I spent years trying to create the perfect “letter of the week” program for my children. But then I found this program and it made my life so much simpler! I hope this All About Reading Pre-Reading review helps other moms of preschoolers!
Last April, I finally purchased the All About Reading Pre-reading Program after hearing so many good things about it.
After beginning the program in the spring, with my four-year-old, we took the summer off, and then jumped back into it this fall. We’re enjoying it so much that I thought I’d share all the things we love about it.
All About Reading Pre-Reading Review
We bought the Deluxe Package, which contains everything you need for the program.
When I first looked into it, I was tempted to just buy parts of it and make do without the puppet, the bag, etc. But I’m so glad I didn’t do that. Having the complete kit has made it so much easier, and my son thinks the puppet is the best part! 🙂
When we start our lesson for the day, we sing the Alphabet Song, pointing to each letter on the chart as we go. The student packet comes with two full-size posters for both the lowercase and uppercase alphabets.
These would be ideal to use, but I don’t have the space to hang them up, so we use this free alphabet chart that I originally printed and laminated for use with our Before Five in a Row studies last year. I love that the “Z” has a zebra for the picture!
The teacher’s manual has very easy-to-follow instructions for each day. You can see the lesson plan for lesson one below:
After singing the Alphabet Song and finding the letter of the day, then we read the poem for that letter.
And then it’s time to do the craft sheet. I love that these can be as simple or as complex as you want to make them. Sometimes we use things like wiggle eyes, yarn, glitter, or paint, but it literally just takes me minutes to grab a few supplies for this. And sometimes I’m tired, so we just color the page. That’s totally okay!
After doing the ABC craft sheet together, you have the option of doing some additional ABC activities (with suggestions listed in the book). I have been skipping these most of the time, simply because I don’t have time for them. If you have time, I’m sure they would be great, but they’re not totally necessary.
Then there is usually a game or activity to do with the Ziggy the Zebra puppet. My son really loves these. I was surprised that he enjoys it as much as he does. Again these are very simple and scripted activities, so I find them very doable and not at all stressful.
Sometimes there’s a game or activity using the cards in the card file, and then after this I read aloud for 20 minutes or so.
When the lesson is completed, he loves getting to put a sticker on his progress chart. It’s amazing how motivating this is for him! He loves seeing how far he has come and how many lessons he has left.
He also loves the books that go with the program:
Ziggy is the Best!
But his favorite part of all is Ziggy the Zebra. Ziggy is one of the cutest puppets I’ve ever seen. He’s so soft and so cute:
Ezra looks forward to taking Ziggy out of his bag every day. He loves to give him hugs and kisses!
I love so much about this program. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it’s enjoyable to use!
I love that with very little effort and planning, my youngest child is learning so much about language and reading, and enjoying the whole process!
All About Reading’s Pre-reading Program was definitely the right choice for us this year, and I look forward to moving into All About Reading Level 1 with him next year (or whenever he’s ready for it–his older sister is using it right now).
Related Posts:
- The Reading Program That Helped My Struggling Reader
- How I Teach Reading
- All About Reading Level 2 Review
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I have a question about your implementation of the program. How do you handle the capital, lowercase and sounds of each letter? Do you incorporate all letter A activities together in a week? I just placed my order and am trying to figure out the best way to plan my school year 🙂 Thanks!
Hi Lauren,
The first part of the book introduces capital letters, and the second half of the book introduces lowercase letters and then sounds. It is recommended to complete the lessons at your child’s own pace. So, you could complete one lesson per day or one per week (you could spend a week doing letter A activities if you wanted to). We just did a lesson per day because that worked best for us, but it’s whatever works for you and your child! Hope that helps! 🙂
How much letter reconization did your son know before you started? My soon 5yr old and 3 1/2 know some but not all letters… Trying to decide if would be too advanced. They are about the same academically
He recognized the letters in his name and a few others, but he didn't know them all. This program doesn't assume they have any previous knowledge of letter recognition. It starts from scratch with a "letter of the day" type of plan. You sing the alphabet song and find the letter for that day on the chart. Then you have a craft sheet to do, focused on the new letter. You can also go a bit slower with it if you feel they need more time. But it didn't seem overly challenging for my 5-year-old. Hope that helps!
Looks like a good program! I'm your neighbor at Wise Woman Builds linkup.
We love it–thanks so much for visiting, Gina!
We just started this program today, and the kids absolutely loved it! I was surprised at how much fun they thought Ziggy was. 🙂 Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I found it very encouraging. We have much to look forward to.
Yay! I'm so glad to hear that your kids love it, too! I have nothing but positive things to say about this program as we continue to enjoy it. Thanks so much for sharing your experience with it, Veronica!