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[~Summer~]

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[StephanieU]

This conversation has a post by Carrie about why she chose to recommend TRL and RME. I know AAR is OG-based, and she discusses those a little bit too.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2503

[Nealewill]

I have used AAR and know a lot about the Logic of English. I have also used Abeka, MFW and nothing at all but Bob Books LOL.

My oldest started with Abeka because I didn't know of anything else. I used their boxed curriculum for language arts and after 3 years decided that it wasn't my style. My middle child started in K with Abeka but he was struggling. The following year I had found MFW. He did their phonics for 1st and it was much more relaxed. That was a much better fit for us. I should say that I started HOD two years ago and my kids ages were 8, 7, and 5. I had not really researched any of their language products because I had already made a plan for that before switching to them as at the time, I had not planned to use a boxed curriculum. In addition, my son had some auditory processing problems and couldn't hear sounds nor did he have a developed working vocabulary. He used AAR for 2 years after using MFW because he was struggling so significantly. For him, it was a good fit. We started AAR when he was 7 because he had so may problems. He used it until he was 8.5. AAR is a lot of work but he was special needs IMHO. For my youngest, she learned to read using Bob Books. I guess I could have used one of the HOD products but she started reading when she was 3. She just caught on easily. She moved straight into the Emerging Readers in HOD when we started and she reads a ton now.

I say all this to say, HOD is a complete language program. AAR is meant to be used with AAS and it seems to go well with Handwriting without Tears. With HOD, you don't really need the spelling component or the handwriting component. HOD is very balanced the products they use seem to be very well received here. In addition, Logic of English is even more intense. I personally think it is a lot of work for a child who doesn't need nearly that amount of intensity. Some kids can just easily read. My youngest is a prime example of that. Between the two alternatives, TRL is most similar to AAR. If I had known about it, I probably would have used that one first. I personally would not use AAR or The Logic of English because they spend so much time teaching the different sounds that it can really slow your kids down in being able to just get books from the Library and read them. For example, with AAR, my son couldn't just go and get any book and read it until he was done with Level 3! With my youngest, I was very glad to not be bound by that type of system. That is the same for the Logic of English - it holds your hand step by step and spend so much time on sounds that it prevents kids from just diving into good books and learning from there. And with HOD, every level they increase reading level and volume, writing practice and volume, they eventually include spelling and cursive, and they do all of this in a very balanced way.

I will also say, that with my older two kids, reading has never been easy! But the books that HOD offers are what has really gotten my kids reading. They love the books and they want to read them. That makes them try just a little bit harder. In addition, as kids get older with HOD, they do read a lot. I feel like the volume of reading in each level has been so beneficial to teaching my kids to read. And finally, time and patience has lead most to the large strides in my kids reading abilities. No program can possibly teach you everything! It just isn't possible. It takes time, practice and patience on my end to help my kids along to read may things. Even with this, one thing that Carrie always reminds me of when I see her at the convention is that my kids as they grow won't be able to read everything. They will still make mistakes, miss words and still need help sounding things out. That is okay. You want them to get the meaning. So I think getting them started on reading with a program but then teaching them reading through reading lots of books is going to make the most difference in the long run. And all kids are different. My oldest and middle children didn't read well until they were 8, almost 9. My youngest has been reading well since 6. So if you start and your kids doesn't take off immediately, that is okay. Every child is different.

[mrsrandolph]

I was a reading specialist in my "former life", and I have NEVER seen a program as good as All About Reading. In my opinion, it is the best program out there, hands down.

[Motherjoy]

I taught my first son to read with various programs - 100EZ lessons, Phonics Pathways, ETC. I finally settled on The Reading Lesson for my next three sons. I drew a lot on my previous experience with various curriculum as we went through TRL. Without that experience, I'm sure I would have gotten frustrated sooner than I did. I thought that TRL worked well, but I have since changed my mind, and find it incredibly lacking. Yes, it goes quickly and lessons don't take long. Its enough for a kid who is a natural reader, but I still would choose AAR anyday for any kid, hands down. My third son is a struggling, slow reader, and went all the way through TRL without a hitch. He appeared to read fine, but the transisiton to the emerging book list was halting and awkward. It just didn't go well or smoothly, and worst of all, it wasn't scripted and it didn't teach me HOW to teach him.

