Are you looking for a reading program for the next homeschool year or wondering where to start with your Kindergartener? If so, then you might find this article helpful. I will be sharing a review of the reading program, All About Reading, that my 4-year-old used this past year. All About Reading and All About Spelling are popular programs with homeschool families and for a good reason.
Before we get into the program, let us start by discussing what goes into a reading program. Reading instruction includes alphabetic knowledge and letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and phonics as foundational learning. However, there is more to it – a good reading program will also introduce spelling, vocabulary lessons, comprehension, and decoding skills in a systematic and sequential method. All About Reading offers all of that and more. They build engaging lessons with lots of hands-on activities to make decoding fun and interesting.
What my child learned
At the end of All About Reading Level 1, here’s what my 4.5 years learned.
- The ability to read digraphs, blends, and compound words
- The ability to accurately sound out and blend three-letter words to compound words
- The ability to read 80-90% of decodable text without sounding out the words
- The ability to quickly and accurately decode a good number of sight words, including – of/uv/, was /wuz/, and said /sed/.
- To recognize syllable counts in a word.
- Learned to decode words ending with double f,l, and s and read plural words with s and es. (Both these are spelling rules we learned in All About Spelling 1, which we did in parallel with AAR)
But more importantly, he has the confidence to read independently.
How Long to implement
I started this program in October of 2021 and finished in May 20th 2022. We took many breaks for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Spring Break, sick days, etc. However, minus all that, the entire level should not take more than 4-5 months if you do three lessons in a week.
What does the program offer
All About Reading is “based on the Orton-Gillingham approach; these multisensory programs teach through a logical sequence that leaves no gaps in the learning process.” (source: www.allaboutlearning.com)
Letter sounds and phonograms are introduced sequentially, and your child reads decodable stories to go with them. They also receive plenty of practice to build fluency, and there is repetition as the curriculum progresses. The decodable stories get longer and more advanced as you go, which builds stamina to read the longer text.
Tips for successful implementation
- The program comes with a student activity book which requires quite a bit of prep work. It is best to tear out all the sheets from the activity book and place each lesson in transparent sleeves and file them in a folder for easy retrieval and use. Most lessons require some form of cutting and prepping. Make sure to have those done ahead to avoid wasting time when you sit down with them.
- Follow your child’s queue with regard to their attention span. Once you lose them, they will likely not be learning anything new. As you progress through level 1, certain lessons require reading 2 stories. This can be quite a lof for your child who is still developing speed in decoding words. It can be quite tiring in the start when your child is sounding out most words when they read
- Your child will be focused on decoding (sounding out and blending), so ask questions to ensure they are also comprehending the text. This is a skill they will need to develop in the process of learning to read.
Conclusion
To give you a bit of context, my kid started this program a few months after he turned 4. Before this program, he learned all the primary sounds of the letters and could blend/read 2-3 letter words. We used The Good and the Beautiful Pre-K program for that. However, something was missing in the reading instruction after we started level K with them. For starters, they ask your child to practice sight words without teaching the phonograms associated with them. That is when we made the switch. We loved the Pre-K program, but I would highly recommend switching to a dedicated reading program that is built on the Science of Reading.
There are many programs out there, but this is what we chose, and as you can tell, and with success. I have an early reader at four years.
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