Faith Schooling vs Alpha Omega for K–5 reading and math

Which one fits: the short answer

Alpha Omega publishes three lines: Horizons spiral workbooks for PreK–8, LIFEPAC worktexts for K–12, and Monarch, an online platform available only from Grade 3 upward. Faith Schooling is a K–5 household membership for reading, phonics, cursive and math, parent-taught from scripts, print-first, with no science and no history.

For the elementary years the practical comparison is Horizons in print against Faith Schooling in print, because Monarch does not exist below Grade 3. The two differences that decide it are usually how much explicit Christian content sits inside the early lessons, and whether you are buying one boxed grade at a time or one household license.

What each one is, and who does the teaching

Horizons Phonics and Reading runs K–3 in colorful spiral workbooks with companion readers, 160 lessons per level, on a spiral review design. Reviewers describe it as boxed and open-and-go at roughly twenty to thirty minutes, teacher-led, with a whiteboard expected. Horizons grade sets cover math, phonics and reading, spelling, penmanship and health; Bible, history and science are bought separately.

Monarch changes the teaching entirely from Grade 3: the platform carries the course and largely grades the work. For Kindergarten through Grade 2 that option is not on the table at all, so the parent teaches, and the comparison stays print against print.

Faith Schooling is parent-taught at every grade, with no automated grading and no online course platform. A complete reading lesson is scripted at 45 to 55 minutes; cursive is 10 to 15 minutes. Alpha Omega's phonics line stops after Grade 3, while the Faith Schooling reading sequence runs the full K–5 span in six full-year student textbooks.

Side by side

Alpha Omega facts were observed on the publisher's own site in August 2026. Three product lines with different grade spans make this the easiest comparison in the set to misread, so check which line a price belongs to before you use it.

What each costs

Observed on 26 August 2026: a Horizons complete grade set at $375.25 for Kindergarten and $424.50 for Grade 1, priced per student. Boldly Educated's own review table put the phonics-only per-level sets in the region of $156 to $228 — their figure, not a catalog pull we verified. Monarch is a separate subscription and starts at Grade 3.

All Access is one price for the household: $39 a month, or $299 for the founding first year and $349 a year after that, covering every K–5 program and the whole practice library however many children you teach. The cost you take on instead is printing — a Horizons set arrives bound, and Faith Schooling arrives as files.

Faith in the lesson, or faith around it

This is the sharpest difference in the comparison, and the source for it is a friendly one. Cathy Duffy's review of Horizons Phonics and Reading notes almost no explicit Christian content in the K–2 levels, with the emphasis on character, and some religious stories appearing at Grade 3. Alpha Omega is a Christian publisher and its Bible curriculum is real, but it is a separate purchase from the phonics line.

Faith Schooling puts Scripture in the academic work itself. The reading week is organized around one phonics skill and one Bible hero, with a virtue and a memory verse attached, and the verse is quoted exactly from the New King James Version rather than paraphrased. Separate Bible teaching — Scripture memory, study guides, church history and family printables — sits in the Apostolic Academy, free to anyone who wants it.

Pacing, placement and screens

Alpha Omega deserves clear credit on placement: free LIFEPAC placement tests for Grades 1 through 12 and Horizons math readiness evaluations are more than most publishers offer, and they let you buy the right level rather than the birthday level. Horizons then moves on a 160-lesson spiral, and reviewers note that finishing all 160 in one year is genuinely hard.

Faith Schooling measures rather than counts. Daily exit tickets, weekly mastery checks with parallel forms, timed drills with personal-best tracking and a skill ledger decide when a child advances. On screens, the print lines and Faith Schooling are comparable; Monarch is the screen-heavy option in this comparison, and it does not apply below Grade 3.

Where Alpha Omega may fit your family better

Several of these are decisive for the families they describe, and no amount of comparison writing should talk anyone out of the first one.

• You want an online program that carries and grades the work. Monarch does that from Grade 3; Faith Schooling never will.
• You want colorful, motivating workbooks with strong spiral review. Horizons is built for that, and reviewers say the review sticks.
• You want free placement tests across many grades and subjects. LIFEPAC placement covers Grades 1 to 12.
• You want books that arrive printed and bound rather than files you print yourself.
• You need Grades 6 through 12 from the same publisher, or an accredited school — Ignite Christian Academy enrolls students; a publisher cannot.
• You want a boxed grade set covering math, phonics, spelling, penmanship and health in one order.

What Faith Schooling does not do

Kindergarten through Grade 5 only, with no science and no history published. No online course platform, no automated grading, no video teachers, no enrollment and no accreditation — which, as Alpha Omega itself states, is something only an institution can hold in any case.

In mathematics the sequence is published and growing rather than finished: a student text at every grade, with the practice workbook and teaching guide available for Kindergarten, Grade 1 and Grade 2 at present. Each grade page states its own components, and the separate Faith Thinkers Math practice library is reinforcement work, never the lesson.

How to decide this week

Do these in order; none of them costs anything, and the first question rules out one of the two publishers for most families.

1. Ask whether you want a screen to teach. If yes and your child is Grade 3 or above, look hard at Monarch's 30-day trial.
2. Run both free placements — the LIFEPAC or Horizons readiness check, and HARVEST — and compare what each says about the same child.
3. Read a Faith Schooling reading teaching guide in full, and read a Horizons sample lesson, then ask where the Bible actually appears in each.
4. Decide scope. If you want science, history and Bible from one publisher, Alpha Omega sells them; Faith Schooling does not.

HARVEST reading placement The K–5 curriculum map