AAS vs SYS

[tdbates78]

We (my rising 2nd graders) completed AAS book 1 and we are all set to start book 2 when our school resumes in about a month. However, none of us really like it. It gets the job done, but it seems a bit like overkill with the tiles and cards and was on the easy side for them. I'm not sure if they are natural spellers or if maybe level 1 just wasn't challenging enough for them. We started AAS in the second half of the year when I pulled them out of public school. Anyways, I've been eyeing Spelling You See and I like the colorful look of it (which I think would appeal to my girls) and the open-and-go workbook style. And I think it would also eliminate the need for our Zaner-Bloser handwriting 2M workbooks which would be really nice.

 

I'm hoping someone can compare the two in regards to how well the spelling sticks and which you and your children prefer and why. It looks like repetitive sentence and word writing so is the goal to memorize the words as a means of spelling? Do you like breaking down the words by chunking as opposed to traditional phonics rules?

 

I asked my girls if they liked the samples and they both agreed to switch, but that could be due to the cutesy animal pictures :)

[nixpix5]

We have used both. I have AAS 1-3 and SYS A, B, and C.

 

Don't use SYS A. It is a waste of time and money. Jump into B, it is fabulous. The first 3 days the student does copy work, reads the passage and identifies the chunks they ask them too. The instruction guide helps you to teach or point out anything you need to. The 4th day they write something creative and draws a picture and the last day is the dictation. My kids LOVE it. I mean really truly love it. I never get pushback and it is pretty independent. My kids' spelling is so good now and their sentence writing really sailed with this program.

 

AAS we abandoned because we are A beka users and it was just slow moving A beka phonics. My kids hated it and it was overkill. If your students have a firm grasp of phonics rules already from their phonics program or reading then AAS can be dreary. For kids who didn't already have that then AAS is great. With A beka my kids already could use all of those basic rules for spelling words. What they needed was the repetition and analysis which comes with chunking words and identifying phonics trends.

 

You could always try it and go back to AAS if it doesn't fit you guys but we so love it and plan to use it atleast through D.

 

ETA: B book 1 doesn't start out with copy work but has boxes to write words in for practice. The child works up to writing on the line which helps with handwriting. My daughter didn't need that so she jumped into B book 2 but my twins have done well starting in 1.

Edited July 3, 2017 by nixpix5

[knitgrl]

We use AAS. My dd is not a natural speller, and does not enjoy the tiles, so we do everything on the whiteboard. For some reason, writing on the whiteboard is 10x more acceptable to her than writing on paper. Lots of people on this forum have said their kids fly through AAS 1 and 2. We have experienced similar progress. I expect we will have to slow down as we get farther along in AAS 3. I have found the way AAS explains how to divide words into syllables and labeling them very helpful. (I am more of a natural speller, so I have no clue about the rules, I just know when a word doesn't look right.) It allowed me to explain to dd this morning why there are only 2 t's in the word "title" and not 3.

 

I have never used SYS. I would have a hard time spending $150 on spelling for two kids. If I found a math program I totally bought into, would spend $150, but not for spelling.

[nixpix5]

We use AAS. My dd is not a natural speller, and does not enjoy the tiles, so we do everything on the whiteboard. For some reason, writing on the whiteboard is 10x more acceptable to her than writing on paper. Lots of people on this forum have said their kids fly through AAS 1 and 2. We have experienced similar progress. I expect we will have to slow down as we get farther along in AAS 3. I have found the way AAS explains how to divide words into syllables and labeling them very helpful. (I am more of a natural speller, so I have no clue about the rules, I just know when a word doesn't look right.) It allowed me to explain to dd this morning why there are only 2 t's in the word "title" and not 3.

 

I have never used SYS. I would have a hard time spending $150 on spelling for two kids. If I found a math program I totally bought into, would spend $150, but not for spelling.

I agree the syllable work is helpful. That is what I loved about A beka. They hammered it agnosium for an entire year that my kids know syllabication like I never did. They always know when to spell with a double or single consonant and prefixes and suffixes are nothing to them.

