PAL or AAR Pre-level 1?

[kristinannie]

My daughter is about to turn four and is definitely ready for some prereading. She also is begging to "do school." We are doing some phonemic awareness activities and she knows all of the letter names (although we are working on the sounds). I really like the looks of PAL reading, but is that really for starting in preschool or is it a kindergarten program? I also like the looks of AAR, but it is pretty expensive so I want to make sure it is worth it. I do know that she will LOVE the puppet. :D I am going to try to do OPGTR with her since we have it. Maybe it will work with her even though it bombed with my hyperactive son!

[4maybabies]

While I can't answer for PAL, we are currently using AAR, and my 4 yr old loves it....and so do I! I love how everything is planned out for you...and very simple to follow, yet very thorough. Actually, my ds5 and dd7 get upset when I do it with my ds4 and they aren't around;) they love it just as much:D

[jjins]

I have poured over PAL wishing I had a child who could use it. I have several friends now using it with their young children. The program is SOUND, well done, engages children, does not over whelm the parent, teachers appropriate sounds, even teaches children to take care of their own work without the parent. There are so many other things, these are just at the top of my list of favorites.

 

I honestly told my husband "this program makes me want to have another child, so I can us a GREAT program" BTW, I also told him we are way under the homeschooling average... we only have two children.

 

He talked some sense into me. :lol:

[mom&nana]

AAR Pre-Level 1 won't cover very much. I think PAL would probably cover more, but I haven't really looked at it so I'm not sure. AAR Pre Level starts off learning the uppercase letters. Each day there will be a short game to do with Ziggy like rhyming, guessing a word that starts with a certain letter, etc, and a Uppercase Letter page to color/decorate. You will also read from the Zigzag Zebra book. Then after all uppercase letters are complete, you will do lowercase letters following the same pattern as the uppercase, and reading from Lizard Lou each day. There are suggestions to read books of your choice each day as well, and to add a handwriting program , but there is really no writing in AAR Pre 1. After upper and lowercase letters are complete it's cut and past letter sounds for the rest of the book with an occasional color by letter page thrown in.

 

AAR Pre 1 is something you could easily do yourself. I liked having it done for me and at first we really enjoyed the program and playing with Ziggy is definitely the best part. However, I think my kids got tired of the repetition in the program especially when we got to the 3rd part. Every day, the pages are basically the same. There's a letter on each page and four pictures at the bottom. You are choose 3 pics to glue in the boxes that have that letter sound. My kids had no problem identifying the correct pics for the letter sound, but they just didn't want to do it. In the end I was cutting and gluing them as they told me the correct ones. Still it was a battle to get them to even do that. I think we were all a little glad when we completed the program. Now, I'm not sure I'll be investing in the next level, whenever it becomes available. They've pushed back the release date a few times now, just like they did with the AAR pre level 1. So levels might not be available exactly when you need them.

 

You also may want to consider the price of the programs. I think PAL might be much cheaper in the long run because there are supposed to be 7 levels of AAR, I believe.

 

We liked both of the books. Zigzag zebra is an ABC book-- think ABC by Dr. Suess. It's that type of book. Then Lizard Lou is a collection of poems, 3 poems per letter. These books are black and white illustrations but they are both really great.

[kristinannie]

 

I honestly told my husband "this program makes me want to have another child, so I can us a GREAT program" BTW, I also told him we are way under the homeschooling average... we only have two children.

 

He talked some sense into me. :lol:

 

:lol::lol::lol:

 

 

Has anyone used PAL? I would love to know if I should wait until K or if it is good for pre-K.

[Perogi]

Isn't PAL quite time consuming? I'd love to try it but I don't have hours in the day to devote to it. I also can't seem to wrap my brain around exactly what is in the program. I find AAR very clearly explained on her site. I don't want AAR because it looks a bit below my kids' current abilities.

[2Boys]

We just finished AAR about a month ago and started on PAL (since the next level of AAR is not out yet). I have a two boys, 4 and 3. AAR in my opinion is wonderful in getting the kids in a "school" routine. The boys loved the craft sheets every day and loved Ziggy. It develops letter/sound awareness and works on getting them ready to learn to read. It is not a reading program. It is so easy to implement, just open and go.

PAL on the other hand is VERY time consuming and not as user friendly IMO. But it is a learning to read program. They say you can just use PAL reading without the writing, but I don't think it would help on the confusion factor. We can't do an entire writing and reading lesson in one day. We have to break it apart. And the time I have to spend getting ready for each day is a nuisance after I was accustomed to AAR. We will keep on with PAL for now. I do believe in the program, but I think you need to have a child that is ready to write to get the full benefit from it and be prepared to spend some time every day getting it ready.

I hope that helps!

[amazzie]

PAL isn't that time consuming if you get the games ready before lesson time. For the first few months we spent about 20 minutes twice a day plus a few minutes of independent work time - I'd say about 5-10 minutes. You can also just practice writing letters in sand or some other non-paper way, or just skip the writing. Having all the review games means that writing really isn't that essential.

 

As far as Pre-K, my 2 year old can do the first 2 games (alphabet and letter sounds). So, you could use it and just take it slow. The way PAL is set up, you can play the games as many times as you want before going on, so taking it slow is easier than other curriculum I've tried. I'll be using the games with my preschooler. But, if I didn't already own PAL, I'd wait to buy it when my child had a good grasp of letter sounds and was able to blend 3 letter words because PAL introduces harder phonograms (ar, ui, etc) right from the start and that's a lot for a little one!

