Is this a members only sale? We had a bunch of books that we hadn't listened to yet so I cancelled my membership a couple of months ago.

Loom bands. Perler beads. Nerf guns. :-)

Aquadoodle :)

Only the first 52 are part of the original 8 sets. The rest were developed by readingteacher.com and while they may be fun to read they are not part of the original scope and sequence. So, if you are planning on going through all 8 sets of the Sam books for reading remediation or for reading instruction, stop at book 52 of the free ibooks. (This is where the original second set of books ends). After book 52 your DC would need to start on set 3 of the I See Sam Books. The first book of set 3 is called "In the Mud". http://www.iseesam.com/products If you are not using the books for remediation, ignore my public service announcement and read on! :lol:

Dick King Smith audios are usually about an hour each.

Check out the 8 sets of the I See Sam books. They practically teach themselves. They are sometimes used to tutor struggling students. My son has made significant progress with them....and they are SO fun. My DS actually enjoys them...no more fights at reading time.

Lol...me again :o....I was thinking about a post I read forever ago that I thought might be helpful for you. I'm on my phone....putting baby to bed, but I found it! :-) Post 2 of this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/456466-ack-i-think-ive-been-teaching-phonogram-blending-wrong-and-a-spalding-question/ Maybe it will help....I'd love it if your DS's reading struggles could be solved easily with something simple like a week of blending boot camp lol.

P.s. It only took about 24 pages of PP before DS had mastered blending....it went quickly.

How does he do for words like be, me, we? I'm just wondering because if they are easy for him...maybe it is a blending problem after all. (Although I'm completely troubleshooting and am completely unqualified to answer, lol) Honestly....before PP DS would sound out /c/ /a/ /n/ (he always skipped the 2nd part of the AAR blending procedure)...and would then say "can" ...but he had to sound it out every. time. It wasn't until he learned to blend the first to sound together ("ca" like PP teaches) that ANY of the words became automatic.

Oh boy...I don't have any advice for that...lol. Except that maybe if you can get him to blend the first two sounds together smoothly it might help? Phonics pathways is really great at getting them to blend the first two sounds together and then add the ending sound, which helped my DS quite a bit. However, we used it before he learned the long vowel sounds so it was "appropriate" at the time. For example, when he was learning "b & e" blend together to make the "beh" sound, he wasn't confusing it with the word, "be", because he hadn't learned the long vowel sound yet. (this might not make sense unless you have previewed Phonics Pathways). That said, our few days work with blending the first 2 sounds together really did help us to progress and helped him gain speed in reading. HTH :)

:iagree: I wish there were a "love" button I could click for this post...LOL.

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: When he sounds out "can" for example does he do it short and choppy first, (like the first step in the AAR blending procedure says to do? For example: 1st: /c/ /a/ /n/ 2nd: caaaaaaannnnnnn 3rd: can My DS could not progress at all until we dropped the first step of the blending procedure... Here is a quote from the website http://www.righttrackreading.com/blending.html that really helped us: Like I said....DS was stuck forever in his reading before we switched the way he blended. We actually took an AAR break and used Phonics Pathways for a while to work on blending only. It doesn't add up to me that your DS can memorize the phonograms so well but be so stuck in his reading *headscratch*??? You'll figure it out!!! :grouphug:

I was put off by the font at first as well. When I previewed the teacher's guide I decided it wouldn't be as much of a problem. You can replace the tracing (in the wacky grey shaded areas) with dictation on a separate piece of paper. The tracing thankfully ends on about page 80 and the kids just write everything on normal lines. P.S. Welcome to the AALP dropout club. ;-)

Oh...sorry...the free books (1-52) are the same as the sets that you can buy. HTH :)

Only the first 2 sets (52 books) are free (they are in the public domain). You would need to buy other sets. I printed the books with no problems...but my brother in law is always sending me reams of free paper from staples rewards or something. ..lol...and we have a laser printer. So, my printing was very, very cheap. I will admit to being tempted by the color sets at iseesam.com :-) The first 2 sets get the kiddies blending and reading but there is a lot of code to be learned in the remaining sets. For example, set 5 introduces /ir/ /oo/ soft g...etc. set 6 covers /wr/ /igh/ etc. Set 7 covers a lot of prefixes and suffixes. There is no new code in set 8. We are only in set 3 but I remain hopeful that DS will continue to progress.

