So my little guy is 6 (1st grade) and has had a slow start to reading. He is on lesson 24 in AAR 1. We started with AAR Pre-Reading and have loved it so far, I’m seeing slow but steady progress. I had planned on starting AAS this year but going over lesson 1 I know all the vowel sounds are going to way overwhelm him. He knows the long vowel sounds but right now in AAR we are still on short vowels, we haven’t even began all the other vowel sounds. Should I wait? How far into AAR should I be before adding AAS? Thanks!
I’m not sure how others do it, but I have always alternated the two programs. We usually complete a certain level of AAR in the first half of the school year and then do the same level of AAS during the second half of the year. This has worked well for us and has not been overwhelming. They’ve also never “lost” any of the knowledge from one program or the other this way. I hope that helps! I am interested to see what others are doing as well!
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AAR 1 gradually teaches the additional sounds and also some phonemic awareness skills that are reviewed at the beginning of AAS 1, so I would wait until you finish AAR 1. Here’s a blog article on AALP about the right time to start: http://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/aas-right-time-to-start/
If he’s really gung-ho to write and spell now, you could start slowly and just work with the first sounds and very gradually introduce the additional sounds to him. Step 11 is the first one to use an additional sound, so they don’t get used right away.
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Ok thanks! He is pretty much the opposite of gung ho, he is my reluctant reader so I will wait till we are done with AAR 1 