All About Reading- How It Has Worked for Our Homeschool

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                One of the biggest blessings in homeschooling has been teaching my boys to read. I love seeing their little brains click when they start reading street signs or when they can start singing along to new hymns at church because they can read the words on the screen or hymnal.  I’m currently enjoying watching my older boys dive in to new series at the library and add specific books to their wish list. 

Curriculum hunting has never been a favorite past time for me.  When I find a curriculum that works, I use it until it doesn’t.  I started using All About Reading when Mr. 2 was in his Kindergarten year. We used his Pre-K year to enjoy a letter of the week, letter sounds and lots of story time and he was showing lots of readiness for reading. Pointing out signs as we drove by, noticing letters and telling me the sounds.  The book Mr. 1 and I used was fine, he was growing into a solid reader but I wasn’t sold on it. In this case Mr. 2 was starting at more of a baseline as Mr. 1 had attended a Private Preschool and learned a lot of prep for reading.

I asked my fellow friends and All About Reading was suggested.  I checked it out online and did the placement test. I had a few questions and their customer service was phenomenal. Super fast to respond and very helpful.  I concluded that he was ready for Level 1 so I ordered it and we started in the fall.

Mr. 2 was excited to start school as he had seen his older brother having fun. I arranged the letter tiles and phonogram cards on a large whiteboard and in a recipe box. He enjoyed manipulating the tiles and making the sounds. My focus was to take it lesson by lesson and have him lead the way. If he was getting frustrated or not understanding something we would slow down and master that lesson before moving on. If he was getting burned out with our pace we would stop and make reading time just about snuggling and reading together on the couch. There weren’t a lot of these issues but I’m glad I had laid out the plan for myself so there wasn’t too much pressure on the two of us. 

Some of the things I really enjoy:

-The multiple sensory opportunities with the letter tiles, phonograph cards, and story books offers ways for children of any learning style to find a way to practice.

-I love how easy it is to break up a lesson and spread it over multiple days if the student needs to take it a bit slower.

-The stories are really good! They aren’t your typical easy readers with low interest story lines, over done dialogue.

-Great customer service if there is a question. I purchased one of the levels second hand and it didn’t line up with the activity book. I was quite confused until I called and they clarified what was going on. I had purchased an earlier edition than the activity book.  I simply had to adjust what pages and lessons a bit and I was back on track.

-The app. I’m not typically a technology person especially with our school.  After losing tiles because they fell or because little brothers tried to play with them, I was excited for the app to come out and the problem was solved.

– The ease of handing it down for younger siblings. I keep each lessons activity book in page protectors and it’ll stay there until I’m done using it for any and all of the boys who will use it.

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Flash forward to Level 3 and Mr2 is reading very well. We continued to use two days to do each lesson up until level 3. He made the adjustment well and my other boys were able to handle the increase of one on one time for mommy and Mr2.

All in all Mr. 2 and I are very excited to go to the next level, one reason being the colored pages in the story book.  Mr2 is working on some sensory issues and the feeling of certain papers bothers him. We are hoping the new books are more of a polished page.  We highly recommend All About Reading feel free to ask me any questions in the comments, I’m happy to answer based on our experience!

To learn more and to order from All About Learning Press please click on the image above!