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? about combining AAR and HWOT


luvbug in Ohio
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So in all my brilliant (hah!) planning, now that my books have arrived I see a problem.  I planned on using these 2 curricula with my youngest.  I was going to do a letter of the week kind of thing.  But they cover different letters each week.  So I'm wondering, which schedule should I go with?  When I look the books over, it seems both schedules are important.  They are each set that way for a reason, and necessary to progress through the book.  Has anyone ever done this before??? And maybe have some helpful thoughts? I can tell I'm going to need a little help before I go completely crazy overthinking this, not that I've ever done that before!   :laugh:

TIA!

Luvbug

  

 

Oh, and in case it matters, it's the AAR-Pre Reading, and HWOT Kindergarten.

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Is your kiddo wanting to write? M

While I understand the importance of HWOT order, we haven't followed it. Dd wanted to write her name so we did those letters first. It's been fine.

 

When we did AAR pre, I did HWOT preschool and adjusted HWOT to the AAR order. It didn't seem to hurt anything. I also found playdough letter mats online that I laminated. Dd then used playdough or dry erase to make the letters.

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I would do AAR first and then do HWOT later. Actually the first half of AAR introduces the letters and the second half introduces the sounds so you could do the first half and then start HWOT. That way your child would know the letters when they're introduced in HWOT.

 

This is the simplest solution and would totally work -- introduce the letters with AAR first, and when you start the letter sound section you can start HWOT and the letters you're working on don't have to sync up. 

 

One thing I'd say though,  the pre-reading exercises and games in the first 2 sections of the book have nothing to do with the letter you're working on each day. You'll color the letter C and read a poem about it, but the exercise will be rhyming practice, or counting syllables. i think the sequence of the pre-reading exercises/games is important--you want to do those in order since they start easier and become more complex. But you *could* to the letter crafts and poems in the HWOT sequence if you wanted to. You might make yourself dizzy switching it all around but I don't think it would hurt the learning process if you did the letter portion in a different order.

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I did AAR pre and HWOT with DS at 4 and Kumon letters and just went in whatever order the letters were presented in the different books. Don't worry about it being different. If anything I thought HWOT was a waste because it doesn't actually have much practice so it wouldn't have been enough to teach DS proper letter formation. I like the Kumon books a lot more.

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I did AAR pre and HWOT with DS at 4 and Kumon letters and just went in whatever order the letters were presented in the different books. Don't worry about it being different. If anything I thought HWOT was a waste because it doesn't actually have much practice so it wouldn't have been enough to teach DS proper letter formation. I like the Kumon books a lot more.

Did you use HWOT PreK? The Kindergarten book, Letters, Numbers, and Me does teach proper formation.
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Did you use HWOT PreK? The Kindergarten book, Letters, Numbers, and Me does teach proper formation.

I didn't mean to imply HWOT doesn't teach proper formation but rather it lacks enough practice for proper formation. DS did HWOT pre-k through 1st and I'm just less than impressed with it. I used it because I'd read so many posts about it but in practice I think it's made for brick and mortar schools. There is very little practice of the letters per page. I had DS using the Kumon books as practice for fine motor skills like writing and I think he learned far more about proper letter formation from those books because there is so much practice. I won't bother with HWOT for my DD.

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I appreciate everyone's input here! 

 

Unfortunately, I am driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to put this together.  I want to blend these 2 together in as clear way as possible.  AAR has you basically going over the alphabet 3 times-capitals, lowercase, then sounds.  HWOT does capitals then lowercase but not in alphabetical order.

 

I guess I'm feeling like maybe going over the alphabet 3 times would be not enough time spent on one letter, just moving too quickly too many times?

 

Honestly at this point, I'm about ready to say we'll just do a letter of the week.  (And numbers too.)  Just pull all the necessary pages from each book, and cover capitals, lowercase, sounds and handwriting all in one week. BUT, that only leaves me with 26 weeks worth of school!?! Even with a review week thrown in here and there, that wouldn't be enough. So then I would need to find something else to do.

 

Uggh.  I think I need a break from this swirling around in my mind.  I don't know why I can't...just...make...a...decision. Honestly my 8th grade ds has been easier to plan this my kindergartner!   :confused1:  :crying:  :willy_nilly:

After reading the earlier posts though, at least I'm not worried about the letter order as much.  One part of this equation figured out!

 

Edited by luvbug in Ohio
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I appreciate everyone's input here!

 

Unfortunately, I am driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to put this together. I want to blend these 2 together in as clear way as possible. AAR has you basically going over the alphabet 3 times-capitals, lowercase, then sounds. HWOT does capitals then lowercase but not in alphabetical order.

