A Beka Book Curriculum
Over four decades ago, Dr. Arlin Horton and his wife, Beka, started A Beka Book with the goal of providing high-quality traditional educational materials that would give students at their Christian school in Pensacola, Florida, a solid foundation for excellence in academics and success in life. At Pensacola Christian Academy—one of the largest Christian schools in America—teachers and parents have seen for several decades the excellent results of learning with A Beka.
What started with phonics-based readers and traditional arithmetic textbooks grew to comprise over 1,000 educational products from two-year-old preschool through twelfth grade for both Christian schools and homeschooling families. People with real experience teaching write all the A Beka Book textbooks, curriculum/lesson plans, and materials, helping students in homeschooling families around the world and in Christian schools of all sizes reach their learning potential.
Dr. Arlin Horton, founder of Pensacola Christian College, Pensacola Christian Academy, and A Beka Book, has been an outstanding leader in the Christian school movement since 1954. Thousands of administrators across America have been inspired and helped by his willingness to share his practical wisdom. His quiet leadership and desire to help others have combined to make A Beka Book America’s leading producer of textbooks for Christian schools.
Dr. Beka Horton, co-founder, has played the leading role in the development of the A Beka Book academic program. Through the years, she has faithfully invested her multiple talents to give balance and excellence to all areas of the school curriculum and has personally edited many of the materials published by A Beka Book.
Purpose
You want methods and materials that work. That’s what you’ll find with A Beka Book—comprehensive, quality curriculum and materials written from a Christian perspective. Now more than ever, each child needs a strong foundation in both academics and character; we’re here to help homeschooling families and Christian schools of all sizes give their students the knowledge and skills they need.
For over forty years, schools and homeschooling families have trusted A Beka Book to provide materials using the traditional approach proven successful throughout education’s history. Professionally illustrated textbooks and teaching aids, hands-on activities, challenging exercises, purposeful repetition, and the reinforcement of concepts from subject to subject give you all the tools you need to make learning interesting and memorable.
You can choose A Beka Book with confidence; each subject’s content comes from the work of skilled, dedicated scholars who have conducted primary research. See your students achieve the academic excellence and moral character that leave them equipped for life, just like over one million children developing into lifelong learners with A Beka every year.
Distinctives
Bible
The foundation for all learning
The A Beka Book Bible program presents the Bible in the narrative style in which it is written. Stories of the Old and New Testaments in the lower grades lead up to the profound truths of the Gospels, Epistles, and other portions of Scripture for older students. The curriculum is designed to be specifically and systematically taught so that students in the Bible program will become thoroughly acquainted with the basic portions of Scriptures.
Reading
The means by which each person may learn for himself
Because children become what they read, they need character-building reading materials from the very beginning. A Beka Book employs phonics as the most logical, orderly way to introduce reading to children. Beautifully illustrated and imaginatively written, A Beka Book readers are the finest available. Stories are carefully selected for interest, readability, theme, and values, with questions throughout to guide students in comprehension of reading material and in application of valuable principles to their lives.
History
A realistic view of time, government, geography, and economics based on eternal truths
Ever since H. G. Wells published his Outline of History in 1920, the theme of world history texts has been man’s supposed progress from savagery toward socialism, from tribal religions toward one-world government. American history is usually presented as a series of conflicts—rich vs. poor, black vs. white, North vs. South, labor vs. management, male vs. female, etc.
A Beka Book history texts reject the Marxist/Hegelian conflict theory of history in favor of a truthful portrayal of peoples, lands, religions, ideals, heroes, triumphs, and setbacks. The result is positive, uplifting history texts that give students a historical perspective and instill within them an intelligent pride for their own country and a desire to help it back to its traditional values.
We present government as ordained by God for the maintenance of law and order, not as a cure-all for humanity’s problems. We present free-enterprise economics without apology and point out the dangers of Communism, socialism, and liberalism to the well-being of people across the globe. In short, A Beka Book offers a traditional, conservative approach to the study of what man has done with the time he has been given.
Mathematics
The study of logic and order to apply to science and daily life
Unlike the “modern math” theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Book teaches that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute. Man’s task is to search out and make use of the laws of the universe, both scientific and mathematical.
A Beka Book provides attractive, legible, and workable traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory. These books have been field-tested, revised, and used successfully for many years, making them classics with up-to-date appeal. Besides training students in the basic skills needed for life, A Beka Book traditional mathematics books teach students to believe in absolutes, to work diligently for right answers, and to see mathematical facts as part of the truth and order built into the real universe.
Science/Health
The investigation of variety, order, and reasonableness revealed in creation
While secular science textbooks present modern science as the opposite of faith, the A Beka Book science texts teach that modern science is the product of Western man’s return to the Scriptures after the Protestant Reformation, leading to his desire to understand and subdue the earth, which he saw as the orderly, law-abiding creation of the God of the Bible.
The A Beka Book science and health program presents the universe as the direct creation of God and refutes the man-made idea of evolution. Further, the books present God as the Great Designer and Lawgiver, without Whom the evident design and laws of nature would be inexplicable. They give a solid foundation in all areas of science—a foundation firmly anchored to Scriptural truth. Teachability is assured through accurate, interesting writing, carefully planned demonstrations that can be performed with a minimum of equipment, chapter terms and questions, full-color illustrations, consideration of the interests and comprehension skills of students at each grade level, and detailed curriculum/lesson plans.
English
The study of language and communication in a structured, reasonable, and well-articulated manner
Thought and language are foundational to acquiring and transmitting knowledge. Therefore, the teaching of grammar, spelling, vocabulary, composition, and literature in education is of particular importance.
Modern linguists have sought in vain for a credible explanation for the origin of language. Having accepted evolutionary philosophy, they embrace relativism and reject any discussion of language being governed by rules or claims that some expressions are better than others. This explains many English programs today, but it is easy to see in language a structure which reflects logic, reasonableness, and orderliness.
This is why A Beka Book grammar books emphasize structure, rules, analysis, and the kind of practice that aims at mastery. This is why we place an importance on correct spelling and the continual enlargement of each student’s vocabulary. This is why we aspire to provide students with examples of the very best literature of the ages, and this is why we emphasize the continual improvement of writing abilities.
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