think is over 85%), and have repeated a handful more because, although I did meet the program's standards, I wasn't satisfied with my performance. So far, I've come across exactly one exercise that I just could not do, out of probably a couple hundred exercises, and while it was very frustrating, I suspect that most people would have been able to do it by that point in the course.
Even though it's been barely over 2 weeks, I'm already starting to recognize some words in both spoken and written Hebrew (I've been hearing spoken Hebrew fairly regularly the past few weeks while I've been working at a Jewish summer camp where most of the kids know Hebrew, and a couple kids even speak it at homes, and I see written Hebrew in Siddurim -- Jewish prayer books -- on a daily basis, as well as in some of the materials we use at camp). What I've found particularly exciting though is that I not only recognize certain words, but I know them right away, instead of having to stop and think about it like I do for words I've memorized. Some of the time, I don't even know it's a word I know, it the meaning just kind of pops into my head when I hear it, or sometimes even when I need to produce it myself (so far, I haven't tried speaking Hebrew apart from the exercises in the program, and I definitely don't know enough to do more than label a handful of things with their Hebrew name, but I did actually have occasion to look for a particular word, which I'd learned from Rosetta Stone, in a Hebrew text, and I actually knew what to look for without having to try to call up something I'd memorized), which, in addition to being kind of exciting, makes me think that as I go on, it's going to be more natural to speak Hebrew, and less reliant on English translations, so instead of thinking something like "he means she, who means he" (part of a song my rabbi taught me to remember a few Hebrew words), it's more like when I learn new English words and just sort of know what they mean (even though I learned "blue" and "green" long before I learned "turquoise," when I think of "turquoise," I just think of the color, rather than thinking it's a sort of greenish blue color), which is much more conducive to speaking fluently and understanding fluent speech. Translating everything takes time, and tends to slow things down beyond normal conversation speed (at least for me).
So far, my main complaint is that there isn't any instruction in actually writing, only typing. For languages that use the same alphabet as English, this isn't a problem, but since Hebrew uses a different alphabet, I can't learn to write anything by hand if all I'm doing is typing. I've been using some workbooks to learn to read and write (not much vocabulary, and no grammar though, mainly just the aleph-bais and basic phonics), and can pretty much write all the letters, although I did write an aleph backwards today when I was trying to help some of my campers write Rosh Hashanah in Hebrew, and I can't read or write cursive at all, but considering that (thanks to my dyslexia) it took me several years to learn to write all the English letters the right way, and I can barely read or write English cursive either, I don't think it's too bad. However, I do wish there were some worksheets or something to go with this to learn to actually write Hebrew, and not just type it.
My only other complaint is that I would really like to learn Ashkenazi pronunciation, since my dad was Ashkenazi, so that's what his family would have used, and it's also what my community uses, and I wish that Rosetta Stone had that option. However, since the Sephardic pronunciation (which is what Rosetta Stone uses) is what's used in Israel, and by the vast majority of native speakers, it's totally justified for them to use that pronunciation. At this point though, I use sort of a weird mix of Ashkenazi and Sephardic pronunciations, where I use Ashkenazi pronunciation prayers and such (basically for biblical Hebrew), and Sephardic pronunciation for modern Hebrew. The sav/tav thing gets very confusing, although I think most of the other differences are still more subtle than the suckiness of my pronunciation.
3 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 pleasedJul 06, 2010
By RMW
I purchased this product for my son, an interested but not necessarily serious language learner. He has enjoyed using it. It gives him the multiple sensory input needed for engagement and deeper learning. It has been simple to load and use. The only complaint would be the headset. In less than 1 month, the wiring has become loose.
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