Review of the All About Reading Level 1
Review of the All About
Reading Level 1
All About Reading is
Amazing!
My Background
I have taught reading, writing, math, organization, and
social/emotional/behavioral in a special education classroom for 4 years. For
the 2017-2018 school year I decided to work part time and home school my 7 year old
son who has autism. This sent me into
the world of homeschooling curriculum. I
FOUND ALL ABOUT READING!
My Sons Growth
This program
has helped my son not only learn to read but has helped him love to read. All
About Reading creates a firm linguistic foundation for students to develop strong
reading ability.
My All About Reading Experience
When I had first looked at this curriculum I was happy that they offered a free placement
test to help me know where to place my son.
I started All
About Reading Level 1 with my son in October 2017. The curriculum guides
the parent/teacher through a step by step process for each lesson. At the top
of each lesson it lists what materials are needed.
 |
| An example of the checklist at the beginning of the lesson. |
Level 1
starts with having the student practice the sound for each letter, and it has a
corresponding app that produces the sounds for each letter and in the future
for consonant teams. The great part about this program is that it initially introduces
all the sounds for each letter. For examples the letter s says /s/ like in the word
sun and /z/ as in the word has. Once the student has gotten to future lessons
that incorporate the “other sounds” the letters make they have already had
multiple exposures to the word making that sound.
 |
| The flash card goes over all the sounds the letter makes and provides key words. |
Students don’t
just jump into reading a story in this curriculum. First they use magnetic
tiles where teacher or student builds the word for the student to read. Then
the student is able to practice new words by reading them off of flash cards.
The Flash cards are stored in a box with dividers. A “reading
review box” can be purchased through All About Reading website, but I
choose to purchases a normal file card box from Amazon. The cards are organized by dividers that color
code phonogram cards in yellow and word cards in green. Each has a section for “review”,
“mastered”, and “future cards” which makes the cards tailored to the students’
unique reading needs.
 |
| Our card box with the All About Reading file dividers and color coded cards. |
My son is
currently on Lesson 47 of 53 lessons and he has only learned about 5 sight
words. The curriculum calls these “Leap Words”, these words are paired with a
visual of a frog and are accompanied with a sentences to introduce the word.
 |
| Example of a leap card. |
Before
reading out of the decodable readers student practice reading from a “warm up
sheet” that is located in the Blast Off
to Reading student activity book. The sheet includes words and phrases that will
be seen in the text it also has visuals that go with related vocabulary for the
story. The teacher’s manual outlines specifically how to introduce the
vocabulary word as well as questions to ask students to explain the meaning of
the word. The “Blast Off to Reading” activity book also includes a reading log,
and a student progress chart where they place a sticker on a chart for each
lesson they complete.
 |
| The rewards chart located in the Blast of to Reading activity book. |
Once the
students have read from the practice sheet they read the short story. The stories are
located in three different decodeable reader books. The graphics are in black and
white and are drawn very well; I was worried that my child wouldn’t be engaged
by the pictures but he was. The text uses words not often seen in children’s decodeable readers like ram, ox, and bog. These words seem to capture my sons’ interest
because they aren’t in many other stories we have read. Almost every story has
an animal or two in it which is highly motivating for my child. During each
story the teachers manual outlines questions that can be asked at the end of
specific pages to monitor the students comprehension.
Interactive
activities are incorporated from the Blast
Off to Reading student activity book throughout the curriclum. The activities include the
introduction to new word pattern, or they might be used after the story to
support comprehension. The activities have also included games and very basic
cut and paste activities.
 |
| Example of one of the hands on activities. For the above example you "chop" the compound words. |
What I Purchased
·
Basic
File Card Box
Why it was Different
Multisensory- This program was different from any other program I have used to teach reading. The lessons are interactive and incorporate
a multisensory
approach. The student are working with magnets, flash cards, games, activities, reading decodable stories, reading words and phrases . Check out my article on Why
Multisensory Works.
Read aloud- All
About Reading Level 1 relies on the idea that students should be read to aloud
for 20 minutes per day. It is implied that this will help the student form a love
of reading. The student is given access to more complicated vocabulary and
story lines, and they are able to hear stories that interest them. This also
gives opportunities to have a good reader model reading to them.
STOP Reading- The teachers manual says to STOP
when student fatigues. This way the student doesn’t start to associate reading
with being frustrated. This is a work at the student pace curriculum, which was
the perfect fit for my son and our family.
NO WRITING -This is the first time I have taught
reading where there is NO WRITING! I wasn’t sure how that would work for me, but
I absolutely love it! My sons reading time is strictly focusing on reading not
his handwriting.
Lots of work before reading-Before we read one of the stories my
son has practiced new patterns with magnets, he has read and seen the words on
flash cards, he has done an interactive game or activity, he has read words and
phrases from a practice sheet, and he has reviewed new vocabulary.
Slow and steady- The process to reading new words
has been slow with this program, but has left my son with a very strong reading
foundation. This program doesn’t front load with lots of sight words that need
to be memorized but teachers the student to have a very strong foundation in
phonics so they are able to decode words.
Would I Recommend?
Yes!
This program
offers the teachers/parents easy step by step directions on how to teach reading.
The programs teaches student strong phonics foundation that can carry them
through reading. It allows you to
customize the program to meet the students unique needs and it allows you to
move at the students pace.
The website was a helpful resource when deciding to use this curriculum it not only had a placement test but also had sample pages from each book that is included when purchasing the curriculum.
The website was a helpful resource when deciding to use this curriculum it not only had a placement test but also had sample pages from each book that is included when purchasing the curriculum.
Check out my review of this program on YouTube
Related Links
My First Impressions of All About Reading Level 2 on YouTube
My First Impressions of All About Reading Level 2 Blog Post
Related Links
My First Impressions of All About Reading Level 2 on YouTube
My First Impressions of All About Reading Level 2 Blog Post
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