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Is AAS easy to accelerate?


Pegs
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Is anyone here using AAS with a speedy learner? Has it been easy enough to skip over material which your DC has already intuited, or to test out of particular sections?

 

If you have a moment, could you please describe how you've used this curriculum? Thanks!

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I wrote a blog post a while back about how we accelerated AAS: http://everchangingchild.blogspot.com/2014/08/accelerating-all-about-spelling.html

 

That said, after Level 2, my daughter asked to stop doing spelling and I agreed. She's young and her schooling is pretty much optional at this point. She found AAS slow and boring even with a huge amount of acceleration, and if we pick spelling back up in the future I'm pretty likely to find a program that I don't have to hugely rewrite to make it workable for her.

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I wouldn't use AAS with a child who didn't need remedial type instruction. The pace is super, super slow and it costs a small fortune for the little it contains.

 

How to Teach Spelling's TM is around $30 and has words for 1st-12th as well as spiraled dictation. I start with the actual word lists (somewhere around pg 30??) and select appropriate words/sentences for the particular child I am working with.

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It's easy to accelerate by doing 1 lesson a day until they slow down -- we did that with my older daughter for the first few levels, didn't really cut anything out, and it still went quickly. We used the tiles very infrequently to save time.

 

It's not so easy to justify the price tag for 4-5 levels in one year. I plan to use it again with my 3 year old, but I may be deluded about it. For all I know, she will detest it and I'll have spent hundreds of dollars over just a couple of years for spelling.

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OK! I'm glad I asked. Sounds like it would fall by the wayside for us also.

 

I wouldn't use AAS with a child who didn't need remedial type instruction. The pace is super, super slow and it costs a small fortune for the little it contains.

 

How to Teach Spelling's TM is around $30 and has words for 1st-12th as well as spiraled dictation. I start with the actual word lists (somewhere around pg 30??) and select appropriate words/sentences for the particular child I am working with.

That sounds more like our style. Is it this one, 8? http://m.bookdepository.com/How-Teach-Spelling/9780838818473

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Yes. That is the one. Some people find it difficult to figure out how to teach without the accompanying workbooks. That has never been a problem for me, so I can't explain why they have. CBD has a preview feature so you can see a few pages. The early pages I skip. They are just the phonograms and their sounds. I start somewhere around the sample page 39 that is in their preview. (When you look through the actual book, it is fairly easy to tell where the actual,word lists and dictation begin.

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product_slideshow?sku=41847&actual_sku=41847&slide=8&action=Previous

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It's easy to accelerate by doing 1 lesson a day until they slow down -- we did that with my older daughter for the first few levels, didn't really cut anything out, and it still went quickly. We used the tiles very infrequently to save time.

 

It's not so easy to justify the price tag for 4-5 levels in one year. I plan to use it again with my 3 year old, but I may be deluded about it. For all I know, she will detest it and I'll have spent hundreds of dollars over just a couple of years for spelling.

I know that I am absolutely in the minority on using AAS for a very accelerated learner at an accelerated pace, but this is pretty much what we did. A lesson a day, not much tile work and I let her do her dictation sentences (we did them all) primarily on a lined dry erase board.

Caveat: I chose to take Alex through all of the levels of AAS because she loved doing it and because she is only 5. I do not think I would make the same choice is she was say, 10, and just needing a bit of practice/reinforcement/quickly going over rules. I am also pretty sure we could have gotten her to the same point using a different program, but I enjoyed teaching AAS and never felt the need to change either. I did use supplemental word lists for more challenging words quite a bit.

 

Regardless, we loved AAS and I am sad to be finishing level 7. She has chosen to focus on spelling bee prep materials this next year for Kindy.

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I used it at an accelerated pace with my oldest for about 3 levels. Then I was sick of it and realized it was overkill for him (and pricey to go that fast). So I sold it and haven't missed it, even though I've had two more kids come up behind him (one who was slower to learn to read but is doing well with R&S products of all things, and the other is a natural speller, so he's doing the spelling in CLE LA).

 

But yes, it is easy to accelerate, as it doesn't have daily assignments. I just think most kids who are able to accelerate it that much probably don't need it.

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No. That's why we stopped.

 

LOE Essentials was easier to accelerate. I used it for an average 1st grader, an accelerated 3rd grader, and a remidial 6th grader. Each moved at their own pace, and they played games together (limited to the 1st graders known phonograms). I liked AAS, and it was helpful, but when my son blew through two levels in less than a year I wanted a less expensive, all-levels-in-one package. LOE met that, and the needs of the other two as well.

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