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Faith Schooling vs The Good and the Beautiful for K–5
The Good and the Beautiful gives away its K–8 language arts and math as PDFs and sells printed course sets by subject. Faith Schooling is a paid K–5 household membership with a heavier phonics load and no science or history.
Checked 31 August 2026
Which one fits: the short answer
The Good and the Beautiful publishes integrated course sets — language arts, math, science, history, handwriting and electives — for preschool through Grade 8, and gives its K–8 language arts and math away as free PDFs. Faith Schooling is a paid K–5 household membership for reading, phonics, cursive and math, with no science and no history at all.
If budget is the deciding factor, this comparison is short: the other publisher's core courses download for nothing. What follows is about the three things families weigh next — how much explicit phonics is inside the reading, what the pages look like on the table, and whose convictions are behind the books.
What each one is, and who does the teaching
The Good and the Beautiful was founded by Jenny Phillips in 2015. Its language arts is integrated: phonics, grammar, spelling, literature, art and geography inside one course. It is open-and-go with low prep, and reviewers put a typical lesson at twenty to thirty minutes. Placement is by level rather than grade, and free placement tests exist for language arts, reading, spelling and math.
Faith Schooling is parent-taught from a script the adult reads aloud. A complete reading lesson runs 45 to 55 minutes and moves through prayer, explicit phoneme work, blending, decodable reading with narration, a timed automaticity drill, application and spaced-repetition review. That is a longer daily sitting, deliberately: it is a reading lesson rather than a language-arts course with phonics inside it.
Both are parent-taught. Neither has video teachers. Neither asks the child to learn from a screen. On format these two are much closer to each other than either is to a full-grade textbook publisher, which is why the differences that remain are worth reading carefully.
Side by side
Facts about The Good and the Beautiful were observed on the publisher's own site in August 2026. Course sets, levels and prices change, and the free PDF library changes with them, so check the current site rather than relying on a table dated last month.
| What to compare | The Good and the Beautiful | Faith Schooling |
|---|---|---|
| Grades | Preschool through Grade 8; high school in progress | Kindergarten through Grade 5 only |
| Subjects | Language arts, math, science, history, handwriting and electives, sold by course | Reading and language arts (complete), phonics, cursive, a sequenced K–5 math series still growing, Bible through the Apostolic Academy. No science or history. |
| Who teaches | The parent | The parent, from a scripted guide |
| Format and screen load | Printed course sets; K–8 language arts and math also free as PDFs. Print-first. | Print-at-home books; the browser holds placement, teaching guides, games and the workspace |
| Time per day | Reviewers describe lessons at roughly 20–30 minutes | A complete reading lesson is scripted at 45–55 minutes; cursive is 10–15 minutes |
| Pacing | By level rather than grade, with free placement tests | Mastery-paced: 90% or better across five or more sessions on different days |
| Placement | Free placement tests for language arts, reading, spelling and math | HARVEST — free, adaptive, about fifteen minutes, nothing uploaded |
| Scope and sequence | None found for the full curriculum | Week-by-week scope and sequence printed on every reading grade page |
| What you can see before paying | The complete K–8 language arts and math courses, as free PDFs | Complete teaching guides, complete first workbooks, eight interior pages of every grade's book, three open sheets in every practice set |
| Accreditation | None — a publisher | None — a publisher, not a school |
| Price | K basic bundle (language arts, handwriting, math) $132.94; Level 1 $144.94 | $39/month, or $299 founding first year then $349/year — one household, every K–5 child |
What each costs, honestly
Observed on 26 August 2026: a Kindergarten basic bundle of language arts, handwriting and math at $132.94, and Level 1 at $144.94, for printed sets. The K–8 language arts and math courses are also published as free PDFs. That is the largest single price fact in this comparison, and softening it would be dishonest.
The offset reviewers raise is printing. The pages are full color and illustration-heavy, and printing a whole color course at home is not cheap. Faith Schooling's pages are designed to look like schoolwork rather than entertainment, which is partly a matter of taste and partly a matter of toner; neither publisher can print your pages for you.
Faith Schooling All Access is $39 a month, or $299 for the founding first year and $349 a year afterward, for one household and every K–5 child. Measured against a free PDF, that price has to be justified by what is inside the lessons, because it cannot be justified by being cheaper. It is not cheaper.
How much phonics is in the reading
This is the most repeated criticism of the other program, and it comes from many independent reviewers rather than from us: the integrated language arts is widely described as not enough explicit phonics for a struggling or dyslexic reader, and families frequently add a dedicated phonics program alongside it. Cathy Duffy nonetheless named the K–2 language arts a Top Pick after its 2022 rewrite.
Faith Schooling's reading is phonics-led by design. Each week carries one phonics skill with drill sheets, daily Write It pages, exit tickets and a mastery check, supported by 300 original decodable readers written only from patterns already taught. Foundations to Fluency adds ninety-six workbooks in six levels arranged by pattern rather than grade, so a fourth grader who never learned vowel teams works on vowel teams.