I soon realized that we were dealing with some mild dyslexia in him, and started searching for a solution. I love, love, love AAR, and I'm running four levels right now with various kids. Its so easy for the parent to implement, its all scripted and beautifully organized. Its multi-sensory, and full of review and drill. I did laminate and precut all of the student worksheets, because I didn't want to waste precious time each day with a slow child. So, those activities become little games that take 5 minutes and the kids love. AAR is the best of every curriculum out there. It even includes literary analysis and terms. You don't need to do AAS with it, if you don't want. I wouldn't use AAS for a natural speller, but I do it use for two of my children.

[MelInKansas]

So here I go, I am all in favor of TRL and Emerging Readers and here's why. The other poster said it works fine for kids who are natural readers. So if your child is basically average, or above average, and can pick it up that way, I think it is the best, most enjoyable way for them to learn to read. What I have seen with my DD who is now finishing ER and getting ready to start DITHOR, is that it has really fostered a love of reading in her. Now, she is a rules girl and AAR probably would have worked for her too, but some of my other kids probably would just hate all the rules-learning and repetition. I know they do make activities and games with it and make it interactive and fun, but I am sold on a program that is easy to use, fast, incremental, and effective (for a majority of kids). If you feel your child really needs all the teaching involved in an AAR style curriculum, then of course that's what you should use. And then I have heard of other programs that my friends with struggling readers have used, not that I can remember them to mention them here. Anyway, all that to say, pray about it. The Lord has given me supernatural wisdom in areas when I needed it, and I am so thankful for His guidance.

[~Summer~]

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[Carrie]

Ladies,

While you can certainly choose any phonics program that you desire to use with Heart of Dakota, our board rules ask that on the Heart of Dakota board we stick to discussing the options that Heart of Dakota offers for phonics. Below, please note this in the board rules:

This is the only "official" Heart of Dakota" board moderated by us. Since this board is sponsored by Heart of Dakota, we ask that you do not post links to other companies, other boards, other blogs (outside of your own Heart of Dakota related blog), or other products, or promote them. We also ask that you do not reference posts, threads, or articles from other boards or companies or post for the purpose of discussing or promoting a product that is not scheduled within the HOD guides. This board is also not the place to post for the purpose of buying, swapping, or selling items or curriculum or to suggest that our customers shop elsewhere.

Since All About Reading has been coming up regularly on this board in spite of the board rules, I am going to address it by sharing my own thoughts about this program (and why we do not choose to carry it at Heart of Dakota). After this, I wanted to let board readers know that we will be removing posts that do not adhere to the board rules.

I think it is helpful when discussing phonics to share a bit of background from my past so you can better understand how my philosophy has changed through the years to the thoughts I have today about how to teach kiddos to read.

When I first began teaching over 25 years ago, in the public school classroom, I began with older students (6th grade) who had widely varying abilities and skills in reading. Those who struggled with reading were overwhelmed with their day and with the level of vocabulary and sheer volume of words going past them in all of their texts. This affected how they felt about school and themselves. These kiddos had come up through the system with a purely phonetic approach to reading, and yet about 1/3 to 1/4 quarter of the kiddos still struggled mightily as readers. I found about the same amount of kiddos struggling with reading as I moved down to third grade as a teacher the next year.

These kiddos often knew the rules for decoding but struggled with the words on the page. They were often sounding words out one at time and trying to remember the rules to unlock each word as they slowly went. Or, they just couldn't remember any of the rules and sat blankly unsure of how to proceed. Reading was just a set of rules to these kiddos that did not come naturally.

On the other hand, about 1/3 of the class loved to read. They read with joy and devoured books easily. Even though they too had been taught phonics rules, they had moved past the rules and no longer thought of them as they read. Reading had become natural for them. Oddly, these avid readers weren't always the best students, but they did love to read!

The other 1/3 of the class really didn't love to read, but they could do it well enough to get through their day. They preferred factual books and textual learning to fictional material, so rather than book devourers they were book learners.

