This post is sponsored by All About Learning Press.
When it comes to homeschooling, one of the biggest challenges is teaching your kids to read. Even with my daughter being a bookworm, we still found it difficult to get past the struggles of her actually learning to read for herself. There are so many methods out there, but I’m thankful we found the best program for teaching your child to read early on!
Learning to read is one of the most foundational parts of education because it opens up the doors for learning everything else. Once your child can read, they can start working through books or worksheets on the other subjects as well. It also allows them to read for fun and develop a true love of reading, which is beneficial in so many ways. So, teaching them how to read is a pretty big task!
I tried working through a particular teaching method with my daughter, thinking it would be a breeze since she loves story time more than anything. Of course she would have a natural inclination towards reading, right? Wrong! Turns out, there are definitely some methods that work better than others. When it comes to young kids in particular, it’s especially important to choose a program that will hold their interest and keep it fun.
Teaching your Child to Read with All About Reading
When our first attempt fell through, I started looking to veteran homeschool families and quickly found a favorite among them: All About Reading by All About Learning Press. Over and over again I found them to be the preferred program for teaching children to read. We have been fortunate enough to try them out the past several months. I can absolutely say I join the rest of the parents out there who think they’re the best!
You might be trying to figure out which program will work best for your child. You won’t have to guess when it comes to All About Reading. It has the perfect balance of technique, interactive fun, and progression that I’d venture to say it would work for anyone’s child!
The technique used in these programs follows the Orton-Gillingham Approach, which offers a structured, multi-sensory method of teaching that continuously builds on previous lessons. This is especially helpful for kids with specific struggles, such as dyslexia, but also makes a great approach for all kids!
All About Learning Press has a convenient placement test to help you decide where in the program your child would best be suited to start. Based on this, we could confidently start with the Level 1 reading program and know it would match our needs. Sure enough, it has been perfect and met my daughter exactly where she was, reading-wise!
What Comes in the Level 1 Reading Program
When we received our Level 1 program, we were so excited to dive right in. Something great about All About Reading is how straight forward the lessons are, requiring little-to-no planning on your part! Aside from cutting out some activities provided in the student packet and some initial prep work, I’ve been able to open and go with our reading lesson each day!
Here is what you can expect in your All About Reading Level 1 package:
- Teacher’s Manual for you to read through for each lesson
- Student Pack including all the engaging activities to help back up the lessons
- Flashcards to introduce new letters/words, or review old ones
- Letter tile magnets for a hands on way to work on new words with ease (you would need a large magnetic dry erase board to display them on)
- An app version of the letter tiles for a more convenient way to review
- A review box and dividers to keep your flashcards organized
- Three readers for them to practice what they’ve learned
- Optional: Reading Games with Ziggy the Zebra for yet another fun way to reinforce what they are learning
An Open and Go Program
As I mentioned before, there is some prep work to be done before using this program. But the majority of it is a one-time deal and doesn’t take too long! The index cards come with multiple cards to one printed page, so those have to be pulled apart for use and then organized in order within the review box. The tiles also come all on several sheets that need to be broken apart, and there are magnetic squares to attach to the back of each tile.
All of it took me part of one evening and was easy enough to do mindlessly while watching TV. Additionally, there are a few things to cut out for some of the practice activities as you go along. That part takes a minute or two, and besides that the lessons are completely open and go!
This year I’ve planned a lot of the other subjects myself. It was important that if I was using an actual program for something, that it created LESS work, not more. I’ve really been happy with how easy it is to do these lessons without putting much thought into it beforehand.
A Reading Plan that Actually Works!
Above all else, we want a program that will actually help with teaching our children to read, right? It could be the easiest plan ever but completely useless if our kids weren’t reading by the end of it. You can count on All About Reading as a solid reading program for your child to really learn how to read from a clear, foundational point of view.
They gain an understanding of how different sounds work together to build words, not simply memorizing a bunch of sight words. The memorization comes naturally when they have a firm grasp on the individual or groups of sounds!
I was impressed with how easily my daughter picked up reading through this program. We are still working through the lessons, so I wouldn’t say she is easily reading books on her own quite yet (outside of the Level 1 readers). However, she is flying through this program! It’s easier to retain everything as she goes since it’s laid out in a way that really makes sense!
The Best Reading Program
If you are considering different programs to teach your child to read, I highly recommend using All About Reading! The package is reasonably priced, and more than worth it. Honestly, I would pay a lot more if I had to for something as foundational as reading. It’s a major basic your kids need to learn to have a quality education, so it’s worth using the best for!
We couldn’t be happier with this program and I look forward to using their higher levels as we progress. I also have three younger kids that will be learning to read over time. So it will be convenient to have these materials for future use! Whether you have a book-lover or a child that has no interest in reading, All About Reading makes it fun and straight-forward enough to help any child along their reading journey.
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