All about spelling, how many levels in one year?

[a27mom]

I have been looking at AAS. How many levels do you cover in one year? This is with students who are not likely to struggle. My girls have some understanding of many of the phonograms, but I am looking for something multisensory that will cover things in an orderly fashion, and make sure the gaps are filled in. (Dks are 4 and almost 6, both with basic "Bob book" level reading skills)

[Flowergirl159]

Starting at this age, possibly one level per year :)

[stayathomelibrarian]

We did Level 1 in one year. We got through the first steps pretty quickly and then got a little bored. We picked it back up several weeks later with some review and finished it. We will be doing level 2 this coming year.

[blondeviolin]

We don't start AAS until the child is a fairly fluent reader. My oldest flew through level 1 in a matter of weeks. My current 5yo will probably take half a year. Level 2 was another half a year for my oldest. I suspect level 3 will be done for her within the first half of the year. I imagine we'll get to the beginning of level 4 by the end of second grade. That will include a few weeks of level 3 review.

[petepie2]

It totally depends on how quickly your child progresses. My oldest started AAS in 1st grade, and by the end of 3rd grade this past year, she made it about a third of the way through level 6. She is a natural speller and has great visual memory. I only do spelling twice a week with her.

 

Now my son is another story. This past year in 1st grade he made it through level 1 with a just a bit of level 2. I had to review and review and review. He's at the opposite end of the spelling spectrum than his sister.

 

ETA: Both of them were fluent readers when they started AAS.

[Crimson Wife]

Levels 1 and 2 together took less than a year for my DS, but he was already a fluent reader when he started it (he had finished the Hooked on Phonics K-2 kit). Level 3 was a bit slower, and Level 4 took most of this past school year to do. Over the summer I'm having him work through Spelling Power while waiting for our virtual charter materials to be delivered in August.

[Five More Minutes]

It completely depends on your child. I have two dds with different learning styles. The one completed 5 levels in 2.5 years (and I was slowing her down a bit). The other is likely to take about a year to complete a level at her current pace.

 

The flexibility is what I like about AAS. It's very easy to match its pace to your child's.

[MeganW]

Just from reading a LOT of older posts on this forum, it seems like older kids who are fluent readers often zoom through 2-4 levels a year, but slow way down when the level approximates their grade (ie Level 4 for 4th graders).

 

My kids had a very thorough grounding in phonics and were reading well when we started. The big kids had just turned 8, and the youngest was 6 1/2. Doing every single step thoroughly as explained in the manual, we have completed 21 of the 24 steps in Level 1. It has taken 44 sessions of about 20 minutes each (usually 4 per week, so almost 3 months). It has been easy-breezy thus far (but well-worth doing)!

[boscopup]

Definitely varies from child to child. My oldest was a fluent reader, and he spent 3 weeks on level 1, 8 weeks on level 2, and it would have been 4 months on level 3 if we'd finished it (I switched him to R&S once I realized that he really didn't need AAS... not a natural speller, but didn't need an O-G program).

 

On the other hand, some kids spend a year per level. I would expect your 4 year old to take longer than the 6 year old. At Bob book level, the 6 year old may spend the entire year on level 1, or she might get into part of level 2.

[ByGrace3]

Definitely depends on the child. Dd started in first when she was 6 and a pretty good reader. She went through levels one and two and started three that year. We took a break for summer and I ended up restarting level three-- which took from August until march. Then we started level four. Levels three up could definitely be stretched for a year.

[LynnG in Arizona]

I am almost always the outlier when it comes to this question, but I like to answer anyway just to give a different perspective.

 

For students working on grade level (ie, NOT a typical-ability 4th grader starting AAS Level 1), I think about one level per school year is approximately right. At least, that's how my normal kids have progressed. I do "suck the marrow" out of AAS and cover every extra word, every dictation phrase/sentence, and add in frequent reviews as well. I can see where it would be possible to do "just" the new teaching from each level and go much faster, but I think the dictation and review are some of the most important aspects of the program, and not something to be rushed through.