 

What SYS did for them that AAS never could was deal with the odd spellings. Such as why is title "le" and shovel "el" for example. It was the nuances of spelling they gained from SYS since they had already mastered the rule based spelling well.

 

SYS is spendy but it works as phonics/spelling/handwriting so that is my justification ;)

[tdbates78]

Thank you both! We currently use All About Reading, so we do work on syllables and phonics etc. The price is high, I agree. I think I would be OK with that if it works well and helps streamline our school days.

 

I like the idea of chunking. I'm more of a natural speller myself and have always excelled in spelling and all of the phonics rules in AAS even confuse me! I can't tell yet if AAS is working or if my girls just already knew how to spell most of the words. Since they were in PS for kindy and half of first grade its difficult for me to really know. They are pretty good readers. They just get bored and start to fidget during spelling and we stopped using the tiles early on.

[WahM]

So far we've used AAS 1-4 and plan to continue with it. I love it my kiddos love it. We do enjoy the tiles, but do not use them every time if we don't have time or just don't feel like it. We also do not use most cards except for the key cards and sometimes the yellow sound cards just for extra reinforcement when needed. We customize it to fit our needs. I thinks it's very easily adaptable to many different learning styles. I've never tried SYS. We do love the rule based phonics spelling. It may seem repetitive, but the better they know it and have it memorized I think it just reinforces things in the long term and continues to help with reading as well.

[knitgrl]

AAS we abandoned because we are A beka users and it was just slow moving A beka phonics. My kids hated it and it was overkill. If your students have a firm grasp of phonics rules already from their phonics program or reading then AAS can be dreary. For kids who didn't already have that then AAS is great. With A beka my kids already could use all of those basic rules for spelling words. What they needed was the repetition and analysis which comes with chunking words and identifying phonics trends.

 

It is interesting - how well a curriculum works can depend on what has been used before. I used 100 Easy Lessons to teach dd how to read, and by the end of it, she was a fabulous reader. I had no idea what to do after that, so we did not continue with phonics instruction because she was reading well above grade level. She did ETC online for a year, once it dawned on me that her great reading skills did not translate into spelling. Neither of those resources have you memorize rules. So that could be a big reason why AAS works for us.

 

 

[ExcitedMama]

I can't speak to SYS but we love AAS here. Level 1 is very easy but it will start getting more challenging as you move on. You can drop the tiles if your girls don't need them. DS writes everything out so AAS is also handwriting and dictation practice. I'm a natural speller and a lot of the rules I don't retain either but DS does and they stick with him, like when he's writing and figuring out how to spell a word he knows it can't end in I. It's also great reinforcement for using the rules learned in AAR. I would recommend sticking with AAS. Plus it's super easy to speed up until you get to a point that's more challenging.

[Cake and Pi]

We had AAS all year from our HS charter but I got overwhelmed with all the little pieces and rules.  I wanted to like it, but it just never got done.

 

We just got SYS.  So far, my DS#3 loves it and asks to do it every day.  He's sooooo excited to do the chunking.  He's in the first book of level B, but he wants to chunk so bad that I've been having him find the vowel chunks for now, even though the lessons don't ask him to.  I think I may need to skip him into the 2nd book of the same level.  My DS#1 is happy that SYS is replacing HWOT (which causes quite a bit of tears), but is so far not thrilled with SYS either.  He has dysgraphia and the writing is very hard for him.  He needs to practice though, so...

 

I bought SYS after seeing it at a HS convention.  Their whole thing about good spelling being stored in visual memory (you know it's right because it just *looks* right) hit home with me.  SYS seems to be based on copywork and dictation done in such a way that the child is forced to visually notice and pay attention to the spelling of the words.  It's very low key, low pressure, and open-and-go.  Plus it's done on double lined paper, so it happens to go well with our handwriting instruction.  I especially like the 10 minute time limit for the copywork/dictation part of the lesson.  DS#1 could spend a very, very long time on it if not for that time limit.  

 

Obviously I don't know if it works since we're just getting started, but it *seems* like it should.  There's a whole following of people who use just regular copywork and dictation to teach spelling (etc).  I really hope it works, anyway, because, yeah, it was expensive!