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Is AAR worth it for DD5?


Seeking Squirrels
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DD is 5.5 and doing K this year. She says she wants to learn to read, but every time we sit down to do lessons, she balks. I have OPGTR and HOP. I don't like HoP (I don't like how they say some of the sounds. For example they might say "puh" sometimes instead of a clipped /p/) but it was what DD9 loved and she did okay so I kept it. I much prefer OPGTR so that's what I started using with DD5. She fought me every time. I of course don't want to make reading time a battle so I followed her lead and asked her and found out she didn't like it. She wanted to try HoP so I let her. We have made it a few lessons in, but it was pretty hit or miss if she willing did a lesson or not from the start and now the last few attempts have all been resisted. She says she likes it and says she wants to learn to read, but does not want to do the lessons. And it's when she's willingly doing school with me, not when I'm pulling her from play. She loves having her one-on-one mama time to do school. 

 

We used AAR pre-reading level and she loved it. She loves Ziggy. I was looking at AAR level 1 online and she came over when she heard them mention ziggy in the video for the games book. She didn't say anything but watched the whole video intently. 

 

Money is tight but we can get some of it covered through our charter so we'd end up paying about $75 OOP. Doable, but not something we want to just throw money at for a small "maybe". 

 

Does it sound like AAR might be a good fit for her, or do I push on with what we have? She's a quiet kid and has anxiety and is also quite stubborn. So it's kind of hard to tell if she's resisting because she's just being difficult/5, because it's hard and makes her anxious, or because it's just not a good fit for her and it's worth a switch. I really don't want to create negative feelings with reading so I'm reluctant to assume and just push. 

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I've been using AAR for the last year and a half. DD started the pre-reading when she was 4 and we moved right into level one when turned 5. In the beginning, she struggled with blending but after a few lessons she started to catch on and now we're more than halfway through it and she's reading amazingly (she'll be learning compound words in the next couple of lessons). It's costly but worth it in my opinion. We didn't have Ziggy in pre-reading for her but we did by the Ziggy Game book and She loves it, they're simple fun ways to review the cards.

 

One thing if money's tight. We made do without out the tiles for a long time since they were causing an issue with blending for her. Instead, we used a small whiteboard and wrote the word down instead. Usually they change a single letter at a time (Map becomes Tap becomes Sap) so I'd just say if we took out /m/ and add /t/, what word do we have? She caught on a lot faster after that. If you go without the tiles, all you would need is an index card box and the dividers that are pretty cheap from AAR. 

 

I couldn't imagine forcing a curriculum on her if it's not working. We want DD to love reading and got lucky enough that the first thing we tried was a hit with her. Math, on the other hand, was another story and we had to go through 3-4 different curriculums despite being on a single income.

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What if you did something casual for a little bit since she's balking. If you have a magnet alphabet or even a whiteboard and markers, play with just making some words and sounding them out. Get Ziggy involved since she enjoyed him from Pre-reading. Have him help sound out some words, and maybe sometimes say a wrong sound and ask her for help--and then have her sound out some words--they can take turns. There's a short video on this page that models how to sound out words (and also explains why it can be difficult for beginners). Switch out a letter at a time, like:

 

bat-sat-hat-ham-ram-ran-pan...and so on.

 

Keep lessons short and fun--5-10 minutes is plenty at her age. When she starts to be ready for a bit more, then consider if All About Reading would be a fit. You actually can try the first 3 lessons for free online--the lessons are in the online samples for the Teacher's Manual, and then you can print out the Activity Book activities that go with those lessons, and read the first story in the Run, Bug, Run! reader (that story is used in lesson 3). That might give you a good feel for whether it's a good match for her. 

 

HTH some!

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I have heard that for you guys in USA that AAR offers a money back guarantee or something similar if you are not happy with it. Worth checking into.

I saw that. That definitely makes it more appealing, but would still cost up front even if it didn't end up working out. 

 

I've been using AAR for the last year and a half. DD started the pre-reading when she was 4 and we moved right into level one when turned 5. In the beginning, she struggled with blending but after a few lessons she started to catch on and now we're more than halfway through it and she's reading amazingly (she'll be learning compound words in the next couple of lessons). It's costly but worth it in my opinion. We didn't have Ziggy in pre-reading for her but we did by the Ziggy Game book and She loves it, they're simple fun ways to review the cards.

 

One thing if money's tight. We made do without out the tiles for a long time since they were causing an issue with blending for her. Instead, we used a small whiteboard and wrote the word down instead. Usually they change a single letter at a time (Map becomes Tap becomes Sap) so I'd just say if we took out /m/ and add /t/, what word do we have? She caught on a lot faster after that. If you go without the tiles, all you would need is an index card box and the dividers that are pretty cheap from AAR. 

 

I couldn't imagine forcing a curriculum on her if it's not working. We want DD to love reading and got lucky enough that the first thing we tried was a hit with her. Math, on the other hand, was another story and we had to go through 3-4 different curriculums despite being on a single income.

Thankfully we already have all the tiles because older DD does AAS. 

 

What if you did something casual for a little bit since she's balking. If you have a magnet alphabet or even a whiteboard and markers, play with just making some words and sounding them out. Get Ziggy involved since she enjoyed him from Pre-reading. Have him help sound out some words, and maybe sometimes say a wrong sound and ask her for help--and then have her sound out some words--they can take turns. There's a short video on this page that models how to sound out words (and also explains why it can be difficult for beginners). Switch out a letter at a time, like:

 

bat-sat-hat-ham-ram-ran-pan...and so on.

 

Keep lessons short and fun--5-10 minutes is plenty at her age. When she starts to be ready for a bit more, then consider if All About Reading would be a fit. You actually can try the first 3 lessons for free online--the lessons are in the online samples for the Teacher's Manual, and then you can print out the Activity Book activities that go with those lessons, and read the first story in the Run, Bug, Run! reader (that story is used in lesson 3). That might give you a good feel for whether it's a good match for her. 

 

HTH some!

These are good ideas, I'll have to try them out! Awesome that I can access the first 3 lessons. I will be trying those as soon as she is ready for school work again (she's been down with croup).  Thank you!

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