Five Things We Love About All About Reading

All About Reading is the curriculum I use to teach reading in our homeschool and we LOVE it! It’s fun and it works. Here’s a just a few reasons why we love using All About Reading to learn how to read at home.

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Teaching your child to read is such an exciting time! It can also be a little scary too!

For me, I knew I just wanted to make sure my first child was having fun with it and not getting frustrated. I quickly learned that it was important to have a program that didn’t lead me to become frustrated either.

We started off with another popular early reader curriculum and while it was mostly fine, there were several issues with it that led me to wish we were using something better. I realized that as much as I didn’t want to, we needed a switch.

I had heard lots of buzz about All About Reading from friends and online, but I had decided not to purchase it due the cost. Well, I soon changed my mind! I’m so glad I did.

I’ve now taught all of Level 1 and some of Level 2 and plan on finishing the entire program of levels 3 & 4 too as we get to them.

I love that it’s fun to teach, easy to teach, and it works. I never worry that we are missing something or not progressing “on track”.

Five Things We Love About All About Reading

So, in a nutshell, here’s a few of the specific reasons I love teaching reading with All About Reading. Honestly, I could come up with a lot more. But, I just wanted this post to be food for thought…and not totally overwhelming! If you have any questions, drop a comment.

1 – It’s Open and Go

During a busy homeschool day, I have zero time for fluff. I don’t want to open our lessons for the day and realize that I should’ve prepped materials the night before or (even worse) shopped for something.

Open-and-go is how I stay sane as a homeschooling parent.

Now, everyone has a different idea of what “open-and-go” means. For me, it means we can start our lesson the moment I open the books. It also means not being interrupted by the need to prepare an activity or grab some supplies.

Because All About Reading does have a ton of cut-out activities, it doesn’t feel open-and-go for some parents. But if you prep your activity binder in advance, everything is ready to use and it’s a snap to teach from.

I suggest just prepping everything before you even start the curriculum. Punch out and organize the flashcard box, cut activities and place them into page protectors, attach the magnets to the tiles, and you’ll be ready. Do this while watching a favorite show and it’ll fly by.

Since I prepped all my materials right away our lessons are always “open-and-go”. It is working great!

Hint: If you want to start All About Reading, but aren’t sure which level to buy, start with their placement test. It’s easy to do and will help you select the right level.

If you have a brand-new student to reading, you can just start with the pre-reading level. We had used the first 50 or so lessons of 100 Easy Lessons, so we went directly into Level 1 in kindergarten.

2 – The Lessons are Short

Now, a lesson in the book might actually be fairly long. But, the daily lessons you share with your child will only ever be 20 minutes. You will not always be completing a lesson in one sitting!

All About Reading recommends that you spend only 20 minutes (5 days a week) on teaching reading. This is truly just the right amount for young students.

It often worked out perfectly for us to split each lesson into two. Then we did two lessons per week. At this pace, we finished Level 1 well before our year of kindergarten was over.

What about the fifth day of reading practice? In kindergarten (Level 1 for us) we would re-read a story, work a little on a practice sheet, play a game again, or something like that. It was the perfect pace for a young reader.

Now for first grade, we do ensure we are getting all five days of reading in. Depending on the length of the lessons and where we are at, we follow a similar format as described above.

Pro Tip: All About Learning also sells a complete spelling program and a math program (the math program is brand-new so levels are being added as they are completed).

3 – It’s Phonics-Based

It’s so important to get off to the right start with reading! Programs that focus on rote memorization and sight words appear to start students off quickly, but eventually it catches up with them and they hit a wall. I didn’t want to experience that.

All About Reading uses very a specific method called the Orton-Gillingham approach, but you don’t need to nerd out and figure out everything that means (unless you want to!).

The most important thing to know is that the program is phonics-based and your child will learn how to read with every learning pathway: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. The variety of approaches means that learning really sticks!

More about Orton-Gillingham: If you do want to understand the method a little more, you can grab this ebook: The Power of the Orton-Gillingham Approach.

One of my favorite ways this plays out is with the magnetic letter tiles. The student sees the words formed, listens to the sounds of each phonogram and can move the tiles around to form words and rhyming words. So easy to do, yet so effective!

4 – There’s a Huge Variety of Practice Materials

If you need more practice on any lesson, the variety of ways you can practice is abundant. This keeps things fresh and avoids boredom or frustration as students master their reading skills.

For instance, in any one lesson you can practice the following:

• build letters with the magnetic letter tiles
• play games with the practice sheets (see the back of the teacher’s manuals for games)
• review flashcards
• play the printed activities
• re-read the stories in the readers

And all of this is ready for you. No printing practice sheets from the internet or drawing up your own flashcards.

Plus, many lessons have multiple games or other tools, like Word Flippers (we love these!). It’s easy to add a little extra practice into your day just by playing a few of the games for five or ten minutes.

5 – Self-Paced

What’s really great is that each lesson includes what you need to know and teaches it thoroughly. Then you can decide how much of each lesson to do each day. Maybe the new words require extra practice, or perhaps you have a quickly advancing student and you opt to skip the activities.

So your 20-minute lessons could look like:

• learning new material each day and moving at a brisk pace
• learning new material every other day and taking the alternate days to practice and review
• a mix of the two

So it’s not just about the time you spend, but how you spend it. The program is a “mastery” approach, so you move on as the material is mastered.

You can adjust the time spent on any practice or review as you see fit for your child.

I think the mastery approach works so well for teaching reading. It’s a really peaceful way to move through a curriculum.

It’s very clear what the goals are. Thus, it’s easy to decide if you should progress to new material or take or day or two (or even longer!) to let new lessons sink in.

Other Stuff We Love:

We also enjoy the readers. They have pretty illustrations, they feel like real books (and they are!), and the stories are interesting.

I mentioned the tiles earlier, but they really are fun and handy!

We also enjoy the games. They are easy to play (again, cut out everything in advance!) and quick too. Each activity is a little different, but with super simple instructions so you can just start. You won’t be trying to figure out how to play the games–which is never fun!

I’d love to hear from you! Have you tried All About Reading? Are you curious? Let me know if you have questions.