AAS: Move Forward or Stretch It Out?

[CrunchyGirl]

DS seems to be an intuitive speller. Since he taught himself to read (at 3 yrs.old) I wanted him to learn phonics through spelling so we went with AAS. I'm finding that he has a weird intuitive understanding of phonics and spelling rules. We are on lesson 16 of AAS1 and he has yet to be even remotely challenged.

 

So do I just go through quickly (ensuring he knows the material) or do I try to stretch it out? On one hand it seems almost silly to speed through what is ultimately only 7 levels of spelling when I have no idea what we would do after that. On the other hand, I'm dealing with a very bright kid who has zero tolerance for anything even remotely spiral or otherwise repetitive He masters and moves on. As it is, he's clearly humoring me on the spelling front. We generally do about 10 minutes a day since that's about the length of his 5 year old attention span :)

 

Thoughts?

[musicianmom]

I think AAS, while a great program, is overkill for a natural speller, not to mention expensive. I went through 2 1/2 levels before I realized it was essentially busy work for my natural speller. She is now making more than adequate progress in spelling simply through her extensive reading and her copywork.

[MerryAtHope]

The rules don't really start in AAS until step 16. Since you have it, I think I'd finish out Level 1 and then decide if you want to continue or not. I don't see a reason to stretch things out for a child who easily grasps the concepts, so I think the question will be--is he learning and growing as he uses it (or will he, if you get into more challenging topics), or does he not need it? The first part is all short vowel, CVC words and consonant blends, so he really hasn't had to start using reasoning skills until step 16 with C vs. K. See how he does with the last third of it. Some kids also memorize words by sight, and don't know how to apply concepts to other words as they go on, and will hit a wall eventually--a lot just depends on how he is thinking about words.

 

Merry :-)

[ByGrace3]

I wouldn't stretch it out. We got through level one in about 5-6 weeks and through level two in about 3 months? Level three took almost 7 months. As it gets more challenging they slow down naturally.

[Wendy Inman]

Speed up through what he already knows or what is easy then slow down when you get to something challenging. I found this program was DS was 7 and we sped through levels 1 & 2. From there on we slowed it down. We are on Level 7 and believe me.. it DOES get more challenging and I am so glad we stuck with it, it's an awesome program!!

[CrunchyGirl]

Thanks everyone! I will stick with it and go at his pace for now and reevaluate regularly :)

[amyrobynne]

My first grader sounds a lot like your son. We started homeschooling this year and I started at the beginning with AAS1 even though he's been reading since he was 3. I figured it would catch any phonics stuff he might be missing since I wasn't going to do a formal reading program with him. We do AAS about 4 days a week and only took a day or two per step in level 1. Most of level 2 took 2 days per step. We'll finish level 3 by the end of this year, I think. So far, the steps are taking 2 days each, but we haven't gotten to the writing station part, so maybe they'll take longer. This week was the first time he misspelled any words and that was largely because I accidentally gave him sentences to dictate that included words where I hadn't yet explained the rules (little, middle). Learning the rules will be useful as words get harder, I think. I'm learning lots about letters words never end in -- very handy playing Words with Friends! I do think I'll switch to Phonetic Zoo after he finishes level 3 because the independent instruction would be easier on both of us, but I'm glad I chose AAS for this year. I'll start it in kindergarten with my next son if he solidly knows his letters and is reading by then.