What age to start All About Reading Pre-Reading?

If you have used AAR Pre-Reading, at what age did you start? I am trying to determine if it would be appropriate to start when my daughter turns 3 in a few months. She knows all her uppercase letters and most of her lowercase letters.

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I started my son at 3. He did not know as many letters and is generally a wiggly uninterested student! I would definitely go ahead and start if she knows that many of her letters.

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I don’t think knowing any of the letters is a pre-req. In fact, it’s a program that you could easily go through multiple times. I’d probably aim for a child who was talking reasonably well and was old enough that they would be able to learn (not necessarily already know, but be ready to learn) concepts like rhyming and “starts with .” I’ve gone through the program three times now. With one kid, I didn’t bother with the letters at all (she already knew them) and just did the pre-reading games with rhyming and such, occasionally doing some crafts for fun. Another kid I did it fairly traditionally. A third kid I did it by combining all three of the different aspects of the letter (uppercase, lowercase, sound) at a time, and focusing on the pre-reading games. I think that you can use it a lot of ways depending on the child’s level and needs. I’ve also sometimes combined it with the letter-of-the-week activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

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We started Pre-reading at age 3 yrs 7 months. The letter activities are appropriate for a 3 year old, but the rhyming activities are geared more for a 4 year old. My little guy was able to play Get Out of the Wagon with the rhyming cards, but couldn’t match rhyming words orally, for example. He may be more of a visual learner at this point, or he just memorized the words that rhyme. He’s just now at 4 years 2 months able to do most of the activities in the lessons (we are on capital letters still). I just keep plugging a long and will go back and do some of those rhyming activities later. The cool thing is that if your child doesn’t get it the first time - keep going because AAR continually reinforces those concepts. Currently, he is clapping syllables and doing great! Some of the skills are easier than others, but Pre-reading is more than just learning the letters and their sounds.

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I just got the AAR pre reading set. Is it best to teach the letter with the sound or follow the lessons in the book?

@bhaugseth I think that will depend on your child. I go in order because my first time through, I did the capital letters as written in the book, and then combined the lower case letters with the sounds. I thought this pace worked great, but then we got to AAR Level 1, and we needed to slow down to give my daughter time to mature. So, to play it safe, I’m working through Pre-reading as the lessons are written. Each lesson is more than just letters and sounds and I can see now how the progression really prepares them for reading. He’s only 4, too, so we are not in a hurry.

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This is very helpful! ive heard great things about AAR! Time to order!