Curriculum Review: All About Reading - Pre Reading

All About Reading: Pre-Reading - A Review

So you know where I'm coming from, let me give you a little bit of background about myself. I have an undergraduate degree in psychology, a master's degree in Elementary and Early Childhood Education, a second master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology, and was just shy of getting a doctorate in Communication Disorders with a focus on Reading when life took a detour into motherhood a little earlier than I had planned. Priorities shifted, and lots happened in between, but now I'm homeschooling my preschooler and kindergartner. Because I have such a strong background in education I really enjoyed searching for just the right reading curriculum for my little ones and when I found All About Reading I fell in love. I've been using their curriculum materials for over a year now and I have personally purchased and used the Pre-Reading program, Level 1 program and the Level 2 program with my children.

Program Overview - All About Reading: Pre-Reading Program

The program takes your child through the alphabet twice. First you do uppercase letter activities and then lowercase letter activities. You are working on letter recognition, letter sound correspondances, pre-reading skills (such as finding specific letters on a page, parsing print on a page into words, reading from left to right, etc.), and critical phonological awareness skills such as rhyme, syllable awareness, and isolating initial, final, and vowel sounds in words. All of these skills are critical pre-reading skills. I really wish the All About Learning Press would publish a stand alone phonological awareness program for children who are fine with the visual aspects of pre-reading, but seem to really struggle with the phonological awareness part of things. Speech-pathologists that work with young children would LOVE it. But I digress.

Each lesson teaches one letter. You show the letter, read one to three short stories or poems featuring that letter, do a simple craft-based activity page with that letter, and do a phonological awareness activity. The lessons are pretty short. If your child isn't craft oriented or you choose to omit the craft the lesson may only take 5-10 minutes. If your child really lingers over the craft it may take as much as 20 minutes. If you supplement the program (more on that later), you might spend 30 minutes on the lesson.

Organizing the Materials and Using the Program

I'm using the program with my four year old daughter. With my son I skipped the Pre-Reading Level and started with Level 1, but Ava has a history of a speech disorder called apraxia. Children with apraxia often have co-existing problems with phonological awareness and struggle with reading as they progress through school so I particularly wanted Ava to have a good grounding in phonological awareness skills. I specifically chose to start her with the pre-reading level because of the phonological awareness component. Also, Michael was starting homeschooling in earnest and Ava was feeling left out. She wasn't ready for Level One, but she was tired of watching her brother get to do reading every day without being able to do reading herself. And so we invested in the AAR: Pre-Reading Program.

We keep all of our materials for a specific lesson (Ava's reading, Michael's reading, Math, Handwriting, etc.) in a bin on a shelf in our schoolroom. Here's Ava's reading bin.

Inside I have a binder (where I put the teacher's manual pages, activity pages, and keep the progress chart), the two hardback books that come with the program, and the card box with dividers and phonological awareness cards). You'll also find our ziggy puppet in there.

The teacher's manual is well written. It tells you exactly what to do in each lesson and educates you, where necessary, about how to do things or why you need to do things in a certain way. Ava began the program very excited about the simple activity pages, but eventually we abandoned them because she lost interest. They are a simple coloring sheet for each uppercase and lowercase letter of the alphabet combined with a fun craft you can do with things you find around the house. (Crumple tinfoil to make stars and glue on, glue on construction paper to make water, etc.) The phonological awareness activities strongly lean on a character you introduce named Ziggy the Zebra. I underestimated Ziggy. I chose not to purchase the optional $18 hand puppet and then found myself making a sock puppet version of Ziggy because Ava LOVED Ziggy and using the hand puppet adds so much to the phonological awareness activity. He isn't used in every single lesson and Ava often begins the lesson by asking me if it will be a "Ziggy Day".

Almost all of the preparation is when you first receive the materials in the mail. It takes time to review the materials, separate all the perforated cards, and if you wish - transfer the teacher's manual and activity pages to a three-ring binder. After that, the program requires very little day to day preparation. If your child is doing the craft, you need to gather a few simple materials. Otherwise once you're into the program, you can pretty much sit down with your bin and go.

A Typical Lesson

1. Grab bin.
2. Introduce letter of the day.
3. Read selection(s) from hardback book.
4. Do phonological awareness activity.
5. Do craft (optional).

