Faith Schooling vs Abeka for K–5 reading and math

Which one fits: the short answer

Abeka sells a complete per-grade kit — Bible, language arts, arithmetic, history and geography, science and health — for one child, with optional video teachers, and it continues through Grade 12. Faith Schooling sells one household membership covering K–5 reading, phonics, cursive and math, taught by the parent from scripts, with no science or history at all.

So the first question is not which is better. It is whether you are buying a whole school year in one box or buying the reading and math half and supplying the rest yourself. If history and science have to arrive in the same order, Abeka is the cleaner purchase, and this page will not argue you out of it.

What each one is, and who does the teaching

Abeka comes from Pensacola Christian College and carries classroom DNA: colorful worktexts, scripted teacher manuals, quizzes, tests and speed drills. Its phonics is intensive and explicit — the Handbook for Reading, letters and sounds, special sounds, front-end blending. Reviewers including Cathy Duffy and Rainbow Resource describe it as one of the strongest traditional phonics programs available.

The teaching is done by you, from the lesson plans, or by Abeka Academy's video teachers if you would rather not teach every lesson. Abeka does not publish a K–5 daily time total. Reviewers consistently describe the parent-led kits as seatwork-heavy and the video lessons as long, and that workload is the criticism raised most often in published reviews of the program.

Faith Schooling is always parent-taught. There are no video teachers and no screen the child sits in front of to learn. A complete reading lesson is scripted step by step and runs 45 to 55 minutes; Learning Cursive is 10 to 15 minutes a day. The books print at home, and the browser carries placement, the teaching guides, the games and the member workspace.

Side by side

Every Abeka fact below was observed on Abeka's own site and its 2026–2027 homeschool order materials in August 2026. Packages and prices change without notice, so price your own order before deciding rather than trusting a table on anyone's website, including this one.

What it costs, and how the two Grade 1 figures reconcile

Our notes held two different Abeka Grade 1 totals, and the arithmetic reconciles them: they are the same child kit with a different parent kit beside it. A Grade 1 child kit is $473.85. Add the Essential Parent Kit at $390.60 and the year is about $864; add the Complete Parent Kit instead and it comes to about $1,215. Neither figure was wrong; they were answering different questions.

So the number you should plan against depends on which parent kit you buy, and that is worth deciding deliberately rather than by default. Both were observed in August 2026 from Abeka's own site and its 2026-2027 homeschool order materials. Packages and prices change without notice, so price your own order before deciding rather than trusting a table on anyone's website, including this one.

From the same materials: language arts child kits run roughly $298 to $410 by grade, with Grade 1 at $366.80; arithmetic child kits are $42.45, and parent arithmetic kits add roughly $150 to $240. Upper elementary runs heavier - Grade 3 about $1,094, Grade 4 about $1,272, Grade 5 about $1,266. Accredited Abeka Academy video for elementary was $1,442 for 2026-2027.

No official sibling discount was found on the parent-led book kits. Hardcover books can be reused with the next child; consumable worktexts and tests are bought again. Faith Schooling All Access is $39 a month, or $299 for the founding first year and then $349 a year, for one household and every K-5 child - but you print the pages yourself, and paper and toner are a real cost we are not pretending away.

What you can read before you spend anything

Abeka publishes a free scope-and-sequence PDF for each grade, sample videos, and enrichment downloads. The full lesson plans arrive with the kit. That is the industry norm rather than a criticism, but it does mean you are judging the teaching before you have read any of it, on the strength of a catalog and other people's reviews.

Faith Schooling inverts that. Every reading teaching guide and every phonics teaching guide can be read page by page in the browser before you join, along with the complete first workbook of each phonics level, eight interior pages of every grade's book, and three open sheets in every practice set. HARVEST placement is open to everyone and prints a report naming the lesson to start with.

Where Scripture sits in the day

Abeka is conservative Protestant throughout. Bible is a graded subject with its own books, and a Christian perspective runs through the other texts. For families who want doctrine taught explicitly, on a schedule, with its own grades and tests, that structure is a genuine strength and it continues all the way to Grade 12.

Faith Schooling carries Scripture inside the academic work: every reading week is built on one phonics skill, one Bible hero, one virtue and one verse, and the New King James Version is quoted exactly. Direct Bible teaching lives in the Apostolic Academy — The Hidden Word Scripture memory curriculum, study guides, church history and family printables — and every part of it is free and open to everyone.

Pacing and screens

Abeka is built around a school year. Quizzes, tests and speed drills fall on a calendar, which is exactly what many families want, and it is also what makes a mid-year start awkward: you either race the remaining lessons or buy a full kit for half a year of use.

Faith Schooling moves on demonstrated skill instead. Daily exit tickets, weekly mastery checks with parallel forms, drill tracking and a skill ledger decide when a child advances, and a skill counts as mastered at 90% or better across five or more sessions on different days. On screens the two are closer than they look: both are print-first for the child's work, and Abeka's video is optional.

Where Abeka may fit your family better

This is the honest part. Abeka does several things Faith Schooling does not do at all, and if any one of them is your requirement, Abeka is the right answer and there is no need to read further.

• You want every subject in one order. Abeka covers history, geography, science and health. Faith Schooling publishes none of them.
• You need an accredited school. Abeka Academy enrolls students, keeps records and issues transcripts. No curriculum publisher, ours included, can do that.
• You want video teachers. Abeka streams or ships them; Faith Schooling is parent-taught by design and always will be.
• You are teaching past Grade 5. Abeka runs through Grade 12; Faith Schooling stops at Grade 5.
• You want one publisher for many years. Abeka has decades of use, a well-known name in homeschool and Christian-school circles, and hardcover books you can hand down to the next child.
• You want a traditional quiz-and-test rhythm with speed drills and a defined school year. That is Abeka's design, not ours.

What Faith Schooling does not publish

Stated plainly so you are not surprised later: it is Kindergarten through Grade 5 only. It publishes no science and no history. Its mathematics is a sequenced K–5 series that is still growing — a student text for every grade, with practice workbooks and teaching guides for Kindergarten through Grade 2 today, and every grade page lists exactly what exists now.

It is not accredited, because accreditation belongs to schools that enroll students, not to publishers. There are no video teachers and no grading service. Everything is delivered digitally and you print what you use. If any of that is a deal-breaker, it should be, and Abeka is a serious program to take it to.

How to decide this week

Four steps, in order. None of them requires paying anyone, and the first one settles most families before they reach the fourth.

1. Decide on scope first. If science and history must be in the same box, order Abeka and teach it well.
2. Read one real lesson from each. Abeka's scope-and-sequence and samples are free; Faith Schooling's complete teaching guides are readable in full.
3. Run HARVEST placement and print the report, so you are choosing a starting skill rather than a birthday.
4. Count your children. One kit times three students is a different budget than one household membership — and the arithmetic only matters if the program fits.

HARVEST reading placement The K–5 curriculum map