Can you believe we’re already halfway through this school year?! We have absolutely loved everything about this homeschool year – even with all of the COVID weirdness – so I feel like it has flown by! And because of that, it’s been a while since I’ve written about our experience with the All About Reading curriculum. Today I’m fixing that with a full review of All About Reading Level 1!
So first, a quick disclaimer. I am an All About Learning Press affiliate, which means that if you make a purchase through my links below, I will receive a small commission (and y’all, it’s a real blessing to our family). I did not receive any free products in order to write this review. We purchase and use All About Reading as our sole reading curriculum, so all of the thoughts and opinions below are completely mine.
WHAT IS ALL ABOUT READING?
You might already familiar with the program, but if not, I’ll give you a super quick “in a nutshell” rundown.
All About Reading is a comprehensive, phonics-based reading program. It uses an approach called the Orton-Gillingham Approach, which was originally developed for children with dyslexia and language processing issues. But the beauty of this approach is that it truly works for all types of learners.
It “de-mystifies” reading by teaching the rules of decoding. In fact, after reading the book, Uncovering the Logic of English, I was 100% sold on AAR’s approach to reading instruction!
You can read more about the OG Approach here. And to learn even more, grab this *FREE* ebook!
FULL REVIEW OF ALL ABOUT READING LEVEL 1: WHY WE LOVE IT
We’ve been using All About Reading Level 1 since January 2020 (it’s now December 2020), and we should completely finish it up at the end of next month. Mr. Six has made ah-MAZ-ing strides in reading comprehension and fluency since last year, and we have thoroughly enjoyed our experience with this curriculum. With all of the crazy COVID delays this year, I already have Level 2 in my cart, and will get it ordered this week to make sure we have it in time.
So, we obviously love the curriculum. Let’s dive into why with my review of All About Reading Level 1!
No. 1 | All About Reading is open-and-go and fully scripted.
I love that I don’t have to come up with our reading lesson plans! We are Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, which means I do a lot of researching, pre-reading, and planning for all of our other subjects. I love that for this one, I can simply glance through the lessons to see what’s coming next, and that’s it (once I got the hang of the flow of the lessons, of course).
Since I prep all of our activity sheets ahead of time, I just pull out the next activity or fluency sheet and we dive right in. (I’m working on a post to show you how we organize our AAR curriculum!)
And if you’re like me and you’ve never taught a child to read, the fact that this curriculum gives you a script to follow can really be a confidence booster. I don’t need the scripts anymore now that we’re so far into it, but in the beginning it was really helpful to have them laid out so I could lead Mr. Six through everything well.
No. 2 | All About Reading is a hands-on (“multi-sensory”) program that keeps young learners engaged.
My wiggly six-year-old boy stays activity engaged during our reading lessons, which I feel like is a real feat! The only thing that he didn’t love for a while were the fluency sheets. As you work your way through Level 1, those fluency sheets get kind of long. However, in the last couple of months he’s made a huge developmental leap and has built a lot of reading stamina. And I know it’s because of the fluency sheets!
And the fluency sheets are only one part of the whole program. There are games (that I often grab simple props for), there are word flippers (that Mr. Six really loves), and there’s Ziggy (an optional, but beloved character).
We’ve turned a lot of activities into kinesthetic games, too, and the options for how to make this program work for your kids are kind of endless.
No. 3 | The All About Reading curriculum is gentle and you can move at your child’s pace.
First, the lessons are meant to be short. You work for 20 minutes at most, and then stop. That means we don’t always complete an entire lesson in one sitting (in fact, we usually don’t), but it also means that we don’t run the risk of mental fatigue and reading burnout. Charlotte Mason highly advocated for short lessons in the early years, because education truly is a quality over quantity situation.
Second, if your child needs to slow down to get more practice or needs to take a break from lessons completely – or the opposite is true and your child is buzzing right along through the lessons – you can move at the pace they need. Some kids get through an entire level in a school year, some take more, and some take less.
There’s no one-size-fits-all pace!
No. 4 | All About Reading is ONLY phonics instruction, so students focus on only one skill at a time.
Not everyone will love this about All About Reading. I often see moms in various homeschooling groups asking for complete language arts curriculums for their first graders. However, the fact that All About Reading and All About Spelling are separate is one reason I LOVE this program.
As a former special education and ESL teacher, I know that most kiddos don’t learn reading and spelling skills at the same pace. Learning to read tends to happen faster than learning to write/spell (input usually comes before output in language acquisition, but not always). So I wanted to give Mr. Six time to just focus on reading, to build a solid foundation, AND THEN add spelling to our line up of subjects.
And so far, I do not regret my choice at all!
Mr. Six is totally experimenting with spelling on his own. He writes stories to go with the pictures he draws in his free time, and I have been able to watch the progression of language as he’s continued to build his reading skills. What started out as completely inventive spelling has morphed into decodable words, phrases, and even sentences.
It makes this mama’s heart proud!
No. 5 | Ziggy the Zebra, an optional but beloved character of the All About Reading program in our house.
Ziggy is an integral part of All About Reading’s Pre-Reading, but there’s the option to add Reading Games with Ziggy to your Level 1 curriculum set. Because both Mr. Six and Mr. Four love Ziggy so much (okay, who am I kidding…I love him, too), I opted to do that. So not only does Ziggy join us for the game days, but he often pops in to see how regular reading lessons are going, too. It’s loads of fun and my hope is that Mr. Six will always associate reading with the delight of these early years!
No. 6 | Box art!
I wish I had known about this when I ordered our Pre-Reading Program, but I’m thankful I learned about it later! When you place your order directly with All About Learning Press, there’s an option to add a note to the company. You can tell them what your kiddos are interested in and someone from the company will draw fantastic art on your box. It may seem like a small thing, but I cannot tell you how excited Mr. Six was to receive a box with custom-made dragon art created just for him!
WHY ALL ABOUT READING LEVEL 1 MIGHT NOT BE FOR YOU
Every curriculum does not fit every family’s needs. And that’s okay! That’s why there are so many options out there.
So, if you’re looking for a complete language arts curriculum, then All About Reading may not be for you.
This program very intentionally only focuses on reading instruction. For us, that’s perfect. We follow the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling, so Mr. Six does copywork to practice handwriting, and we read and narrate for our literature study. All About Learning Press recommends adding All About Spelling once your student finishes AAR Level 1, so we’ll be adding in spelling instruction in just a couple of months.
And honestly, that’s it. That’s the only reason I can think of that AAR might not be for you.
I’m passionate about how amazing this curriculum is.
My son is learning to read.
I know there are no gaps in his learning.
And it’s helped me build confidence in myself as a reading teacher.
If I can get on the ball here soon, I plan on posting an inside look at our reading lessons. I think it’s helpful to see how programs like this work in real life and I’d love to show you a behind-the-scenes look at reading instruction in our homeschool!
THAT’S MY FULL REVIEW OF ALL ABOUT READING LEVEL 1.
If you have any questions at all about the program, please don’t hesitate to drop me a comment below. I’m passionate about sharing resources that I think will help fellow homeschool mamas, and this curriculum has been a huge blessing to our family!
I hope it also blesses yours!