 

I guess I'm feeling like maybe going over the alphabet 3 times would be not enough time spent on one letter, just moving too quickly too many times?

 

Honestly at this point, I'm about ready to say we'll just do a letter of the week. (And numbers too.) Just pull all the necessary pages from each book, and cover capitals, lowercase, sounds and handwriting all in one week. BUT, that only leaves me with 26 weeks worth of school!?! Even with a review week thrown in here and there, that wouldn't be enough. So then I would need to find something else to do.

 

Uggh. I think I need a break from this swirling around in my mind. I don't know why I can't...just...make...a...decision. Honestly my 8th grade ds has been easier to plan this my kindergartner! :confused1: :crying: :willy_nilly:

After reading the earlier posts though, at least I'm not worried about the letter order as much. One part of this equation figured out!

I think I would keep the order of the phonemic awareness activities. They get progressively more difficult as you go through AAR. I think you could do all uppercase first (AAR and HWOT) then all lowercase and then sounds. I think it will only cement in the concepts for your kiddo. and that way you keep the order of the phonemic awareness activities. Those where what I truly found valuable in AAR pre level

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Thank you Reading Mama!  I think I'll do that after all. I have been concerned that chopping up both books and putting them together like that will cause us to lose something along the way.  What has been really helpful is the feedback both here and elsewhere has been mainly what you said-go with AAR and adjust HWOT to it.

 

I don't know why I keep wanting to go back to the letter of the week thing.  Maybe that's more for me and my OCD planning tendencies.  

 

See how quickly I changed my mind???  Now the goal is to GET UP TOMORROW AND DON"T TRY TO RE-INVENT THE WHEEL ALL OVER AGAIN.

 

Can I get an amen?  :lol:  :hurray:  :thumbup1:

Edited by luvbug in Ohio
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If I can steer you away from doing letter a week or "Letter of the Week," I'd like to. :P

 

It's a super common pre-k or kindergarten technique, but it's not a very effective one. There are some books and articles on this. 

 

I learned this after my dd had a full year of pre-k (from age 4.5 to 5.5) with letters of the week and by the end of the year she could recognize only of the letters in her name. At first I thought my daughter might have a learning disability--I mean, she had letter lessons going on every day, but none of it went in her brain. But now that I've been researching and teaching her myself for a few months it's clear she doesn't have serious learning challenges--it's just that learning each letter in isolation for 5 days and then moving on to the next one didn't make letters mean anything to her. There wasn't enough context, not enough review or comparison of letter sounds or shapes, to make them stick. 

 

My feeling is you want to go faster and review more--and when it gets to letter sounds, if you can learn 2-4 letter sounds almost as a group and practice, and then add more--that's a good way to make the letters and sounds stick. AAR pre-reading, a lesson a day (ultimately you end up going through the alphabet 3 times) is working well for my daughter, but I've also been adding some extra review games with 3-4 letters or sounds we've previously covered to make sure the info stays. 

 

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Definitely don't let it stress you out! My DS started AAR Pre absolutely not knowing his letters by sight at all. We just went through pre and separate from that did Kumon and HWOT because I wanted to develop his motor skills for writing and it all came together. By the end of pre he was begging for multiple lessons a day and breezing through it by the time he got to the letter sounds. I think if anything it probably helped that he saw a lot of letters to help him learn it all.

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I just wanted to agree that the order of the phonological awareness exercises in AAR Pre-reading (the "Language Exploration" section) is important, and that these skills do build on each other. You CAN change the order of the letters if you really want to, but you need to do the Language Exploration sections in order. So, for example, if you start with Capital F (I forget which capital letter HWOT starts with!), then you would do those letter activities, but use the Language Exploration from Capital A. If you use some kind of sticky flag or sticky tab for a bookmark, you could keep your place to do all the LE sections in order.

 

AAR Pre-reading has 3 sections--capital letters, small letters, and then letter sounds. In that third section, letter sounds, the Language Exploration sections DO match the letter sound covered in that lesson. So do that whole third section in order.

 

I do agree that the easiest thing would be to go through part of AAR Pre-reading first--at least the first third. Then you could use HWOT to teach capital letters as you move on to small letters in Pre-reading. The visual of the capital letter would be review, but you would get the reinforcement of learning to write the letter. The HWOT order is really helpful, especially for small letters, and the separation of certain letters (like b and d) helps to reduce reversals--so I do think there's more advantage to just doing both programs in the order presented, and not worrying that they don't line up exactly. Let HWOT review what she learns in Pre-reading (you can write a letter for her, ask her what it is, praise if she remembers, and then have her try it.) 

 

It will all work out. Have fun with your little one!

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