 

I know there are some kids who are natural spellers, who might be able to go much quicker. But for most typical students, the additional practice provided by the dictation is extremely valuable. It actually works to review a lot of English grammar and writing skills, beyond "just" spelling. Oh, and my kids have also enjoyed using the optional readers that go along with the program as well.

 

So given how we use the program, approximately one level per week is pretty comfortable, which works out to about one level per school year.

 

HTH. :)

[Kathleen.]

Levels 1 and 2 together took less than a year for my DS, but he was already a fluent reader when he started it (he had finished the Hooked on Phonics K-2 kit). Level 3 was a bit slower, and Level 4 took most of this past school year to do. Over the summer I'm having him work through Spelling Power while waiting for our virtual charter materials to be delivered in August.

 

 

My 7 and 9yo use AAS. My 9yo is spelling better than the current level we have. I too am doing Spelling Power with her this summer just to get an idea of where she falls (bought the book before I heard of AAS a while ago). Are you planning to return to AAS? I'd like to if I can figure out what level she is in AAS. Her Spelling Power placement test puts her at Level G which is beginning 7th grade. AAS only goes up to level 7. I love the way AAS teaches rules. Any thoughts on where to place in AAS with a Spelling Power level of G? :)

[Kathryn]

We do one step each week. Usually, DS already "gets it" before we do the lesson, but we don't move ahead. I has things scheduled and I stick with the schedule. We do all of the extra words and the sentences and reviews. We could move faster, but I don't see a need to do so. If he hasn't "mastered" a lesson by the end of the week, it goes into review until it is mastered, but we go on to the next step the next week.

[Crimson Wife]

My 7 and 9yo use AAS. My 9yo is spelling better than the current level we have. I too am doing Spelling Power with her this summer just to get an idea of where she falls (bought the book before I heard of AAS a while ago). Are you planning to return to AAS? I'd like to if I can figure out what level she is in AAS. Her Spelling Power placement test puts her at Level G which is beginning 7th grade. AAS only goes up to level 7. I love the way AAS teaches rules. Any thoughts on where to place in AAS with a Spelling Power level of G? :)

 

 

DS placed into Level E of SP after finishing AAS 4, but I also gave the "Delayed Review" lists and found that there were certain words from Level D that he missed so I backed him up and started with some of the harder lists in D.

 

I am planning on doing AAS 5 this fall because while DS is a good speller for his age, he is not a "natural" speller like his big sister. He definitely needs to be taught the spelling rules even if the word lists in AAS are easy for him. I see him make spelling mistakes that oldest DD never made. She gets tripped up by things that there aren't any rules for (like silent or doubled letters, unaccented vowels, foreign origin words, etc.) He makes those mistakes as well, but also does things like forgets to change the y to an i when adding a vowel suffix. AAS helps him remember the rules better.

[jessj]

It definitely will vary. I started it this year with 8 and 6 year olds, both reading well above grade levels. My elder daughter is the one who struggles with spelling, but levels 1&2 didn't pose any challenges. They did however help her greatly with her spelling in general. We only do it twice a week, and if it's a busy week, spelling usually gets dropped. So we only did two levels this year. My 6 year old did one level as I started her once her elder sister was finished. I just plan on slowly going through them about 2 levels per year unless we hit a bump in the road and need to slow down. I figure there's no reason to rush through it.

[Kathleen.]

Crimson, thanks for the input :)

[kdownie]

My oldest dd was a fluent reader before we started AAS. She did level 1 in about 6-8 weeks and Level 2 in a few months. We will start level 3 at the beginning of 2nd grade, and I anticipate it raking half the year. Plus, we will probably spend the first few weeks of school reviewing.

 

My second dd will be starting younger, so I expect more like 1 year per level for her.

