All About Reading vs Abeka Phonics

[nena3927]

I have an almost 7 year old ds who is struggling somewhat in reading. We use HOD and followed their recommendation of The Reading Lesson for phonics and added ETC which he loved. He finished TRL back in early fall and is SLOWLY working through The Early Reader's Bible as a part of the Emerging Reader Set through HOD. I do not think he has dyslexia or anything like that, he is just a slow learner when it comes to reading. His younger sister finished TRL when she was 4 and is reading just about anything she can get her hands on with hardly any problems. I just stopped ETC today with ds as it is getting more difficult for him with the longer reading selections (Book 5) and it is causing tears. He LOVES all the word exercises in the book but when it comes to the fill in the blank problems and the ones where he has to read a sentence to match the picture he has started to shut down in frustration. Its difficult to watch him struggle because I know he IS trying.

 

I am thinking of trying either All About Reading or Abeka with him over the summer and needed opinions on which one would be a better option for him. I had initially thought I would go with Abeka as I have a friend who has used that with her 4 children and they are excellent readers, but as I looked through the Letters and Sounds workbooks she let me borrow, I thought he might get confused because we learned phonics in such a different way. We never marked vowels or sounds, learned very few rules, and did not do the blend ladders they recommend. I do not want to cause him any more confusion. I LOVE the fact that All About Reading has the money back guarantee and it teaches the phongrams as sound units like ai, ay, ou, etc instead of how Abeka has them put a line over the first vowel and cross out the second. He would need to start in Level 2 of AAR.

 

I do not know what to do and I've researched and researched and researched and posted questions in other forums and I'm still undecided. If anyone has any advice to offer or which one of the above programs you think would be better for this child, I'm ALL ears! Thank you so very much!

[MerryAtHope]

It does sound like AAR might be more similar to the way he has learned--might be less confusing that way. Have you looked at the online samples? That helps me when I'm deciding between two curricula. This link shows all the samples for all levels--so you can see how it progresses. Sometimes that helps me too. Plus it shows samples from the readers, activity books, and the lessons in the TM--so you can get a feel for it. Sometimes I just don't know until I try something though!

 

Both will help your student become a strong reader, so one question you might ask yourself is...which one teaches in a way that's easy for me to teach? I like to match things to my "style" when I can. If it's confusing or overwhelming for me, I'm not as likely to be consistent with it. Again, you may not know until you try it and get a feel for it--but that helps me when I'm trying to decide. 

 

Give yourself the freedom to take a risk if you need to--if feeling like you *have* to get it right the first time is making you afraid to make a decision--try to let go of that fear and simply look at which one do you want to try. Then try it and see how it goes. If it doesn't work well--try the other one. It'll be okay.

 

HTH!

 

 

[nena3927]

Yes, I have looked extensively at both curriculums and still can't make a decision. I'm one of those people that just have to plunge in and try something to know if it would work or not but both these programs are so expensive that it make me hesitant to try either. My teaching style is Plain Jane lol. I like a book and workbook and hate flashcards and a bunch of stuff for me to keep up with. That is one reason I liked The Reading Lesson and ETC ; they were totally my style! However, if either of these other programs would help my ds I would make myself use the all the components because, like every other mom, I want him to be a strong reader and ENJOY reading without tears of frustration.

 

I have also noticed some really good reviews of Reading Lessons Through Literature and have added that to my list to study and agonize over. I honestly don't know yet what kind of learner my son is. We've homeschooled since preschool but I just can't tell. He likes workbooks and doesn't HAVE to have  manipulatives to understand concepts but doesn't mind them either. I'm so torn. Right now, my pull is more toward AAR because of the one year guarantee but its still so expensive and I can try Reading Lessons Through Literature for like $30. And I still like the thought of Abeka but I'm afraid it might confuse my son even further :(

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

From what you are describing, it sounds like A Beka might be too much for him to relearn what he has learned. I am somewhat familiar with A Beka's phonics, but it has been a while. It is very traditional, and it has a lot of charts and expensive moving parts. I am using their math, and it sounds simple until you see all the charts and extras you have to add on. There are a lot of workbook pages too, which sounds like may be too much for him or too similar to what he is doing. I am using SSRW, and they have the same things of fill in the blanks, put in order.