Download Free Samples

You can download free samples of the key program components (scroll down a bit). I recommend it. It gives you a good look at the teacher's manual, activity book, and the two hardback books that are integral to the program. (I love the hardback books in the AAR programs. I particularly like the poetry in Lizard Lou.)

Which of the products I actually bought.

I bought the basic package and added on the activity box and animal stickers. Essentially I skipped the reading tote bag and the ziggy puppet. In retrospect, since I ended up making my own ziggy sock puppet I think some kind of zebra is a nice addition to the program. Buy their puppet, make one from a sock, find an inexpensive stuffed zebra, or just print a picture of a zebra, but I do recommend some kind of zebra visual aid for the phonological processing activities. Want to see our Ziggy sock puppet? Promise not to laugh? Squint your eyes and use your imagination and maybe, just maybe, this looks like a zebra...

Great Supplemental Materials for the Pre-Reading Program

I found that Ava wanted to do a little more so I found some materials to supplement the AAR: Pre-Reading Program.

Usborne Farmyard Tales - Alphabet Book: This book is a perfect complement to the program. It has a sentence on each page with the targeted letter in red so it stands out. There are many items included in each picture that begin with the targeted letter. There is a little duck hiding in each picture and Ava loved to search for the duck. We would read the page in this book for the letter that matched the letter in the AAR lesson of the day. Unfortunately the book seems to be out of print, but there are many used copies available here.

ABC Sing-Along Flip Chart & CD: This product is amazing. There is a song for each letter of the alphabet - one per page. Each page has a full color illustration. The songs are sung to familiar tunes. The songs are really, really well done. Ava and Michael can sing every one from memory (up to V - that's as far as we've gotten). We often sing these in the car or while I'm fixing Ava's hair to pass time. We use dry erase marker to circle all the targeted letters in the poem as we sing the song on the first day. (You could also listen to them on the CD - the production value on the songs is really nice.) We actually sing through all the songs we know, looking at the page and reviewing the highlighted letters at the beginning of each lesson. The songs are short, so it only takes 5 minutes or so to do the entire set and Ava loves it!

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you click on one of those links and make a purchase a portion of your purchase will go towards offsetting the costs of running this blog. I purchased all of the products I reviewed in this post on my own, long before I started using affiliate links and the opinions expressed are completely my own.

5 Board Books to Enjoy Singing to Your Baby (or Toddler, or Preschooler)

I needed to clean out the children's bookshelves again. We had gotten to the point where they were so overstuffed that we had taken to stuffing books across the tops of the other books, piling them up on the floor, and so on. Some books I donate. I find I don't like them as much as I thought I would when I bought them. Other books the children are too old for, but I'm attached to them, so I ferret them away in a storage box to read to my grandchildren some day. All the rest, we keep. As I was doing my recent cleaning, reducing, and organizing of the children's bookshelves I found several board books that still play well around here. I love to sing, and the children love to listen so it all works out. Here are five of our favorite board books that are songs. The children loved them as babies and toddlers and they still love them today at the ages of 4 and 5.

These are listed in no particular order of preference. They are all wonderful.

1. Snuggle Puppy! by Sandra Boynton. I'll be honest. I didn't like this book at all when I first bought it. I got it because I love Sandra Boynton as an author of baby board books. I got it home and didn't like reading it at all. And then I realized it was adaptation of a song from her Philadelphia Chickens album. I own both the board book and the album and they are great. As soon as I heard the song I fell in love and the children adore it too. If you just want to learn the tune to go to the song in the book, check out this YouTube video. The story/song is about a mama dog telling her puppy how she loves him.

2. Your Personal Penguin by Sandra Boynton. This is another sweet book adapted from a Sandra Boynton song. It is about a penguin who wants to be friends with a hippo and tells the hippo all the wonderful things they can do together as friends. If you scroll about halfway down this page, you can listen to the song sung by Davy Jones of The Monkees. My children love this one too. Careful, it'll get stuck in your head.

