AAS w/o tiles possible or not??

[Sahmqui]

Can you do All About Spelling without the letter tiles? I have tons of magnetic letters. I don't want to cough up the money if I don't have too. So can I do the program without the tiles? Can I make my own blend cards? Or do you NEED the tiles for this program to be effective?

 

Thanks

~Qui

 

Note: I have magnetic letter tiles and unifix cubes with blue consonants (including qu together), red vowels, purple vowel teams, blue consonants blend, and unifix only white prefix/suffix. Therefore, after reading the level one lesson I thought that these will work out great.

Edited March 19, 2011 by Sahmqui
adding what magnetic letters I have

[Irishmommy]

I might be the voice of laziness here, but I wouldn't put all that effort into making everything on my own! I have tons of letters too, but it is nice that the tiles are all color coded so that they fit with their certain "teams". I only use the AAS tiles for AAS. All my other magnets get used for a variety of different things. Also, it is just nice to have the cards ready to go as well. We've never needed the cards to stay with the student (not yet anyway), so I won't be getting anoter set of student cards for my next student, but maybe that is because they are 4 years apart. But, I have heard of families just using one set of cards and making notes on the back of the cards each student's progress.

[Satori]

I agree, it would be a lot of work to get homemade letter tiles setup the way AAS puts them together.

 

Just today we were learning prefixes and the prefix tile is another visual indicator that the prefix is separate from the base word. You've got color coded tiles for everything. We put together words with the cream prefix tile, then the blue consonant team blends, a red vowel, some single blue consonants, and ending it with a fuchsia vowel suffix. We can really think of words in terms of all these different parts. My daughter knows to go straight to the Consonant Teams where I always forget and make my own (sh, nk, wr) or Vowel Team (ea, ou, igh).

[Guest renickse]

You could certainly do it without the tiles, but the tiles are helpful. Also as you go along through levels, there are things like consonant teams that are printed on the same tiles and other headers and useful visual aids that you wouldn't have in just a regular set of letters. We don't actually use the tiles for every lesson, but they are nice to have. It was worth my time and money to create the board for the magnet tiles. It has helped my son learn to alphabetize quickly, and he enjoys the break from the writing. For a multisensory learner, AAS as packaged is really a great tool.

[blakereese]

I think the magnets are worth their cost. Even though I hated every minute of cutting them out and attaching the magnets. :glare:;)

 

They really should just include them in the level 1 packet and add a bit to the price, because I really don't feel like they are optional. They are a big part of what makes AAS so successful and are included in most of the lessons.

 

I know why you would ask though, I felt the same way. Like, do I REALLY need another set of magnetic letters?! They are all over my house, different sizes, different colors. :001_smile: But the color-coding and the way they are used in the lessons are worth it in this case.

[SnMomof7]

It is SO worth it to get them ready made. I'm thinking about buying a second set to have as backup because we lost a couple of tiles. It is really a pain to make new ones, and I'd like to have back-ups! You need to find appropriately colored paper, write the phonogram (neatly!), laminate it, put magnet on...bleh...just did TWO tiles the other day and it took like...10 minutes! BLEH!

 

Get the tiles!! It IS worth it!

[Sahmqui]

Thank you for responding.

 

Ok, the magnetic letter tiles I have are color coded. I just want to get started now and not have to wait for more material to arrive.

 

I have magnetic letter tiles and unifix cubes with blue consonants (including qu together), red vowels, purple vowel teams, blue consonants blend, and unifix only white prefix/suffix. Therefore, after reading the level one lesson I thought that these will work out great.

 

Am I missing something here? Are you telling me I need the letter tiles to make this truly effective? So I can't start level one until the tiles arrive?

[Satori]

Oh for sure, get started now! For the first lessons you only need one copy of the alphabet anyway. Eventually you'll want all the specific Consonant and Vowel Teams, Syllable tiles, Sound of /er/, Other tiles, Consonant Suffixes, Vowel Suffixes, 2 sets of the alphabet, and an extra 3rd tile for certain letters and headings for the groups. As well as more I'm probably missing for the later levels. Sounds like you've got a great start, so it's up to you if you want to make the rest yourself.

 

If you want, I could take a photo of our board where we're in the midst of Level 4 so you can see what you'll need for the first 4 levels. It seems we get more tiles with each level, so I'm not sure of what all you'll need through level 7 though.

 

I have to say the AAS tiles are super easy to manipulate on the board though, so also take that into consideration as well.

[Sahmqui]

Angela,

 

Can you please send me a photo of the board?

 

I guess I need to visually see how this is suppose to look. I have AAS 1-4 and want to start. I just order the basic kit. Does it come with all the tile I'll ever need?