practical help and encouragement for homemakers
by Joy Kincaid 16 Comments
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Thank you for sharing your story. My daughter has reading dyslexia so I pray this helps her get better at reading.
So glad it was helpful!
Love these ideas, thank you! I’m excited to be using this program for the first time with my son this year!! Just curious, how did you pace the lessons or schedule it? Obviously every child and family schedule is different, but did you dine a lesson a day was typical?
Glad it was helpful! We aimed to complete one lesson per day, but if a lesson was on the longer side or included a more difficult concept, we might spread it out a little longer and do half one day and half the next. Hope that helps, and enjoy your year with AAR!
Thanks for posting these ideas. I love the binder with sheet protectors. I wonder why you cut and assembled the activities instead of having your child do those tasks? I would think that they provide a wonderful opportunity for following directions and fine motor skill development. I say that only to offer that suggestion for others.
You could definitely have your child do the cutting if you wanted to. We did that with Level 1 (when I used it with my daughter), but we found it took up a lot of time assembling the materials and for my daughter there wasn’t a lot of added benefit (as she was already proficient at cutting/fine motor skills).
With my younger son (who went through the levels after his sister), I pre-assembled everything because he has dysgraphia, and cutting was extremely (unusually) challenging for him. It actually would have detracted from the reading lesson to include a cutting lesson at the same time. I decided instead to just keep the focus on reading, and we did other fine motor skills activities during another part of the school day. It worked out very well for us, and he’s an excellent reader today (after going through All About Reading).
So, feel free to do what works best for you and your child! 🙂
In your opinion, does this follow with grade 2 or grade 1?
That’s hard to say, since it’s not a graded program. It really depends on each child’s individual reading ability. I highly recommend using the placement test on this page (it’s at the bottom of the page under FAQs). If a child did the AAR pre-reading program in Kindergarten, then did Level 1 in grade 1, then they would probably be ready for Level 2 in grade 2. So, it could correspond nicely with grade level, but I’d try the placement test just to make sure.
Hi, great review! I’m starting AAR with Level 1. I’m excited to find such an organized and thorough review! Now I’m wondering, was I supposed to also buy readers to go along with Level 1?! Ack! Thanks and take care.
Thanks, Danielle! I’m glad it was helpful! Yes, the AAR readers are an integral part of the program, so those are necessary. For instance, on some days, the lesson will instruct you to read from one of the readers. Hope that helps, and hope you have a great year with AAR! 🙂
Thanks Joy!
You're welcome!
Such an awesome idea! May I ask how large your binder was? From the pic it looks to be bigger than a 1 inch.
Glad if it was helpful! I'm not totally sure, since I just used one we already had, but it looks like a 2" D-ring binder. And it's pretty full, so maybe even a bigger one could be used!
Great idea! About how many page protectors do you think you used?
Thanks! I'm not exactly sure how many I used, since I just gathered up a pile of them, including an already-opened package. I would say I used at least a full package of page protectors (just guessing).
Also, I filed more than one lesson in some of them. For instance, I put lesson one on the front side of the page protector (including all of the pages that went with that lesson), and then I put lesson two on the other side of the page protector (if they would all fit). I hope that makes sense.