3. The Itsy Bitsy Spider written and illustrated by Iza Trapani. You'll know this tune. It is the Itsy Bitsy Spider. What I like so much about this one is that although it begins with the traditional lyrics, there are five more as well, all beautifully illustrated. It tells the story of persistence. The spider continues to try to find a place to spin her web until finally, at the end of the book, she succeeds. You can have fun finding the spider on each page and cheering her on. I have read this story and sung this song hundreds of times at this point and I still actually enjoy it.

4. Baa Baa Black Sheep written and illustrated by Iza Trapani. (The link leads to the paperback version.) This is another expanded nursery rhyme by Isa Trapani. It begins with the traditional Baa Baa Black Sheep song and is expanded another nine stanzas. The story is about a cast of animal characters asking the sheep for various items she does not have. The animals wonder why she won't share only to find she's been knitting them gifts all along. The moral of the tale is that each person shares what they have to give. The illustrations are particularly rich and add much to the tale. Once you know to look, you can see the sheep working on her gifts all throughout the story.

5. How Much Is That Doggie in the Window? written and illustrated by Iza Trapani. (The link leads to the paperback version.) This may be my favorite of the Iza Trapani expanded nursery rhymes. It is expanded by an additional 12 stanzas. It tells the story of a boy who wants to buy a doggie from the pet store, but doesn't have enough money in his piggy bank. He works all week to earn money, but during the week he also spends money while being generous to his family members. At the end of the week he realizes he doesn't have enough money for the doggie and goes to the store just to say hi to the doggie. He discovers that the doggie has been sold. When he arrives at his house after sadly walking home he finds his parents have bought him the doggie to reward his generous spirit.


I found several other groups of books I want to share (cute, kitty-themed early picture books, halloween books, and gingerbread boy variations), but this is probably enough for a first installment. Have I mentioned that I LOVE children's books?

Homeschool Circle Time

Creating a Homeschool Circle Time Board (with links to free or inexpensive resources)

We begin our homeschooling day with circle time. To be honest, initially I planned a circle time just because it seemed "everyone does it". I thought it would be a light way to come together and transition from informal being at home to the structured schooling part of our day. I have completely upgraded my opinion of circle time. We cover a LOT of territory during circle time and I log the time as half math and half language arts. We spend 20-30 minutes in our circle.

Our circle time area is in a corner of our school room right next to a window. We sit on a small, soft, purple rug I grabbed at Wal-mart a while back. We got a 4'x3' magnetic dry erase board for a steal at a local office depot. I honestly think it was a price mistake, since it was over half off the price I'd seen for similar boards everywhere else, but they insisted it was priced correctly. My husband hung it and then I got started. I found the lovely borders and the slightly less lovely, but functional calendar at the Teacher Storehouse. Their shipping was super quick and everything was packaged well and arrived in great shape.

I wanted to be able to pin up several pages at once, so I found some great neodymium pushpin magnets on Amazon. They are tiny, yet powerful and so they work perfectly. They are also bright and cheerful and I couldn't be happier with them for this purpose. Of course, as with any powerful magnets, make sure they aren't around kids still putting things in their mouths.

Homeschool Circle Time Routine

Introduction ( <1 min )

We begin with a welcome song that I made up ages ago. If you promise not to laugh or snicker I will share the lyrics with you:

We are here together
for a day of work and play.
We smile and show respect
as we share our day today.
Let's try something new,
and grow a little stronger.
Let's stretch our mind,
and be kind,
here with family.

1. Calendar (approx. 5 minutes)

This calendar is a hybrid of a typical teacher's blank calendar that I bought and some numbers/holiday cards that I printed myself, laminated, and stuck magnets on the back. We do a lot during calendar time:

1. Sing the days of the week song. (Scroll down for lots of days of the week song choices and choose the one you like best.) When we sing our song, we're holding jingle sticks. The children must listen for the day of the week that is the current day, and they can only shake the jingle stick when we sing that day. This encourages active listening and practices self control.
2. Sing the months of the year song. Again, we hold the jingle sticks. This time each person shakes their stick when we sing the month of their birthday. We all shake our sticks on the current month. This continues to encourage active listening and self control, but also teaches them their birth month.
3. Next we put away our jingle sticks and update the calendar. We add in the new day and practice saying yesterday's date, today's date, and tomorrow's date. We briefly discuss any upcoming holidays or other special days.
4. On the first school day of each month we break down the old calendar and begin a new one changing the season card if necessary.

