Review: All About Reading Level 1

A reader asked me to do a review about All About Reading, which I am very happy to do because I've been meaning to thank the mothers who spent so much time explaining and recommending the program to me. I am delighted with it! Phonics programs were one of the two subjects I spent the most time comparing and contrasting (catechism being the other subject). 

When John was four, I began using "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." (A little tip lost to me for about a year: if you make it through the book, your child is reading at a second-grade level, so don't think you're supposed to get through it all in the Kindergarten year or even younger than that!) Ultimately, in (big) fits and starts, we made it through half of the book, but the format was overwhelming and boring for John. Each page of the huge textbook is dense with 12-point font text and little white space. I didn't realize what a problem that was until I tried another format. It's not easy for many children learning to read to have a parent point to one small word that is swimming amidst hundreds of words on the page.

All About Reading is based on the Orton-Gillingham approach and, while I am not well-versed in the various approaches to teaching literacy, this one sounds good. The technique was apparently developed by a neuropsychiatrist who was an early critic of the disastrous whole-word method (which, by the way, still rears its ugly head in subtle ways in many curricula).

All About Reading relies heavily on colorful tiles. They arrived all connected together and I sat for a few hours with my three-year-old breaking them apart and attaching the magnets. We already owned a 3'x2' white board, but one would need to buy one otherwise. (Little tip: Mount it high enough on the wall that a one-year-old standing on a chair still can't reach it to pull down the tiles.) My children tell me that the tiles are their favorite part of AAR. Almost every textbook lesson involves a "change the tile" game in which a chain of words are created by changing one letter: gap - tap - tan - can: This is a big hit!

The parent-teacher uses the Teacher's Manual. For the child, there is the activity book Blast Off to Reading! Honestly, I have not ended up using any of Blast Off. The activities look super cute and fun. However, my children are getting through the lessons easily and learning to read so well that I haven't felt the need to gild the lily. My problem is trying to keep them focused for the hour or so it takes to get through all their subjects, so I haven't wanted to add in another activity, even if it would be fun. Even though I haven't been using Blast Off at this point, the activities look fantastic. If I felt I had more time in which their attention was held, I might use them on alternate days as our phonics lessons.

The parent-teacher uses the Teacher's Manual. Look at all that calming white space. Look at the diagrams for even the most sleep-deprived of us to see that we are using a tile or a card or where exactly we are to point with our dishwater-wrinkled hands.

There really is nothing left for a parent-teacher to have to figure out. I appreciate that.

On a day we are doing a lesson out of the textbook, we start with reading using the tiles. I have learned how much easier it is for my children, anyway, to "see" a sound when the two-letter combination (called a "team") is on one tile. For example, when my child sees the above tiles spelling w-i-sh, he can read it instantly and remember what the 'sh' team says. Then I can hand him the word card that spells 'wish' and he will immediately try to separate out 's' and 'h', forgetting that they are a team. That reveals to me something about how the brain of some children can work, so I have greatly appreciated these tiles to reinforce sound teams.

In our lessons, we start with yellow sound cards, then work with reading from the tiles for a while, then we move on to green word cards. Some of the word cards will be words we already read as tiles, and most will be never-before-seen words to sound out. Then there are lists of words to review for proficiency, but I've been skipping those because my children seem to be reading so well without reviewing and I like the idea of the Charlotte Mason philosophy to do a small amount of work very well rather than doing a great amount of work to the point of boredom or resentfulness.

The cards also came all connected together and gave me and my three-year-old hours of fine motor skills practice and time to chat together.

In AAR, "sight words" are referred to as "rule breakers." Rule-breaker cards show a little bad guy with a gun: he is breaking the rules, just like this word! My children seem impressed by the rule-breaker character and this has made those words burn into their brains (visually?) in a way they didn't before. It's not uncommon for Mary to point to a sign or a book and say, "A rule-breaker! A rule-breaker! I see one!"

And note how nicely each card is labeled (e.g., AAR Level 1 -- Lesson 22 -- Word Card 104) . . . this is very useful when your 18-month-old grabs the box and dumps it on the ground!

In the beginning of the program, most of the lessons are in the textbook. Later, the program alternates between lessons in the textbook and reading from the primer, of which there are three. While AAR does not require you buy the primers, I recommend it because they are designed to perfectly match what the child just learned. If the child got through the text book lesson, he can read a whole story in the book, which builds confidence. Mary and John have each finished reading the first primer and are beyond excited to have read a "real book" that is even hard cover. Oooooo.

An example, the story in full that Mary read yesterday: "Get the Moth, Meg!"

"Hush! A moth is on the dish. Can Meg get it with a net? Zip! The mother is on a chin. Meg did not get it! That bad moth! It is in the bath. It sat on the tap. Meg has a wish--get this moth with the net! Sh! The moth is on a nut. Meg can get it! Zig! Zag! Meg did not get the moth. This moth is in a rush! This is not much fun! Meg is mad! Did Meg quit? Yes! Meg has had it! Meg did not get the moth. But the moth got the net! The End."

Note that each page in the primer has only a few lines of text on it written in large font. There are large line drawings in black and white that my children find very entertaining. (I note this in stark contrast to 100 Easy Lessons in which the stories to be read were a dense paragraph of text in 12-point font. I ended up writing them out on the white board or paper one sentence at a time so as not to overwhelm John.)

One of the small touches that makes such a big difference to my children is seeing their own progress. All About Reading provides these fun little progress charts and stickers so the child can see how far they are through the curriculum. (I think moms might enjoy imitating the above progress chart concept for any phonics program they are using.) In only three months at a mere two lessons per week, my two kids are nearly halfway through Level 1. And here I had been planning to be do phonics daily!

All About Reading offers a Pre-Reading program about which I have heard wonderful things. I almost bought it but the AAR programs are fairly expensive, so I decided to go cheap to chance it on AAR Level 1, figuring she'd do just a partial lesson every few days while John would do one lesson per day. Turns out Level 1 was a great fit for her and she'd do a full lesson daily if I'd let her. However, it remains that I've heard really good things about the Pre-Reading program.

What you will get in AAR Level 1 and what your child will learn: see here (and can I point out how well organized the AAR website is? And it contains so many useful articles!).

Currently AAR goes through only Level 2. What grade level of reading proficiency that represents, I have not been able to determine.

Meanwhile, the same company has seven levels of All About Spelling. I understand from a consultant that I should start AAS Level 1 after the child completes AAR Level 1--but do I do AAS Level 1 simultaneously with AAR Level 2? I don't have clarity about that yet. (Here is one minute and 51 seconds explaining briefly why AAS is supposed to work.)

(As an addendum, let me add that I realize it isn't the norm that a three-year-old is reading as well as Mary is or even that a three-year-old would recognize the names of all her letters. The range at which children take off reading is very wide, I've read from about three to nine years old. The AAR Level 1 is for Kindergarten/1st grade, I believe, but obviously can be used for any aged child for which it is a good fit.)