I would love to hear from anyone what their thoughts on starting older kids in All About Spelling. We are new to homeschooling and have a 2nd, 4th and 5th grader. I started our 2nd grader with AAS 1 and he just finished it. I think it was a game changer for him so we are starting 2 now. But I am wondering what to do with the 4th and 5th grader. We have been doing ABEKA spelling, but it seems a little hard and it doesn’t really teach anything, it seems more memorization to me. I’m sure they covered the basics in earlier books.
Bottom line - do you think it would be beneficial to start my older kiddos in AAS. And if so, would you go back to 1? Thanks guys!
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I am going to start homeschool in the fall. My middle daughter (will be 10) is struggling with spelling. I have been looking and AAS is recommended for older children who struggle. They have a blog post about how to go though level 1 with older children and they have message boards. You can also email and talk to them. They have been so helpful with me.
But yes, you start at level 1. You have to build the base. You just go at a much faster rate with the older children.
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This is my second year of homeschooling & Spelling Power was the choice of My Father’s World, which I use. I know some love it, but it just wasn’t working for us. So…I just started my fifth grader at Level 1. We do a lesson a day about four days a week. He was annoyed at first because he thought it was baby’ish (but he really needs spelling help). I think it’s great for basics, especially phonics. I intend to continue, maybe even during the summer. I would recommend!
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I started my kids when they were 9 and 11. Both were struggling spellers and really needed help. It was definitely worth it here. I tried starting with 2, but both had some gaps from Level 1–for example, not knowing the multiple sounds for some letters (they knew short and long vowels, but didn’t know all 4 sounds for O, 3 sounds for CH, and so on). They had an idea about some spelling rules (they knew there were times that C says /s/ but weren’t really sure when), but knew nothing about some other rules (how to know when to use K or C for /k/ at the beginning of a word, when to use K or CK for /k/ at the end of a word, when to double F, L, and S at the end of a word…) and so on.
All that to say, I ended up picking up Level 1 and taking them through it quickly. Here’s a post from the AALP blog on how to “fast-track.” We only needed a few weeks to fill in gaps, but it laid a solid foundation. Level 1 also has a segmenting activity that’s easy at that level, but is really helpful for kids who tend to leave letters out of words. We used that strategy throughout the series whenever my kids had an extra sound in a word or left one out.
Here’s a review I did of AAS, along with a follow-up post, if you want to read more about my journey. (I should do another one sometime, now that both of my kids have finished the series!)
About 6 months after I started using AAS, I started working for AAS in the area of Customer Care (answering emails). That was 6.5 years ago. So, if you happen to email All About Learning, you’ll most likely get a response from me!
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Hi Kelly,
AAS has up to level 7 now, so there are levels for older kids if that helps you out!
Abeka is strictly memorization after 3rd grade, they give a word list each week and you’re responsible for helping them learn the list.
BJU is memorization, but they do daily worksheets which helps with vocabulary building, and spelling practice as they write the words repeatedly.
Spelling You See is a dictation/copywork approach. Students highlight vowel teams, and consonant blends, and then write a passage daily.
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Erica, so can I ask you a question? Knowing AAS as well as you do, if you were just starting out with a 4th and 5th grader would you go back to level 1 and just cover the key concepts? I’m so torn with what to do… Maybe I plug along with Abeka while covering the key concepts in AAS 1 & 2? Thanks for any thoughts!
Hi Kelly,
It really would depend on how far behind they are in spelling. Level 1 definitely includes the majority of the spelling phonics rules, so if they’re really struggling then I would probably do Level 1 and maybe 2 (there are more rules in there, just not as many). After that I would move up to their grade level to get back on track. The thing about AAS is that it builds on each year, but since your kids are older the word lists will be too easy. So you might have to get some word lists for their grade levels as well just to test them and make sure they’re doing okay. Spelling City.com has word lists to choose from I believe.
You could use Abeka along side with AAS L1 as your word list too.
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Thank you thank you for this post!! I am starting next year with a 3rd and 5th grader. I feel like my 3rd grader is grade level for her spelling but my will be 5th grader has HORRIBLE spelling!! I plan on starting them both at 1 and just going faster hopefully. Thanks!
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I started my kids at the end of 3rd and 5th grades, and it was definitely worth it to go back to Level 1. There are new rules all throughout (in fact, some of the rules in Level 6 helped me remember a pattern I used to second-guess all the time!) We got through 1 pretty fast–it took us about 3 weeks, but it was foundational to the rest of the series. We spent about half a year on 2 and then moved on to 3 that first year, then did a little over a level per year after that. Level 7 has 9th-12th grade level words.
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I started my 5th Grade son on Level 1 in January or February. He complained that it was babyish but he truly needs the basics! At an older age, you can work through it quickly. I would recommend starting with Level 1.
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@RubyJane, tell him it’s like a video game. The first level is always super easy, but it has something that you need in order to be successful at the next level. Let him go quickly through easy words he already knows, but make sure he gets the concepts and can teach them back to you. Sometimes it only takes a short time to fill in those gaps & then they are on to the next level. Gradually there will be more in each level that’s new or needs review and he’ll slow down.
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