 

That's not to say it is not a good program, and I have no doubt your friend's children do read well. A Beka has a lot of drill and practice and breaks things down into traditional phonics rules. If you feel he needs that in order to see the words differently than what has been working, it's possible that it could be a good fit. But if you think he is getting the concepts in the way he has been taught, then you may want to find something closer to that style. Perhaps an oral program even without a lot of writing.

 

I am unfamiliar with AAR and would not be good help there.

 

You may also want to consider whether your son is really ready. Maybe take a few weeks off or even longer or start slow with some phonics games to reinforce the basics before he is made to try again fresh. Sometimes, it can be better to wait, but I also understand the pressure we feel. But I want to encourage you to make the decision that is best for him and try what you think fits him best and you, as a teacher, without all of these pressures. Make reading relaxing, fun and low key so he does not feel that pressure either.

[Meg4]

Well, we have done both. I like both for different reasons. I like how Abeka gets them reading pretty fast, but I don't like how it teaches vowels because I think it is confusing for some kids . Plus, I don't know about the rule when 2 vowels go walking.. I don't really like it so much lol ..   I love AAR and how complete it is and how it teaches, but it takes soooo long to teach them all of the phonemes and to complete all 4 books, so that is its one downfall for me. Maybe you could just continue with explode the code and start All About Spelling. Explode the code is based on the OG method too so its very similar to AAR.  And, then you could use the AAR readers. We are using ETC too and my son and daughter are also in book 5 .  They too have become frustrated with the fill in the blanks .  So, I have them read all the words at the top of the page to me before they start and then we sort of do that page together.  That one does seem to be a bit frustrating for them. HTH

[nena3927]

Thank you for the suggestions. I'm also glad to know that ETC Book 5 seems to cause frustration in others besides my son lol. He has LOVED ETC up until now although we did stop Book 4 3/4 of the way through because he just needed a break from syllabication. There are things I like about both curricula too which makes choosing so difficult. I really like the way Abeka has dc circle the sounds and I think that would help my son slow down and look at the sounds before attempting to sound out longer words. AAR looks great too, just more time consuming. I am still on fence but leaning more and more toward AAR right now. I actually almost ordered it the beginning of this school year but held off due to the cost and hoped that reading would just "click" with my ds like it did with my dd. It has not. Maybe he does just need time to mature and a break for now. We will see I guess. Thanks again for those who have responded. I really do appreciate your insight!

[Meg4]

Thank you for the suggestions. I'm also glad to know that ETC Book 5 seems to cause frustration in others besides my son lol. He has LOVED ETC up until now although we did stop Book 4 3/4 of the way through because he just needed a break from syllabication. There are things I like about both curricula too which makes choosing so difficult. I really like the way Abeka has dc circle the sounds and I think that would help my son slow down and look at the sounds before attempting to sound out longer words. AAR looks great too, just more time consuming. I am still on fence but leaning more and more toward AAR right now. I actually almost ordered it the beginning of this school year but held off due to the cost and hoped that reading would just "click" with my ds like it did with my dd. It has not. Maybe he does just need time to mature and a break for now. We will see I guess. Thanks again for those who have responded. I really do appreciate your insight!

Yes! My daughter would get so mad with the fill in the blanks in book 5.  I hated to see her struggle. I do think its better to modify and keep going if you can. The repeated practice is usually what gets them over the hump. I think if he is getting frustrated maybe you can get some fun early readers that are just slightly below his reading  level. This might help him build his confidence, help with the fluency, and make it more fun . We will also do things like stickers on completed pages, and I have been know to resort to a candy bribe for a completed book. 

 

There are just so many options and learning to read is such a process! Well it has been for us here..but we are getting there.  Oh, we also used Abeka phonics with All About Spelling. This was a nice combo for us. The Abeka letter and sounds book really helped to move us along then All About Spelling really helped to cover all the rules. 

 

Maybe you should take a look at Logic of English Foundations its very similar to AAR. Its a great program and would be a great combo with  ETC. 

 

I'm sorry I hope I haven't confused you more. We have had to use so many different things here. 

[ByGrace3]

I did Abeka with my older dd, and use AAR with my younger two. After using AAR I would never use Abeka again. Abeka gets you reading fast, but the phonogram based reading did not really teach the rules of reading and I found that to be very confusing. AAR is more systematic. We are definitely AAR fans.