Edited September 26, 2011 by amazzie

[SnMomof7]

It looks like PAL would be great for AFTER AAR Pre-1, I don't think that the two really cover the same material - PAL goes MUCH more quickly into advanced phonograms, AAR Pre-1 is very gentle. I'm thinking of doing PAL when my child is already blending pretty well, but if you have a pre-blender AAR Pre-1 will help work on that :).

[FairProspects]

However, I think my kids got tired of the repetition in the program especially when we got to the 3rd part. Every day, the pages are basically the same. There's a letter on each page and four pictures at the bottom. You are choose 3 pics to glue in the boxes that have that letter sound. My kids had no problem identifying the correct pics for the letter sound, but they just didn't want to do it. In the end I was cutting and gluing them as they told me the correct ones. Still it was a battle to get them to even do that. I think we were all a little glad when we completed the program.

 

I'm actually pretty nervous about getting to that part. My ds loves coloring and painting so he has loved the letters sections, but I'm not sure how cutting and pasting everyday will go over here. He already knows all the letter sounds except Y, so maybe I will just go over Y, read the book aloud and move on at that point.

[DragonflyAcademy]

We are doing AAR Pre Level 1 and I do think that I could have done much of it myself.. and that YDS is beyond much of it.. having done a letter of the week all last year and also listening in on the phonogram lessons of his siblings.. so I am throwing some phonograms in there too..teaching all the sounds of a letter..not just the long or short sound..

I thought we could go right into AAS 1 after we are done with AAR pre level 1.. no?? I guess I need to look into PAL (what is PAL..?)

 

HE ADORES Ziggy the Zeba.. ours sings opera when we do the ABC song.. which he finds hilarious.. he is MEH about the stories but they are cute

[Homeschooling6]

I just started PAL/Reading with Lance but I can see it working for K4. The letter stories are fun and the games engaging. You can always stretch out one lesson to last more than one day. Go at your own pace.

 

As far as time consuming I don't see it taking up that much time. The teacher manual is pretty organized. It lists what games to play that day. You don't have to play all the games, you can pick and choose. One can also play a game later or have a sibling play.

 

Poetry-read, discuss and mark the poem.

 

Class journal time, we skip this.

 

Workbook-some lessons are color, paste and mark words.

 

Card Game, this is where you introduce new words {green, yellow}. For these words I went over the 'ee' and 'ow' sounds per the TM.

 

Phonetic Farm Tour, is when you place the sticker on the farm.

 

Informal Spelling test, this is simply dictating the sounds. I say /s/ and Lance, will write the letter.

 

I set a timer for 30 minutes and for the most part we are done within that time frame.

 

The prep time does take a bit longer then AAR Pre-1 but it's not that much longer.

 

I'm also using PAL/Writing and some things overlap like the Informal Spelling test and the journal {which we don't do}. What takes time is putting the file folder games together. I do this over the weekend. All it is, is cutting, taping and sometimes coloring {I colored mugs and am coloring the Palette game}.

 

Oh, almost forgot. PAL/Writing has the stories for the letters with pictures. The Reading has only the stores in the back of the TM. They are short for instance the letter 'a' is the angry letter because the boys often pull her hair and make her say /a/.

Edited September 27, 2011 by Homeschooling6

[mom&nana]

:bigear:

I'm actually pretty nervous about getting to that part. My ds loves coloring and painting so he has loved the letters sections, but I'm not sure how cutting and pasting everyday will go over here. He already knows all the letter sounds except Y, so maybe I will just go over Y, read the book aloud and move on at that point.

 

I actually didn't anticipate it being a problem. I have one kid that loves to cut, so I was surprised when she balked at this part. My kids love to color and paint as well, so I'm guessing that's why the first 2 parts of the program went over so well. I wonder if it wouldn't have been wiser to add those Part 3 worksheets in daily while we were working on the lowercase letter pages (part 2). Maybe it would have broken up the monotony. They might have just gotten bored with the program, I'm not sure. They didn't even really want to color the little pictures or the "Color the Letter" pages in between, and normally they love that sort of thing. :confused:

 

Here's hoping your son loves it and you don't have any issues like I did. :)

 

Overall, I don't regret buying it or anything. I'm just not sure if I'll invest in the upcoming levels.

[EJCMom]

What is PAL?

[mom&nana]

What is PAL?

 

Primary Arts of Language

[EJCMom]

Primary Arts of Language

 

Thank you! :001_smile:

[mhaddon]

We don't do every single component of pal everyday. It moves very fast IMO. We have had to take break for ds6 to process and practice. For the letter two to three are introduced everyday. I would hold off on pal honestly.

[MerryAtHope]

I thought we could go right into AAS 1 after we are done with AAR pre level 1.. no??

 

Yes, you can go into AAS 1 after AAR Pre-1. :001_smile:

[Manamana]

We don't do every single component of pal everyday. It moves very fast IMO. We have had to take break for ds6 to process and practice. For the letter two to three are introduced everyday. I would hold off on pal honestly.

 

I would agree tht it can move fast if you do one lesson per day. However, if I had purchased this for my four year old I would have started off slowly learning all the letters and stories and played the folder games like Mugs and the Letter Parking Lot without progressing through all the phonograms. The program seems flexible enough to start slowly and pick up the pace more when your child is ready.