All about spelling past level 2?

[Jenkins]

We are about 8 lessons into level 3 of All about spelling and it has gotten much more complicated. My son is keeping up but we don't like it as much. Any advice from those we have used it beyond level 2? It is worth continuing or should we switch to something less teacher intensive? 

[Angie in VA]

You might want to see this thread comparing AAS and SUS. 

[Momto6inIN]

Yes, it does get more teacher intensive as time goes on, but I still only spend about 15 minutes/day on it. When we hit level 3, DD started taking a week to go through each step, whereas before she went through each step much more quickly. We really like it and I appreciate the focus on phonics rules for my DD who routinely misspells words, but it might be overkill for an intuitive speller. I think it's more interesting than the standard list of "here are some spelling words to memorize" but everybody is different so that might not be the case for you.

[Farrar]

Huh. I didn't think it got more teacher intensive. It's just a teacher intensive program period. 

If it's been working so far, I'd definitely keep going, at least for a while longer before deciding it no longer works.

[Jess4879]

What do you feel is more complicated?  What are you not liking? 

We found that it worked best to only teach one lesson per week.  It really cuts down on teacher time.  Each child does a new lesson on Monday and then continues to practice with the words the rest of the week.  We've also found that retention was better this way.  

[ScoutTN]

Well, spelling is not an exciting subject and school is work. If AAS works for your student, keep it. Curriculum hopping will not make spelling exciting. Just do it consistently and thoroughly, and move on to more intetesting work. 

Fwiw, like a pp, we only do 15 minutes per day. No rush. Go at the pace your student needs to retain what he's learned. 

I have a natural speller who blew through levels 1-6 in 2 years, and a struggling speller who goes slooowly and needs tons of review. 

[Milknhoney]

It depends on what you mean by "complicated". Are you equating that to teacher intensive, or is your student struggling with it?

I found it to be more teacher intensive than necessary, because both my kids seem to pick up spelling naturally. So after level 3, we switched over to R & S. If your student isn't a natural speller, I'd tough it out. AAS is a lot of work for you, but I think it is an excellent breakdown of all the phonics rules (why I used it in the first place). 

[cintinative]

9 hours ago, Momto5inIN said:

Yes, it does get more teacher intensive as time goes on, but I still only spend about 15 minutes/day on it. When we hit level 3, DD started taking a week to go through each step, whereas before she went through each step much more quickly. We really like it and I appreciate the focus on phonics rules for my DD who routinely misspells words, but it might be overkill for an intuitive speller. I think it's more interesting than the standard list of "here are some spelling words to memorize" but everybody is different so that might not be the case for you.

 

Agree with this ^^^  My oldest finished AAS7 this year. We did spelling 10 minutes a day, 4 days a week. The lessons took quite a bit longer in lesson 7 because the sentences are quite long. I appreciate this program a lot, even for my oldest son who is more of a natural speller. I feel like it lays a great foundation. 

That said, it is definitely a teacher-intensive program (all the way through). Like the others, I didn't think the higher levels were more teacher intensive than the lower ones. The levels just took longer to complete.  

If you have completed AAS 3, you can look at the Phonetic Zoo by IEW.  It is an independent program but is phonics based like AAS.

[Pegs]

We're currently doing AAS3, at a pace of one lesson per day, five days a week. Neither DS nor myself have found it any more complicated than the previous two levels. 

[MerryAtHope]

I took both of my kids through all 7 levels, and definitely felt it was worth it. I had struggling spellers, and they made tons of progress and became a lot more confident in their writing along the way too. I know it's not for everyone though. I wrote a blog article, Should I do all seven levels of All About Spelling? where I discuss some of the things you might think through, and also why I was glad we persevered. HTH some!

[ByGrace3]

I found teaching several levels of AAS and AAR difficult. While I love AAS, I found that after even sometime during level 3/4 it got to be more of word bank heavy/necessary to memorize which rule the words followed...so for us after 3/4 we move onto Mega words. If AAS works then great, it’s an awesome program...but if you have too many levels/kids to teach and need something to give, Mega Words was a good transition for us. 

