All About Pre-Reading Review
Description
All About Pre-Reading is sold by All About Learning Press. They sell reading and spelling programs based on the Orton Gillingham approach. The programs are multi-sensory that teach through the logical sequence and leave no gaps in the learning process. Pre-reding covers important aspects Print awareness, Phonological Awareness, Letter Knowledge, Listening Comprehension, and Motivation to Read. You can learn more about how this amazing program came to be here on their website.
My experience
I have 2 children and I have taken a shot at using pre-reading twice. This experience has really solidified the fact that all children are different and learn differently. With my first child who things like rhyming, hearing the beginning and ending sounds of words, etc came naturally it all seemed redundant and useless. But I tucked it away “just in case”, and thank goodness I did! Fast forward 2 years and I’m so glad I kept this curriculum!
Along comes my other daughter. She was about 6 months younger than my older when she started kinder, and just a different kid in general. I attempted to start All About Reading level 1 and about 15-20 lessons in we hit a roadblock. We stopped and reviewed and we were just stuck so I made the hard decision to go back a whole level to prereading. It turns out it was exactly what she needed.
Unbeknownst to me, my daughter could not hear the rhyming in words. She also was having trouble identifying the first and last sounds to words, still couldn’t consistently identify all the letters, didn’t have great comprehension, so we gave this curriculum a chance. It was a great fit! A great guide. If I have learned anything over the last 4 years of homeschooling is that no curriculum is going to fit every need a child has, perfectly.
So there are 2 parts to each lesson the first part is called “Letter of the day” where you work on letter/sound recognition (capital letters, lower case letters, then sounds of letters) then the language exploration section. In our experience, the language exploration section was what truly benefited us. It improved her phonological awareness bounds and leaps and I would definitely use it again with this child!
As for the letter of the day section, it was good practice. Basically, Each letter was reviewed 3 separate times. Once in each of these 3 sections: Capital Letters, Lowercase Letters, The Sound of the Letters. In my opinion, if your child doesn’t know any letters or letter sounds this curriculum ALONE is not going to fill that gap but you can add things to make it work. For instance, before each lesson singing the alphabet and do a quick review of what you have already covered. Their blog has wonderful posts that offer free activities and print-outs to help, like this post here.
Price
The price on the website as of today is 134.95 this may be a little steep for a pre-k / kinder student for some.
Also you can find it used for about $60 which is a significant savings.
Pros
- Creates reading readiness.
- Great foundation
- Script available for those who need it.
- All in one
- Engaging
- No prep
Cons
- The price can be a turn off for some.
- Not enough letter practice.
In conclusion…
I would say for the typical learner you can get much cheaper pre-k / kinder curriculums that will work just fine but for a struggling learner, it is worth its weight in gold and can make a world of difference! Or even if you are not sure if your child will struggle and want to cover all your bases this will lay a great foundation. If your child does not have any letter recognition at all, then, in my opinion, extra practice will need to be added. You could always add in a quick review of the letters you have already covered, before each lesson. Also, they have an amazing blog with tons of free resources you can use. Here is one that offers more help teaching letters with tons of letter practice activities and printables.
I chose this curriculum as my first review because I always see people dismissing this program and saying it is not worth it but for some, it can be just what you were looking for. Thanks for coming by and come check out what we are doing daily over on Instagram. Cya there!