mommy5 Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 How many lessons/steps do you complete in one week? I'm planning out the rest of my year (we do year round) and want to know how many steps to do per week or per quarter ... should I think we will be doing more than just AAS1 this coming year (K & 2nd graders) ... we will be starting next week... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Definitely more than one level for the 2nd grader. The K'er may only need one level. Just depends on how fast they pick it up. Don't plan out lessons per week though. Just set the timer for 15 or 20 minutes (your choice), and put a bookmark in the book where you left off. Pick it up there the next day. You may spend a week on a step, or you may spend a day on a step. It depends on the material taught in that step and how quick your children pick it up. I would expect the 2nd grader to go much faster than the K'er, of course. My (advanced reading) 1st grader spent 3 weeks on level 1 and 8 weeks on level 2. If we'd finished level 3, it would have taken about 4 months, most likely. Some kids spend a whole semester on a level. There is no wrong or right as to how fast you go through it. Just go at the pace of your children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grover Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I schedule AAS 4 times a week and so far we haven't needed more than a day a step. I'm sure that'll slow down so then it'll be however many steps we can cover in 4 lessons a week :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joyfulhomeschooler Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Did it take anyone elses child a while to complete step one? My first grader is going through the steps but still has,t completely mastered all the phonograms from step one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raceNzanesmom Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Don't plan out lessons per week though. Just set the timer for 15 or 20 minutes (your choice), and put a bookmark in the book where you left off. Pick it up there the next day. You may spend a week on a step, or you may spend a day on a step. It depends on the material taught in that step and how quick your children pick it up. I agree. I keep a binder clip on mine and just move it as needed. 15-25 minutes is plenty per day. Did it take anyone elses child a while to complete step one? My first grader is going through the steps but still has,t completely mastered all the phonograms from step one. It depends on the child and what you're working on. Just go at their pace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ritsumei Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Did it take anyone elses child a while to complete step one? My first grader is going through the steps but still has,t completely mastered all the phonograms from step one. We just started this week, but I'm predicting that all the phonograms take a little bit to polish off. The recs in OPG said to start spelling around 1/2 way through the book, which is where we are (just about to start vowel pairs). He hasn't met all the sounds in phonics yet, so some of those are completely new to him. Heck, *I* would take a day or two to be able to list, just like that, all the sounds of all the letters. I'm also predicting that *my* spelling improves, lol! At this point, I'm feeling like it takes as long as it takes. I'm not going to stress over how many days-per-step. As long as we're moving forward I'm happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForeverFamily Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I agree with the other posters that you shouldn't really plan out how many days you will spend on each lesson (which was hard for me because I am a planner!). How many days it takes for us to complete a step has varied widely for us. Some steps we complete in 1 or 2 days other steps take us 3 or 4 days. It just depends on what is being taught and how quickly my Dd picks up on the concept. We are only in Level 2 but here is how we use AAS in case it helps you get a better picture of how you can make the program work for you.....Typically I try and teach the new concept in one day, two if really needed. After going through the lesson I read some of the words off of the spelling list for her to spell with the tiles. Once I feel like she has a good grasp on the concept I have her write all of the spelling words on paper as I read them to her. I than dictate to her either three phrases or 2 phrases and one sentence. The next day I test her on the previous days lesson by having her write all of the words again and then write two phrases and a sentence. If I feel like she has mastered the current concept then the next day I will move on to the next step, if not we do one more day of review. This pattern has seemed to work well for us thus far. Keep in mind though that we often spend longer than 15 min. a day on the days where I am teaching her new material, on the review days however, we maybe spend about 5-10 min. sometimes 15 if my daughter is having a hard time concentrating. Setting a timer for 15 min. like others have suggested may work better for you, it just doesn't work for us. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiddenJewel Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 My 2nd grader takes about 2 days per step on average. She is on level 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2att Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 My 5th grader who has just started Level 5 does a step in 1 week (we do 4 day weeks). My 3rd grader is in Level 3 and takes two weeks to do a step (so 8 days). There are 12 dictation sentences in each step, plus 10 words. There's no way he would be able to write all that in a few days and internalize the new concepts, too. So we take our time and let it sink in. I imagine he'll be able to go faster as he gets a little older, just like his brother did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommee & Baba Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 My 1st grader is doing AAS2 and takes her the alloted 2 days per week to complete 1 step. My 3rd grader is doing AAS3 and can complete 1 step in 1 day spending 20-30min on it. She's about to enter into AAS4 which will probably slow down and take her the alloted 2 days per week for 1 step. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivka Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Did it take anyone elses child a while to complete step one? My first grader is going through the steps but still has,t completely mastered all the phonograms from step one. You don't have to master all the phonograms before you go on to step 2. Just continue to work on a few of them a day until they are mastered, while also moving through the other steps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Did it take anyone elses child a while to complete step one? My first grader is going through the steps but still has,t completely mastered all the phonograms from step one. That's normal. Move on, but keep reviewing the phonograms not mastered everyday. The phonograms that take a while to learn aren't used in level 1 anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petepie2 Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I do spelling 3 days a week with my 2nd grader. However, she is a natural speller and also doesn't mind writing several dictation sentences in a lesson. We usually cover 1.5-2 steps per week. She started level 1 at the beginning of 1st grade and just started level 5 last week. We have 9 weeks of school left. It's possible we may slow down in level 5. When I start with my 1st grader next year, it may look completely different. He is NOT a natural speller! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess4879 Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I don't think it's a program that can be planned down to the day very well. We just aim to do spelling 5 days a week. On average we take 2 days to complete a lesson. Even if she masters a level quickly, I like to take the second day to just make sure. I also started doing spelling twice a day. In the morning we start the lesson and build the words on the white board, then I have her read the word cards and in the afternoon she spells them on paper and does the dictation sentences. It takes maybe 10 minutes or less, twice a day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
go_go_gadget Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 It depends on how much phonics instruction a child's already had and how naturally the skill comes to them. My son had totally finished phonics instruction when we started and was already a pretty good speller, so we went through about six steps per 30-minute lesson, once a week. My daughter's younger and still working on phonics, so she goes through 1-2 steps per 30-minute lesson, once a week, with a review of the cards on the other four days (five minutes, max). We've had to wait a long time (months) when we've ordered each level (ordering through our charter school) and we only just received level 2, so despite having started my son on it in October we're still only halfway through level 2. I expect him to slow down in the upper levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyR Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 We spend about 2 days per lesson now. In the beginning we worked a lesson per day until we got to the spelling words. We've been averaging 2 days per lesson but this may go to three once we start lesson 11 on Monday when it starts with dictation, or it may not. I'll have to see how she does. We spend about 15 minutes , no more than 20 otherwise I've lost her. As for the phonograms and other cards words. You just file them in the review and go over them everyday while you continue with their lessons. I guess as long as they have letter recognition and they know the basic sounds. For example my 5yr old knows her letters and sounds to them. But she didn't know that c had more than one sound , and s , and ch , a , and y , and so forth. So we just review those everyday before we start. If I had a child that didn't know their letters and sounds I wouldn't move on until they knew them first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenniferLynn Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 We flew through AAS1 with a step a day, then nearly that in AAS2. We continued to review throughout. Things slowed down with AAS3 to about 50/50 New & Review. Now on AAS4 it is 1 new step per week with review the other days. We need to review the Rule Breakers frequently but DD is constantly writing stories, songs, etc. and we want to keep moving forward with AAS before her creative spelling becomes a habit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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