I mentioned at some point earlier that we’re LOVING our All About Spelling curriculum, and someone asked for more information on it.
I first saw All About Spelling when Jolanthe over at Homeschool Creations first reviewed it (her review). It sounded interesting to me and then she kept talking about it.
I was going to wait to start it until 1st grade and then I won a copy of it and started looking through it and realized it’d be perfect to go along with our reading program and is almost a reading program in itself (for any former teachers that used Open Court Phonics it reminds me of parts of that, but is less scripted).
Here’s how it works: First the kids memorize all the sounds a letter can make. That’s step 1 (they don’t give timelines for any part, just steps).
Some sounds have ones I hadn’t thought of prior to this, so I’m learning a lot. For instance “a” has 3 sounds a in apple, a in cake, and a in was (notice that one is a short u sound).
From there the program (in level 1) takes them through important steps needed to be able to spell. Hearing beginning sounds, middle sounds, ending sounds, so on and so forth.
After 5 or 6 steps you actually start spelling, but by that point it’s almost easy for the kids. It’s very hands on. To figure out the sounds you pull down the letters you need from a white board, right now we’re just using the letters you see above because I’m still working that out.
Eventually when the child is ready you move on to paper and pencil. That’s what I’m having the kids do right now for their spelling to practice handwriting.
Aside from the ability to move at our speed without having an artificial deadline I also like the review that is built in. Each step has cards that can go in 3 categories: not yet taught, review, mastered. If your kiddo has mastered something then move it into that category and only review it every once in awhile.
We’re about to introduce our first digraphs next week, and we’ll see how that goes. I’m intrigued because it’s introducing them, and talking about it, but we’re not using them in the spelling words yet. Just learning the sounds. I’ll be curious to see how well the kids do with it.
This sounds like a great resource! I learned to read using the Open Court phonics worksheets and tapes.
It sounds like this is working really well for you 🙂
Thanks for linking!!
Sounds great!
Wow, this sounds great. I have never heard of it, but it sounds like something we could really use. Thanks for the review! Hope you have a great weekend. 🙂
How far does it go? Will it help an already strong reader who spells phonetically and sometimes conventionally? Or is the program mostly for early readers? Sorry for all the questions but these are the ones I've had which kept me from buying it with the click of a mouse. Thanks for the review!
It has 5 levels at this time (I think). It will help a strong phonetic speller learn how to fix here errors.
I think the website has a bit of a scope and sequence. I'd say start with level 1 and if it's too easy then you can move through it very quickly. Offhand, I'd guess your little guy is probably halfway through level 1 on spelling.
This does sound very interesting, and it's a bit how Anna's preschool was approaching writing/reading instruction. They kept complaining that Anna doesn't know what sounds letter C makes. I always thought it's a bit strange considering how she can read cat and ceiling without any problems whatsoever. Maybe more formal instruction will help, but I guess I am going to wait and see what they will do in her school.
Thanks for writing this – I can't wait to order ours!
Talk about timely! Mine just came in the mail today. How lucky you were to win it! It reminds me of Phono Graphix, but less complicated. We're starting Monday. @ JL, I think it would be GREAT review for your daughter without being too repetitive for her – I know she doesn't like repetition. I almost skipped level 1 for Bear, but they have really good ways to explain rules and I figured we could just go through that book fast. I will still be able to use it for J-jo. You could just resell it:) But at least that way, you know you haven't accidentally missed anything.
Thanks for all the input!! Any chance anyone is selling any of their used copies? How do you go about winning it?