2. Weather Graph (approx. 3 minutes)

We fill in our weather graph. We've agreed that we're charting weather during circle time. We don't go back and change the chart's data if the weather changes later in the day. We look out the window and make a judgement about the weather. If it's sunny I fill in a rectangle in the sunny column with a yellow highlighter. If it's partly cloudy we go with blue highlighter. Cloudy is a grey colored pencil, rainy is purple highlighter, and thunderstorm gets black highlighter with a highlighter yellow bolt of lightening (my son's suggested embellishment). We jot down the temperature by looking at the outdoor thermometer and move on. At the end of the month, we do some extended work here filling in the mean, median, and mode temperature and writing a summary description of the weather for that month.

I've seen similar graphs everywhere. Teacher Storehouse had one. Confessions of a Homeschooler has a free printable one. I wanted to add in a little more math to mine, so I made one where there's a spot for putting in the temperature and we figure out the mean, median, and mode temperature at the end of the month. There's also a space at the top to add in an overall description of that month's weather. Here's a copy if you've been looking for a more complex version of the weather graph (I did leave out a windy column. I needed the space.)

3. Poem, Nursery Rhyme, Fingerplay, or Short Story (approx. 5-10 minutes)

Next we do a poem, nursery rhyme, short story, fingerplay, etc. I print a bunch of these at once double sided and pin up as many as will stick with my heavy duty magnets. That way, I can get through a week or more before I need to take the time to put up a new set. First I used the sight word poems from the ebook version of this Sight Word Poems Flip Chart. Right now it is $29.99, but I grabbed it in one of the Scholastic Teacher Express dollar sales for $1. Wait for the next sale and cross your fingers that it'll be offered again. It is pretty great. Ava was working on the sight words and Michael could read the poems. We'd go back through the ones we already know and eventually they had all of them memorized.

Once we finished all the poems in the flip chart (at a rate of one new one per school day, I went looking for something a little more complex. I found a great free children's anthology originally published in 1912. Click on the link and choose your format of choice (html, epub, kindle...). I printed a bunch of the fingerplays. I thought the children would enjoy them, it would let them practice the art of performance and connecting motions with words, and it would help their fine motor skills in their hands. They are loving the fingerplays. After the fingerplays, the book has familiar and unfamiliar nursery rhymes, short stories for young children, and more. And all for free! Once we work our way through the things I like best in that book I'm moving to a another book of poems I grabbed in a Scholastic Teacher Express sale.

4. Independent Early Reading Practice (approx. 3 minutes)

When I was looking for a new source of daily poems I stumbled across some free, printable, one page early reader stories on clarkness.com. A former special education teacher wrote an entire series of short, one-page early reader texts in gradually increasing difficulty. They're all available to download, print, and use for free. I grabbed the series and started mid-way through. Michael reads one to us each morning during circle time. Again, I print them double sided and pin a week's worth up to the board at a time so that each morning all I have to do is flip a page over to get to the new one. Ava likes listening to her brother read and he's proud to lead a little part of circle.

5. Song of the Day (approx. 5 minutes)

Next we sing our learning song of the day. I printed the songs from 50 Learning Songs Sung to Your Favorite Tunes two per page double sided. This is another resource I grabbed during a Teacher Express Dollar Sale. I pin up a week's worth or more, and we sing a new one each day.

6. Word of the Day (approx. 3 minutes)

Then we learn a word of the day. Another find from a Scholastic Teacher Express Dollar Sale was Daily Vocabulary Boosters. Half the words have illustrations and half do not. I printed the half that had illustrations and have been using them for our word of the day.

7. Telling Time (approx. 5 minutes)

Finally we do our time worksheet. We review some basic time facts. We fill in the current time on an analog clock and write the time. Then we practice three more times of the day. I laminated the worksheet using this inexpensive and tiny home laminator, and we fill it out each day with a dry erase marker. Again, I was inspired by the "What Time Is It?" printable from Confessions of a Homeschooler, but made an expanded version for myself. Here is the expanded version if you would like to use it:

And that is probably way more detail than you ever wanted to know about how we do circle time around here. I hope you find at least some of the resources useful and many of these resources would also be useful in a traditional school classroom, or a speech room as well.