[Farrar]

I can't imagine getting very far in AAS if a child was still in the BOB book stage, honestly. We did the first level in a matter of about a month and a bit, but that was with an older child. I agree with the idea of one level per year for the most part. My decent speller will be doing AAS 4 in fourth grade and I think that's basically fine.

[SarahW]

If your kids know all their single-letter phonemes, then I think they could start AAS1. But you would need to take it slow, and expect to spend a lot of time on the first 10 lessons or so. Do the tokens a lot. Do the tiles a lot. Cover all of the "extra" words over the course of a couple days before you move on.

[Donna A.]

I am almost always the outlier when it comes to this question, but I like to answer anyway just to give a different perspective.

 

For students working on grade level (ie, NOT a typical-ability 4th grader starting AAS Level 1), I think about one level per school year is approximately right. At least, that's how my normal kids have progressed. I do "suck the marrow" out of AAS and cover every extra word, every dictation phrase/sentence, and add in frequent reviews as well. I can see where it would be possible to do "just" the new teaching from each level and go much faster, but I think the dictation and review are some of the most important aspects of the program, and not something to be rushed through.

 

I know there are some kids who are natural spellers, who might be able to go much quicker. But for most typical students, the additional practice provided by the dictation is extremely valuable. It actually works to review a lot of English grammar and writing skills, beyond "just" spelling. Oh, and my kids have also enjoyed using the optional readers that go along with the program as well.

 

So given how we use the program, approximately one level per week is pretty comfortable, which works out to about one level per school year.

 

HTH. :)

Lynn, may I ask how long your daily lessons took doing it this way? Sucking the marrow, and all.

[LynnG in Arizona]

Lynn, may I ask how long your daily lessons took doing it this way? Sucking the marrow, and all.

Donna, we probably average about 15 minutes per session, 4 sessions weekly. Often that might slip to 3 sessions a week if we got busy or had distractions.

 

Another point that I didn't mention before is that there is a bit of a developmental issue with going through AAS too quickly. By AAS Level 2, the kids are writing full dictation sentences, often 5-8 words in length. The complexity and length of these sentences increase somewhat by Level 3, and then half way through that year, the "writing stations" are added in, in which the kids are supposed to use several of the spelling words to write original sentences.

 

So assuming a child is typical-ability and working roughly on grade level (ie, not going through the program remedially), I don't think many super young kids are going to be ready for that level of writing and dictation - from a maturity and fine motor skills standpoint. Something to think about, anyway. :)

[Donna A.]

Thanks, Lynn. Very helpful! :)

[MeaganS]

We just started with my 4 (almost 5) year old who is reading most short vowel words and starting into more complicated silent e type words (around lesson 70 in OPGTR).  I went ahead and started because she was making up spellings of words that she wanted to write.  We've been doing AAS for about a month or two now and I am also trying to "suck the marrow".  Level one only does cvc words, so it is a good review for her, but won't teach her to spell words she can't already read easily.  There are so many things to review every time, that you really can make it last quite a long time if you do everything.  I anticipate that Level one will last us through the next school year, although we might start level two towards the end.  I hesitate to predict any farther ahead than that, but I will say that I am finding AAS to be brilliant so far, and unless something drastic happens, we will probably use it all the way through.

[MeganW]

Just from reading a LOT of older posts on this forum, it seems like older kids who are fluent readers often zoom through 2-4 levels a year, but slow way down when the level approximates their grade (ie Level 4 for 4th graders).

 

My kids had a very thorough grounding in phonics and were reading well when we started. The big kids had just turned 8, and the youngest was 6 1/2. Doing every single step thoroughly as explained in the manual, we have completed 21 of the 24 steps in Level 1. It has taken 44 sessions of about 20 minutes each (usually 4 per week, so almost 3 months). It has been easy-breezy thus far (but well-worth doing)!

We finished Level 1 today!!! :)

[MerryAtHope]

We finished Level 1 today!!! :)

 

Congratulations! :hurray:

[SABE]

We average 1 level per year.  We could probably go faster if we tried, but since I have kids in 3 different levels, I don't push it.