My kids didn't like the AAR activities either :-/. I bought the books from Alison, here in the classifieds. Honestly, it was the only place I saw them. I don't know why they are not more popular. Do you have an ipad? They are in the iTunes store (although I'm not sure how many of the sets they have). How good is your printer, Lol.?? DS read a few of the pdf's on my Kindle and that went okay (aside from the accidental page flipping, lol) Another thought is maybe to post on the yahoo group and see if someone has an old set to sell. If you end up buying from iseesam.Com I would call or email and see if they have any promotions....it wouldn't surprise me if they offered you a discount. Make sure you print off the tracking sheets from 3rs or from iseesam.Com. ..my kids think l they are fun...and I've found them useful to keep track as well. As a side note.... Even afterm going through AAR 1 twice and part of AAR 2...we started in set 1, with book 1 which if we had to do again I would. The early, easy books were fun and confidence building for DS. More importantly, they were a good chance for me to figure out what was going wrong with his reading and to try and work it out before we moved on and everything became "too hard". DS was making lots of mistakes like on/no a/the leaving s off plural words. The yahoo groupies pointed out that he was trying to read by sight rather than reading through the word. Knowing this has made a big difference for me (and him). Good luck!

I was just going to say that I bought DB to use but started I See Sam for the summer....and that I wrote a little novella about it in your other thread, LOL. I might start DB in the fall ...we will see how far DS gets with the Sam books this summer (we are half way through BRI3 as of yet). Also....I feel your pain about AAR (I also feel it about AAS). My type-A personality LOVES the program because it is SO SO thorough and organized and everything else that it is....except that it is SO SLOW! We hit the same wall in AAR2. I didn't know what else to do. DS quit progressing. I wonder if the the scope and sequence had anything to do with it. I also hated that since we were also using AAS (which also followed the same scope) that it was taking DS FOREVER to learn high frequency words. It kills me to switch programs too...I hate it. Good luck with whatever you decide! :)

