Skip to main content

Review: All About Spelling Level 1

For spelling we have gone with All About Spelling since All About Reading was so amazing. With this spelling curriculum you get a step-by-step teacher manual, a phonogram chart, a progress chart, tokens for the lessons and a variety of cards to use. The cards are phonogram, sound, key and word. What I did for organizing was the same as for our reading curriculum. I tore apart the cards which are already perforated and then laminated them. For the teacher manual I went to Office Depot and had them cut the binding then spiral bind it. It just makes it easier for when I flip through the book. I absolutely love that the manual is done in a step-by-step form so I know exactly what to do and when to do it. Each day All About Learning suggest that you do 20 minutes a day so you may not finish a lesson a day and that is completely fine. You go at your child's pace. Just like with All About Reading you will need the Letter Tiles but if you have them from the reading curriculum already then you will not need to buy them again. They are the exact same tiles. I got the app since it is the same price as the magnet tiles but this way I do not need to worry about losing them. The app is only for tablet though so if you do not have a tablet then best to get the actual tiles.


Lesson 1 is going to start with reviewing the phonogram cards. If you used All About Reading then your child should already know these since the company recommends that you complete level 1 of reading before starting the spelling curriculum. I really like the phonogram cards because it will tell how to make each sound with an example of a word that the sound is in that way you know you are making the correct sound especially if the letter has more than one sound. You will go over sounding out words as well as reviewing what letters are vowels and which are consonants. The lessons will have your child use the tiles to spell out the words as well as on paper. I think that writing them is more important because there is great progress with pen to paper for information retention. You will go over spelling words with the short vowel sounds. The curriculum teaches spelling words that have harder sounds in them as well as words with digraphs in them. They split the lessons for words with ending and initial blends. I think this is helpful because then your child can focus on these one at a time. The sounds of C and K can be tricky when you are spelling but even that will be covered in lesson 1. Double consonant words like ones with phonograms of FF, SS, and LL will be taught and since you go over these in reading level 1 your child will already know the sounds that these phonograms make. 



Later in the curriculum you will be teaching spelling with consonant teams and compound words. You will end All About Spelling Level 1 with teaching spelling with open syllables. When I was learning to spell in school somethings that helped me was we had a paper with our spelling words and it had a list of choices on how we got to do the homework. The one that helped me the most in rememorizing how to spell the words since I have dyslexia is reproducing each word 20 times whether it be writing them or typing them out. I do with for my daughter but 20 times can be a lot I remember it being a bit much when I had to do them so I let her do the 5-10 times depending on how well she is doing with the current concept being taught. I also do a spelling test even though the curriculum does not say, too. 


This is a curriculum that I highly recommend to everyone. It is a great way to teach spelling and it really works. We tried Spelling-U-See and I felt it be a lot of busy work instead of actually teaching how to spell anything. We do have Big Letter Bananagrams and I also let our daughter spell the words with that even if we are doing a test because it makes it more fun that way. If you have use All About Spelling before what did you think? What do you use for spelling if you do not use this curriculum? Let us know in the comment section below.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tips & Tricks: Making a Review

 I recently posted on social media the reviews that my daughter did. They were for the 1st 6 weeks of our 2nd grade year. I got asked a lot about them. How did I make them? How did your daughter remember all of this? I also got comments that it is too much, public school does not do that, your history is too involved, etc. So let's start off with how I make a review. For math it is very easy I make a list of everything she learned. On the last week of that 6 or 12 week any math she does that is on that list counts towards the review. Anything on the list that is not done during the week I give her a few problems on each. Because I want to make sure that she has understood the concepts I make the problems hard. If they are too easy there is no way for me to know if she really understands or if she can just do easy problems. For history I make questions based off what I have read from the textbook. I pull out the key information. We also do social studies and geography. I make questi

Tips & Tricks: Grading

When grading first thing you need to do is check your state laws on homeschool. Some states require you to keep record of your curriculum and and grading while some don’t. I do not have to keep any records or grading. Since I use Timberdoodle they have an awesome online scheduler that I use. It has all the curriculum that we use and in the check boxes I put the grades. At the end of each year I keep the scheduler pages so I have records. Below is how I grade things. I also do not show our daughter the grades or tell her them. I don’t want her to worry about getting a bad grade. When she’s in middle school and high school grades that’s when I’ll start letting her know about grade.  My grading system: Pre-K - 2 Grade: she will not see the grade E: excellent; no extra work needed; 100-90% S: satisfactory; give a little extra work; 89-80% N: needs improvement; give a lot of extra work; 79-0% 3 - 5 Grade: she will only see letter grade if she wants to know her grade A: 100-90%

Tips & Tricks: Class Schedule

How do you make a class schedule? When do you do which subjects? How long do you do a class? Does each day look the same? It is easy to make a homeschool schedule since you can school however you like. Since we use Timberdoodle we have access to their online schedule which over the years has been updated to be an outstanding way to schedule our subjects. If you do not use Timberdoodle I would suggest using Excel. If you know a website that allows you to create a schedule (for free) then let me know in the comments. The first thing I do make our schedule is make a list of all of our items and mark which ones I think will be challenging and which will be easy. Core subjects would be harder than things like STEM and thinking skills. Then I use that list to make another list on what day we will do each item. Making sure that not one day will be to hard or to easy. I like it to be pretty even as well as each day having about the same number of items. Some subjects we do everyday those are E