To give you a bit more insight into the type of school in which I taught, I will share that the school where I taught was a mid-level income school in a mature, well-groomed neighborhood. The teachers were seasoned teachers who cared about their craft and their students. The parents were hard-working and their student's education was important to them.

My first year happened to coincide with a new push in reading called "whole language." This was a drastic shift away from phonics and was meant to inspire kiddos to learn to love reading. As part of this push, schools invested in real books and set aside the basal readers that taught mainly short stories and snippets of stories. Not surprisingly, with the older age of students I was teaching that year, I did see a big rise in enthusiasm for reading from my students. We grouped kiddos in literature circles and they had choice over the books they read. They read, and discussed, and books came to life for them. Even the struggling readers made gains and for the first time they seemed to really have a desire for reading.

Yet, in the younger grade classrooms teachers were at a loss of how to get their little ones to read. From their years of experience teaching phonics, they sprinkled phonics instruction in with whole language, teaching a blend of phonics (which contained a downsized version of phonics rules) in combination with getting their litle ones reading real books as soon as possible. This worked well for the seasoned teachers, but the new teachers were less successful (relying on a purely whole language approach due to the switch in curriculum). Yet, surprisingly some kiddos still learned to read using even that purely whole language approach.

As I moved through my next ten years of teaching in the public school classroom, which included teaching at varying grade levels, the whole language movement died a little more each year as it became apparent that books alone without phonics instruction was producing a large group of word memorizers (rather than decoders) who once they reached third grade could no longer memorize enough words to read well. Things were falling apart overall without the teaching of at least some phonics. Seasoned teachers were retiring and phonics instruction was becoming a thing of the past.

Eventually, schools shifted back to a blended phonics and real books approach. They realized that there was merit in both approaches, and the blending of the two became the goal. Now, 15 years later, the battle over how much phonics is enough still rages. For me, having been through the stage where many of the different methods for teaching reading were tried, I see merit in a blended approach to teaching phonics. I believe that there are core rules to phonics that should be taught and that after that core is taught, phonics instruction switches its purpose from reading instruction to spelling instruction. (Even then, I differ with a heavily rule-based approach to spelling but that's another post.) I have seen firsthand that too many rules can bog down the reading process leaving kids focusing on the rules rather than the reading. I have also seen that practice in reading goes much better once real books are used. While phonetically controlled readers have their place, spending too long on this type of material quickly steals a child's joy and enthusiasm for reading.

With these thoughts in mind, I will share that the phonics programs we choose to use and carry at Heart of Dakota focus on teaching a core of phonics rules that will get kiddos reading. While students are practicing this phonics core, they use phonetically controlled stories. Once this core is learned, we shift to reading real books instead. However, these real books are carefully sequenced by difficulty level to gradually move kiddos further and further down the reading path. Comprehension and higher level thinking questions accompany the real books to be sure kiddos know what they are reading. Using picture clues and some sight word memorization is not discouraged as part of the reading process. Less emphasis is placed upon these strategies as students become stronger more confident readers. We also take account that kIddos who WANT to learn to read are more successful, because they desire to practice reading (and practice helps improve reading). So, any reading program we carry should make kiddos WANT to learn to read. Keeping lessons short and focused and getting kiddos reading little stories and real books as soon as possible aids in fueling that desire to read.

As far as writing goes, we specifically choose programs within HOD for phonics that do not require much writing. For boys especially, whose fine motor skills lag behind their reading skills, making them write as they learn to read can be a frustrating and slow experience. It is not uncommon for kiddos to read much earlier than they write. Yet, this doesn't seem to delay a student's future writing ability. But, in reverse, forcing a child whose fine motor skills are not developed to wait to learn to read until he/she can write each sound, letter, or word, can delay a student's reading progress.

So, in looking at All About Reading, you can see that there are quite a few areas where it does not line up with the philosophy of reading that we have at HOD. It is a very rule-based program based on the Orton-Gillingham method that carries the teaching of phonics rules much further than I feel is necessary. The rules are the focus and heart of the lessons (instead of the reading). When combined with All About Spelling, the emphasis on rules and drill takes over a big chunk of a child's school day. Additionally, both All About Reading and All About Spelling can be programs that take quite a bit of the school day to actually teach. With so much teaching time devoted to reading and spelling, often the rest of the subjects within a child's school day end up being downsized or skipped altogether. This can leave both the teacher and the student's day out of balance, and often means that the teacher does not have time to teach the other things (beyond phonics) that we designate in our HOD guides to be teacher-taught.