[Vintage81]

10 hours ago, ByGrace3 said:

I found teaching several levels of AAS and AAR difficult. While I love AAS, I found that after even sometime during level 3/4 it got to be more of word bank heavy/necessary to memorize which rule the words followed...so for us after 3/4 we move onto Mega words. If AAS works then great, it’s an awesome program...but if you have too many levels/kids to teach and need something to give, Mega Words was a good transition for us. 

I was thinking of switching DD9 (4th grade) to MegaWords next year. She's completed AAS 1-4. I love both AAS and AAR, but after having been through 4 levels of spelling and 2 levels of reading (AAR 3/4) with her, plus her little sister going through both as well, I'm becoming a bit burned out and we are in need of a change. 

Do you have a recommendation for which level of MegaWords to start in?

 

 

 

[Targhee]

We got half way through 3 and realized DS didn’t really need all that teacher intensive stuff.  We did a year of LOE with kids 7, 9, 11 and no spelling since.  The oldest had one year of AAS level 2, 2 years of Sequential Spelling, and one year of LOE.  The middle dd had a year of LOE. Haven’t looked back.

[Kuovonne]

I think with spelling you really need to look at your own individual kid’s strengths and weaknesses. While AAS would have been overkill for my natural speller, it was just right for my DD who struggles with spelling. However, I modified AAS a *lot* to fit our family. DD never touched a letter tile and I gave up on having her memorize or recite the rules. I explained the rules to her, and then kept explaining them to her when she made a spelling mistake. However, I couldn’t get her to analyze words for me, and we dropped the writing station as soon as she was doing writing in other subjects. She also spends far more time reviewing old words than learning new content.

DD started in AAS book 1 in kindergarten, and now, in 6th grade, she is over halfway through book 7. Early in AAS1 and AAS2, DD was able to do one step in a couple of days. In later levels some steps have taken her two weeks. I have her do spelling five days a week, even during the breaks when she doesn’t have to do any other school. However, we only spend about 5-7 minutes per day on spelling, with zero prep time, except for a few hours when she starts a new level. (According to the spaced repetition software that I use to track her spelling words, we spend an average of 3.7 minutes per day on review words, and most days we do only review words.)

[Kathryn]

I've completed the program with one child and am finishing Level 3 this week with my next child. I didn't feel it became more complicated or teacher-intensive at any point. The assignments for the child do change over time. We've always used it as written, taking one week per lesson. I do review, new teaching, and word list on Monday, break up the sentences over Tuesday-Thursday, and Writing Station on Friday. 

[silver]

AAS 3 is my favorite level of the first three levels. It teaches rules for adding suffixes and emphasises spelling the base word first. When I've looked at remedial spelling for older kids, those are the things the programs focus on (along with making words plural). I've not done AAS after level 3, so I can't speak to those levels. But I do like to finish up level 3.

[ExcitedMama]

My DS is about to finish level 3. He’s an intuitive speller and we’ve been doing it slowly so he’ll probably have been on this level for a year. We do just a few minutes a day. I usually break it down by how much writing there is. There are always about 12 sentences for dictation so he does half over two days. That started at about three days in the beginning when he wasn’t writing as quickly. For the most part he gets it quickly but it’s great to have the rules which he really likes and retains well. I keep track of any words he needs to work on. I think it’s been a great program and I have 4 waiting. I think it can be really easy to implement by taking it slow and breaking up the lesson as needed or speeding up when it’s easier. 

[ByGrace3]

On 4/28/2018 at 10:34 AM, Vintage81 said:

I was thinking of switching DD9 (4th grade) to MegaWords next year. She's completed AAS 1-4. I love both AAS and AAR, but after having been through 4 levels of spelling and 2 levels of reading (AAR 3/4) with her, plus her little sister going through both as well, I'm becoming a bit burned out and we are in need of a change. 

Do you have a recommendation for which level of MegaWords to start in?

My oldest did AAS 1-4, then Rod and Staff spelling 4-6, then began in I either Megawords 2 or 3 in 6th grade. She moved pretty quickly and is finishing MW 8 now. My ds did AAR1-3 and then did MW1, it was perfect. younger dd wil do AAS 3 next year and then move on to MW 1. I think it is worth starting at level 1.