[Guest ohiomama]

We absolutely love AAR. It is systematic and teaches rules. I have never used Abeka. If Abeka teaches the "when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking" rule then I would not use it. Here is a blog post from AAR explaining why. http://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/when-two-vowels-go-walking/

 

 

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[Guest ohiomama]

We absolutely love AAR. It is systematic and teaches rules. I have never used Abeka. If Abeka teaches the "when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking" rule then I would not use it. Here is a blog post from AAR explaining why. http://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/when-two-vowels-go-walking/

 

 

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[Guest ohiomama]

We absolutely love AAR. It is systematic and teaches rules. I have never used Abeka. If Abeka teaches the "when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking" rule then I would not use it. Here is a blog post from AAR explaining why. http://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/when-two-vowels-go-walking/

 

 

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[Tenaj]

AAR was driving us crazy here so we switched over to Abeka and it's working great.  My youngest is doing the K5 program and my 6yods is doing first grade.  They like the colorful worksheets.  One of the things they didn't like about AAR was that there weren't worksheets everyday . . . yes, they are weird - LOL!  They just wanted paper everyday and weren't happy 'just' reading.

 

I had used Abeka with a few of my other kidlets along the way and decided to try it again.  They are happy and excited about their schoolwork again.

 

Lots of kids have learned to read despite the "two vowels go walking" rule so I guess I'll just not worry about that one for now :)

[forty-two]

I'd heard so much negativity wrt the "when two vowels go walking" rule that I was shocked to see it taught in LiPS (an intensive, research-based remedial program). But while it fails when applied indiscriminately to *all* two-vowel phonograms, it actually *does* work as a rule of thumb for which sound to try first for ambiguous phonograms.

 

Most two-vowel phonograms are fairly consistent, with one primary sound and very few exceptions (most of which are in common words, so for unfamiliar words the default sound is very likely to be right). Applying the "two vowel goes walking" rule would indeed fail for many of these - but actually that rule is entirely *unnecessary* for those phonograms the first place, especially in phonogram-teaching programs - because those phonograms have one primary sound, and it is learned directly, *prior* to ever being introduced to the "two vowels go walking" rule of thumb. That's how LiPS does it, at any rate, and it cuts way down on the error rate for that rule of thumb.

 

For ambiguous phonograms, the only one it doesn't work for is "ie" (long-e is slightly more common than long-i). However, it *does* work straight-up for "oe", "ue", "ui", and "ea" (for "ea" the two primary sounds are the two sounds of "e", short-e and long-e), and works in conjunction with other bits of phonics knowledge for "ey"/"ei" (Latin sound for "e", and used most in words of Latin origin; next most common sound is long-e) and "ou" (/ou/ as in shout is by far the most common sound for "ou", but long-o is tied with /ou/ as in soup for the next most common, and the "ou as in soup" is a French sound, found in words of French origin).

 

It surprised me, but the "two vowels go walking" rule of thumb, used not to determine *the* sound for all phonograms, but to pick the *most common* sound for otherwise *ambiguous* phonograms - it's quite accurate in that context. There's actually a legit use for it.

[forty-two]

Actually, you can simplify it - remove all the phonograms that are primarily used to spell the non-short/long vowels sounds (au/aw, oo, ou/ow*, oi/oy), plus the outliers ew/eu, which are only used for OO and long-u - and the "two vowels go walking" rule of thumb correctly identifies the most common sound for all the common vowel phonograms left (except for the already mentioned "ie", and Latin sound of "ey/ei"). (Afaik, this is how LiPS does it; certainly it teaches the above spellings (au/aw, oo, ou/ow, oi/oy) as the primary spellings for /au/, /oo/, /OO/, /ou/, and /oi/ long before it brings up "two vowels go walking".)

 

(*Asterisked ow/ou, because they are the primary spellings for /ow/ as in cow, but half the time, "ow" has the long-o sound.)

 

 

Phonogram list:

 

ai/ay: most common sound by far is long-a

 

ea: most common sounds by far are long-e (325 times in ABCs and All Their Tricks list) and short-e (156)

ee: most common sound by far is long-e

ei: most common is the Latin long e (long a; 44) and second most common is long-e (11)

ey: in base words, most common is the Latin long-e (17); as a suffix, the most common is long-e (43)

 

ie: the outlier, within words the most common sound is long-e (77); at the end of words, the most common is long-e (17), followed by long-i (10)

 

oa: most common sound by far is long-o

oe: most common sound is long-o

(ow: most common sound is long-o (130), but almost as common is ow-as-in-cow (122))

 

ue: most common sound is long-u

ui: most common sound is long-u

 

 

Really, I think the key thing is to see "two vowels go walking" as a *rule of thumb*, a guide to which sound to try first, to the *most common sound* for phonograms that aren't primarily used for non-short/long vowels, instead of as some absolute, "it's *always* this sound" rule. Within those parameters, it's quote accurate and useful :thumbup:.