Yes and no, LOL. There are actually 8 sets of books (and one set of "booster books" used to cement skills before moving on, if your particular child needs it). You can see the sets here: http://www.3rsplus.com/ I tried to order from that website and I got a paypal refund within minutes. Apparently, they are working on making the books available in Kindle and ipad formats. However, I joined the yahoo group for the 3rsplus instruction site, "beginning reading instruction" ..... https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Beginning-Reading-Instruction/info .....and it seems like if you are really using the books and posting actively on the group that 3rsplus will mail you the pdf files you need for free in the interim. It took quite a while for them to get the books to me and they only send a few at a time so I ended up buying the books used. The gentleman who emailed them to me, Dick Shultz, owns 3rsplus. I'm fairly certain that he was one of the original collaborators on the books back in the 70's. He is very kind and supportive and is an active member of the yahoo group. There are other websites out there that have the books, however it seems like 3rsplus is the only one still true to the original instruction, which is genius, lol. You can also get the books through: https://www.iseesam.com/ look for a coupon code...I think I saw one on educents. They have the books in the itunes store as well as some color versions of the beginning sets. They added "Looking Back" review sections to their books (which the 3rsplus books that I have didn't have)...but they are in this book that I ordered from their site (it also has assessments): https://www.iseesam.com/books/reading-all-learners-assessment-manual I ordered dancing bears to use with DS but started these books to use with him while we waited for DB to get here. The books are working so well that I decided to set dancing bears aside and just use these instead (especially because it is summer and I couldn't stand to torture DS with a workbook, LOL). I printed the first 2 sets of books from here: http://www.readingteacher.com/ You can sign up for a free trial and print all the books (only print the first 52...the rest are books that they added and don't follow the original sequence). Their printing is by far the easiest. Here is what I love about the books: 1. They are SO fun! The little characters get into all sorts of situations. My kids think they are hilarious. My struggling reader actually asks to read them....this is huge for us. 2. No flashcards, no fluency practice sheets, no tiles, the practice is fun! 3. They are working like nothing else has to this point. 4. They are constantly and consistently "drip feeding" the code to the kids so that reading is fun and easy. For example...each book will add a new sound or word and there is lots of repetition. 5. DS's biggest problem with reading is that he is such a guesser! The books are written so that it is VERY hard for kids to guess (although he still tries, LOL). There are words like "wish/with, Mit/Mat" ...he is forced to read through the words. 6. The instruction is SO EASY. Say the book has the word, "down" my DS has already learned /d/ and /n/....when you come to that word (or if you want to introduce it before the lesson starts that's okay too), point to the /ow/ and tell the child "the sound in this word is, /ow/." I practice a couple of times to make sure that he is blending through and saying the sounds and not trying to memorize the whole word. The word is then repeated in the book several times and also in the subsequent books as well. Later on, when the word "snow" (for example) comes up...you just tell the student "the ow in this word makes the "o" sound" and move on. (You can download word lists for each new sound and word in the files section of the yahoo group or iseesam.com has them to print as well (in flashcard format). 7. I was honestly skeptical of the books when I realized that they were a true curriculum, but after poking around on the yahoo group I found out that they can be used as a remedial program for struggling readers. 8. I was also skeptical that my child could learn to read by without knowing all of the phonics rules, but the opposite is seeming to be true. Some of the tutors on the yahoo group have explained that sometimes all of the rules are too much information for the kids to handle and that all they need to know and do is to learn the sounds and practice them in context of reading. So I guess the kids just learn the patterns such as e makes the sound "eh" in words like bed, met, pet and it makes the "ee" sound in words like, me, we, be, etc. 9. The yahoo group has been invaluable for me as I also learned to not "overhelp" my DS. I had been pouncing whenever DS made a mistake, but it is better for him to hear his mistakes and back up and reread the section without my prompting. Additionally, whenever I saw DS struggling with a word I would jump in to help. I've quit doing this and it is amazing to see him working through and figuring it out....I think it helps him to remember the word the next time he reads it. Some of yahoo group tutors have said that the less they say the better and to just let the kids and the books do the work. 10. From what I've read (and I could be wrong)...I'm a little unsure about multisyllabic words. If DS seems to struggle with them, I think I will use REWARDS intermediate when we get there. I *may* start Dancing Bears in the fall. My original plan was to come back to AAR at some point...but now I'm not so sure. Phew. LOL.

She is reading the whole word by sight (my son does the same thing)..try using a notched index card to reveal one letter or diagraph/phonogram at a time to train her eyes to read through the whole word. My son also leaves off the s on a lot of plural words...telling him to slow down does help some. There is a yahoo group called "Beginning Reading Instruction" (It is actually for the I See Sam books) where I'very received a lot of help for this. Good luck!

The words and sounds are repeated a zillion times...the way they spiral is amazing. ..the instruction is SO easy!

I See Sam....trust me!!!! Lol.

Read through the I See Sam books (all of them)...tell him the sounds as they come up in the books and don't worry about the rules. :)

P.s.s.....The tracing with the wacky font is really only in the first part of A&P book 1...then it mostly becomes blank lines to be filled in by dictation.

I just saw your edit...I hate the font too...sigh. Google Spalding spelling rules, I'm sure there are a few lists. :-)

With WRTR/Spalding you *tell* them the rule during dictation for every word and they write the number in their notebook. It seems to me that with Spalding there is much more telling/helping and less "try to remember the rule and the phonogram and the exception". Maybe it would suit him better? All that said....I'm ditching AAS and Spalding and doing Apples and Pears in the fall....lol. Good luck! :-)