Another barrier to All About Reading (and All About Spelling) from our perspective is that both programs have at least 4 years of instruction for parent/student to go through before they are "done" with phonics instruction. This is a lot of years to devote to teaching phonics every day! While you can of course exit the program earlier if desired, it is not how the program is designed to be used (making you wonder what you have left undone if you do exit the program earlier.) Plus, if you do use the program as designed, then it will be years before you will get to a program that uses real books for the child to read as a part of their reading instruction (unless you do this outside of your reading instruction session.) Or, if you do switch to a program like the Emerging Reader Set or DITHR as scheduled in our guides, then you will eventually be teaching the phonics lessons of All About Reading along with a program like the Emerging Reader Set or DITHR (making reading instruction much longer at that point than we plan in our guides.)

Last, philosophy-wise All About Reading does not mesh well with our philosophy of how reading should be taught. I believe that kiddos should be exposed to a core of phonics rules that enables them to decode most words and gets them reading. For me this core of rules does not extend nearly as far as All About Reading goes. Next, I believe that kiddos should move on to reading a sequential list of real books to build fluency and comprehension and to practice decoding. This shift occurs after about two years of phonetic instruction in the programs we carry at Heart of Dakota, which differs from All About Reading which doesn't make this shift until much later. After emerging as a reader for a year within Heart of Dakota, kiddos move into DITHR using real books to study literary elements, dig more deeply beneath the surface of what was read, and begin learning to read with moral discernment. This shift can occur as early as second grade, but often occurs in grade 3 within Heart of Dakota. This again differs from the continuing rule-based focus of All About Reading throughout all four levels of that program.

Kiddos differ in how much phonics they need to know to read well. There is definitely a transition moment between the end of formal phonics and the beginning of the Emerging Reader Set. This transition can go smoothly, or it can be bumpy. For some kiddos, the steady practice of the Emerging Reader Set is eventually enough to get them reading well. Even though this can be a year of emerging as a reader in fits and starts, this doesn't necessarily mean that you need another phonics program. Instead, a parent's guidance as the child reads and comes to a word the he/she is unable to decode is often help enough. This guidance stems from the things you do yourself when you come to a word you don't know (i.e. making sure to start the word with the right sound, covering up part of the word to see and say the word in parts, chunking the word with prefix/root word/suffix, noticing how a word ends, using the context of the sentence as a help, and sometimes mentioning the rules, etc). For some kiddos who don't emerge well, a bit more phonics instruction is needed. Often this can be taken care of with a quicker review type phonics program (instead of starting all over again with phonics from the beginning).

Of course there are exceptions, but for many kiddos multiple years of a heavy rule-based approach to learning to read are not required. This also means that in many cases continual drilling of the rules is not required either and can actually slow down the reading process for kids, stealing their joy and turning reading into an exercise in rules. While there are many students who can read well for life without a heavily rule-based approach, I still believe that all children do benefit from some phonics instruction. So, there is the balancing act that we strive for in programs we carry at HOD.

As a parent, you must decide what approach to follow with your students. There are many different approaches and each have their merit. At Heart of Dakota, we are glad to help you better use those products that we carry and have found to work well for many families. If you have problems along the way, we are glad to help you get over those humps.

Of course there are many good phonics programs available that are not carried by HOD that will work well to get your students reading. There are also many general boards where you can discuss phonics programs outside of those carried by HOD. Since this is not a general board, we ask that when discussing programs outside of those carried by HOD that you take those discussions to those companies' boards instead. Rather than debating All About Reading here, you can gladly discuss All About Reading on their board or by calling that company directly. If you have other questions about the programs we carry or recommend at HOD, we are glad to help!

Blessings,
Carrie

[Gwenny]

Thank you, Carrie. for that explanation! You are very gracious and kind. Let me say again, I LOVE HOD! I'm very grateful for you and all of the work you put into helpful us and our children.