[forty-two]

So I ran the numbers (using The ABCs and All Their Tricks as the source of all my numbers), and for the above list of phonograms (excluding ow), here's how the "two vowels go walking" rule of thumb works out:

 

When you include the known outlier "ie", it identifies the correct sound 90% of the time.

When you *exclude* the known outlier "ie", it identifies the correct sound 95% of the time.

 

If you don't include second sounds with consistent, easily identified criteria (ue/ui), to look only at true outliers, it identifies the correct sound 98% of the time. I think that's a pretty darn good rule of thumb :thumbup:.

 

 

 

Here's my numbers, for the phonics geeks among us ;):

 

ai: long-a, 98%; other, 2% (long-a: 308; other: 5)

ay: long-a, 99%; other, 1% (long-a: 143; other: 2)

 

ea: long-e, 67%; short-e, 32%; other, 1% (long-e, 325; short-e, 156; other, 5)

ee: long-e, 99%; other, 1% (long-e: 307; other: 2)

ei: Latin long e (long a), 73%; long-e, 15%; other: 12% (Latin long-e: 54; long-e: 11; other: 9)

ey: in base words, Latin long-e, 85%; other, 15% (Latin long-e: 17; other: 3)

as a suffix, long-e, 100% (43, no exceptions)

 

ie (the outlier): within words, long-e, 97%; other, 3% (long-e: 77; other: 2);

at the end of words, long-e, 63%; long-i, 37% (long-e: 17; long-i: 10)

 

oa: long-o, 99%; other, 1% (long-o: 132; other: 1)

oe: long-o, 83%; other, 17% (long-o 15; other: 3)

 

ue: long-u, 51%; silent at the end of words from French, 49% (long-u: 44; silent: 43)

ui: long-u, 62%; silent u, 38% (long-u: 15; silent u: 9)

[MerryAtHope]

So I ran the numbers (using The ABCs and All Their Tricks as the source of all my numbers)

 

Interestingly, The ABCs and All Their Tricks discusses the unreliability of the rule, mentions that it can confuse young and remedial readers, and also mentions how the unreliability of the rule is often (unfortunately) used as evidence to show that phonics should not be taught--on pages 36-37. 

[nena3927]

Wow, thank you everyone for your replies. I can honestly say that my son loves workbooks although he may be distracted by all the color in Abeka. I already have the Handbook for Reading TE and was wondering what else I would need if I went that route? He will be in second grade. How could I go at his own pace with the curriculum guide as it seems to move fast? I know Abeka uses that two vowel walking rule though but I don't know how I feel about it. The only thing that I hesitate about AAR is the time it takes to teach all the sounds. With The Reading Lesson, he learned most sounds with the exception of au,aw,eigh,tion, and a couple more by the end of kindergarten. He just needs lots of practice remembering them and working on fluency. It takes a lot of drill for him to remember things. I wanted to go ahead and order but I may have to wait till May for our homeschool convention so I can thoroughly look each program over.

[MerryAtHope]

Wow, thank you everyone for your replies. I can honestly say that my son loves workbooks although he may be distracted by all the color in Abeka. I already have the Handbook for Reading TE and was wondering what else I would need if I went that route? He will be in second grade. How could I go at his own pace with the curriculum guide as it seems to move fast? I know Abeka uses that two vowel walking rule though but I don't know how I feel about it. The only thing that I hesitate about AAR is the time it takes to teach all the sounds. With The Reading Lesson, he learned most sounds with the exception of au,aw,eigh,tion, and a couple more by the end of kindergarten. He just needs lots of practice remembering them and working on fluency. It takes a lot of drill for him to remember things. I wanted to go ahead and order but I may have to wait till May for our homeschool convention so I can thoroughly look each program over.

 

The sound review in AAR is very fast--you simply show the card, say the sounds, and the child repeats. It shouldn't be time-consuming at all.