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Please tell me more about RLTL and ELTL


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I have not used the others, but I just wanted to say I have come to really love RLTL. I love the size of the book, I love the clarity of it, and how open and go it is and how it's all included in one handy thorough manual.

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I have not used the others, but I just wanted to say I have come to really love RLTL. I love the size of the book, I love the clarity of it, and how open and go it is and how it's all included in one handy thorough manual.

 

Does it go over the same phonograms and spelling rules every year for review? I assume the child is required to keep a spelling notebook?

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Does it go over the same phonograms and spelling rules every year for review? I assume the child is required to keep a spelling notebook?

Yes, same rules, etc but your child will analyze more difficult words each year.

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I'm not sure of the ages of your children, but I have a 6yo starting first grade. She highly dislikes reading. Here's my attempt to answer your question:

 

So we have used AAR1, currently using RLTL 1 & ELTL 1. I've just purchased LoE A & B. 

 

So first, I've come to understand the way my daughter thinks finally, after nearly 8 months homeschooling. I pulled her out of K and she was reading CVC words. 5ish months into AAR1 and she was still only reading CVC words. I know that many children at the end of K aren't reading independently, but something was just telling me it wasn't working. She highly disliked the tiles, and I felt it was moving sooooo very slowly, hardly introducing anything new to her over halfway through it. I really disliked the fluency sheets. Just seemed like a sure fire way to make a kid that doesn't like to read hate it more. I tried AAS briefly, and realized quickly that the spell to read approach was better. She loves dictations. That lead me to reading about Spalding and such so we decided on RLTL. 

 

It has been great. She is a perfectionist and very much needs rules to work around. Letters on a page, meant nothing to her outside of their short sound counterparts. She's being given the tools to attack words she doesn't know. I was pretty skeptical reading through it, it was hard to imagine doing dictations that way, repeating rules and making markings etc. But seriously not two weeks into lessons, she's picking out the phonograms herself, spouting rules back to me before I even say them etc. "Mommy I bet that says.." to random words she sees in passing. We're two lists shy of completing the first 200 words so we can read the Elson readers. I'm giddy with excitement for her to read an entire story other than a BOB book completely on her own. This method is just genius. It builds her confidence as I'm not forcing her to read books that just intimidate her. "Just read these words in your lists." "They're easy now you say?" "Awesome, great job kiddo." 

 

Now then, why do I have LoE in front of me? Well, RLTL is great, but not fun..at all. I show her phonograms, she writes them. I dictate her lists, she writes them. We may laugh and be silly coming up with words for the phonograms but other than that it's just kind of dry. My 4 yr old is starting to sound out words, and I just can't imagine this method working with her right now to build phonemic awareness. Maybe in a year..but I want to capitalize on it now while her brain is hyper-focused on letters and words. I just don't have a lot of time to search out ways to make this method approachable. In walks LoE, with it's scripting, games and COLOR, just gobs of fun. I couldn't bring this shiny new stuff into the house for baby sister without bringing big sister along. On the side, I think we'll finish the lists in RLTL just because words are power but I won't continue the series. I do rather like ELTL, though the fables are kind of odd at times so I'm sure to preview them.

 

We will start after Labor Day with LoE, but I've been reading both manuals and can tell for sure it'll be great. DD will fly through B as she's been exposed to nearly all of the phonograms already. Right off the bat in A, my 4yo will be running around the room, playing hopscotch, and pretending to be animals. I mean, *I* am excited to use it. Since there are two of them I really look forward to the games. 

 

Since my focus is on reading, I can't comment on whether RLTL is a complete spelling program.

 

Hope that helps!

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Yes, that helps a lot!  I have Foundations A, I have some of the things for LOE, just missing the Teachers Guide, which I honestly can't afford right now so thinking RLTL might work for my 9 year old who is not really a struggling reader but a boy that HATES Alpha Phonics, he hates all the repetition, which is one reason we stopped AAR for him awhile back, I could not stand the fluency sheets.  I am thinking RLTL might just be what he needs to get going.  He likes the Pathway readers but we need to keep going on phonics, he picks things up very quickly.  For my new reader maybe I should just keep the Foundations A.  Hmmmm......??

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Yes, that helps a lot! I have Foundations A, I have some of the things for LOE, just missing the Teachers Guide, which I honestly can't afford right now so thinking RLTL might work for my 9 year old who is not really a struggling reader but a boy that HATES Alpha Phonics, he hates all the repetition, which is one reason we stopped AAR for him awhile back, I could not stand the fluency sheets. I am thinking RLTL might just be what he needs to get going. He likes the Pathway readers but we need to keep going on phonics, he picks things up very quickly. For my new reader maybe I should just keep the Foundations A. Hmmmm......??

That makes sense for sure. If baby sister wasn't in the mix, I'd just continue with this and by the end of the levels she'd know the entire Ayers list and be well on her way. DD6 is also quite "young" and into cutesy characters and what have you. A 9yo may think Foundations babyish? We're doing the accelerated schedule with RLTL, so 20 words a week. I had wondered what to do when Foundations was done and I like the RLTL authors suggestion to move to prepared dictation after RLTL levels are done. The rules will be so ingrained by then and her bank of common words so large. So it may be premature of me to say we won't continue the series. With the littles I may just do A&B and then move back to RLTL ....maybe Essentials..idk!

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Yeah..so many great choices....I just have to remember with AAR (because I often want to go back to it), I really felt like it moved to slow and there was too much to do but my son was also older and we needed to get going and he picks up things quickly.  With a younger one starting I like AAR, except for the fluency sheets ;)

 

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