Worldview: what is actually in the books
The Good and the Beautiful markets non-denominational Christian character content — God, Jesus, virtue, nature and beauty — across its courses. Its founder is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some evangelical families decline on that basis alone; others read the free PDFs, find nothing they object to, and use them happily. Because the core courses download free, you can settle that question yourself before spending anything.
Faith Schooling states its position rather than keeping it broad. It is Christian and Apostolic in conviction, quotes the New King James Version exactly in the academic programs, and the Apostolic Academy sets out what it teaches — Scripture memory through The Hidden Word, study guides, church history and family printables, all free and open to everyone. You may agree or disagree; you will not have to guess.
Where The Good and the Beautiful may fit your family better
It does several things Faith Schooling does not do at all, and the first one on this list ends the comparison for many households.
- Your budget is zero. The K–8 language arts and math courses download free. Faith Schooling's Open Access includes the teaching guides, samples and HARVEST, but the complete programs are behind a paid membership.
- You want science, history, art and geography from the same publisher. Faith Schooling publishes none of those.
- You are teaching Grades 6 through 8. Faith Schooling stops at Grade 5.
- You want short, open-and-go lessons. Twenty to thirty minutes with almost no prep is the design; a 45-to-55-minute scripted reading lesson is not what you are asking for.
- You want beautiful, full-color, art-rich pages. That is the house style, and children who love it really love it.
- You want level-based placement across several subjects, not only reading. Free placement tests cover language arts, reading, spelling and math.
What Faith Schooling does not do
The gaps are the ones this page keeps returning to: no science, no history, nothing above Grade 5, and no free tier that includes the complete programs. In math the student text exists for all six grades, while the practice workbooks and teaching guides reach Kindergarten through Grade 2 so far; each grade page lists its own components.
It is also not free, and it is not an Orton-Gillingham dyslexia intervention. If a child has a diagnosed reading disability, a specialist structured-literacy program is the honest recommendation, and that recommendation would come from either of these publishers rather than a claim that the ordinary program will carry it.
How to decide this week
The unusual thing about this particular comparison is that you can test both without paying anyone, which makes reading either publisher's marketing largely unnecessary.
- Download the other publisher's free K or Level 1 language arts PDF and teach two real lessons from it.
- Read a Faith Schooling reading teaching guide in full in the browser and teach the same two days from it.
- Run HARVEST placement and print the report; then check whether the phonics your child actually needs appears in each program's week.
- Decide on scope. If science and history must come from the same publisher, Faith Schooling is not the answer.
Common questions
- Is The Good and the Beautiful really free?
- Its K–8 language arts and math courses are published as free PDFs, which is unusual and worth taking seriously. Printed course sets are sold — a Kindergarten basic bundle was $132.94 and Level 1 was $144.94 when observed in August 2026 — and other subjects are purchased by course. The practical cost of the free route is printing full-color pages at home.
- Is The Good and the Beautiful an LDS curriculum?
- Its founder, Jenny Phillips, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the company markets the materials as non-denominational Christian character content. Families disagree about whether that matters, and because the core courses download free, you can read them and decide for yourself rather than relying on anyone's summary, including ours.
- Does Faith Schooling teach more phonics?
- It teaches phonics as the spine of reading rather than as one strand inside integrated language arts. Every reading week carries one phonics skill with drill sheets, daily writing, an exit ticket and a mastery check, supported by 300 decodable readers built only from taught patterns and ninety-six Foundations to Fluency workbooks arranged by pattern rather than grade.
- Which has shorter lessons?
- The Good and the Beautiful, by a clear margin. Reviewers describe its lessons at roughly twenty to thirty minutes, open-and-go, with almost no preparation. A complete Faith Schooling reading lesson is scripted at 45 to 55 minutes and includes explicit phoneme work, decodable reading with narration, a timed drill, application and spaced review. Cursive adds 10 to 15 minutes.
- Can I use one for language arts and the other for math?
- Yes, and families mix publishers routinely. Faith Schooling's membership is priced per household rather than per course, so adding it for reading and phonics alongside another publisher's math does not mean buying a second full grade level. Building Number Sense is a sequenced K–5 series that is still growing, and each grade page states exactly which components exist today.
Sources
- The Good and the Beautiful — publisher site — checked 2026-08-31
- Cathy Duffy Reviews — Language Arts Levels K, 1 and 2 — checked 2026-08-31
- HomeschoolPicks — The Good and the Beautiful language arts review — checked 2026-08-31
- Homeschool Start Guide — homeschool language arts breakdown — checked 2026-08-31
- Faith Schooling — How we compare (all publishers, observed 26 August 2026) — checked 2026-08-31
- Faith Schooling — All Access pricing — checked 2026-08-31