Skipping Ahead AAR

[Nm.]

DS9 needed every lesson, fluency page, flash card etc.  dd6 seems to be moving much faster now.  She’s ready for AAR2, even though we haven’t finished (lesson 36).  I tried the rest of the flash cards and she could decode them.  Skip ahead to AAR2? Or do the lessons and skip lots of fluency pages?  She’s reading a lot on her own (level 1s).

[Clarita]

I'm in a similar boat. Although we are in level 2 now. I still go through all the lessons, because I find although my son can decode words beyond where his lessons he still getting something out of the teaching (like sometimes he can decode the words but maybe the pattern he recognizes isn't really the correct one).

He likes the activities so we continue doing those but I don't concern myself too much over the flashcards and the fluency sheets. We just go through the flashcards for the lessons I never have to review them unless there is a word he gets incorrect the first time. The fluency sheet we just blow through them. Sometimes I'll break up the sections for him then we do find the word instead of doing all 3 pages of words and only the sentences not the phrases (the book intro tells you to skip the phrases if they don't struggle with sentences.)

[Momof4sweetkids]

My dd is the same way. We have done every lesson even when she knew them. We do a full lesson each school day. We skip the regular word section and do the sentences and "more words" sections. She only does flashcards one time. On a story lesson, we only do the story, not the activities and we buddy read the stories since they don't interest her- She's all about fairies and princesses.

[Nm.]

Thank you this helps a ton, I hadn’t thought of doing this (which both of you are doing). 

[Green Bean]

I was coming to ask the same thing! Same boat here. Guess we will still do every lesson then. Thank you.

[BusyMom5]

We are about the same place in AAR1, but I'm going to stick with it to gain fluency and build stamina.  I do not do every single thing.  We do read all stories and play word card games.  I do word flippers and most of the cut-out activities.  I skip around on the fluency page and use it more as a reference than a page to read every word.  Often we will go through several pages, skipping around, as review.   My kiddo is a quick learner and usually masters a concept after one exposure,  but I want to see a lot more fluency- reading all the stories with very few sounding out- before moving to AAR2.  I'm thinking July?  

[8filltheheart]

I would not try to keep things lockstep.   I'd let her progress as quickly as she does naturally in reading and then just do the phonics lessons behind to make sure the concepts you want mastered are studied and learned.  I would not prevent a child who is rapidly progressing in reading from progressing bc the lessons aren't covering what she is capable of achieving.  

I have not use AAR, but I taught my kids to read with Sing, Spell, Read, Write.  Most of my kids could absolutely not spell at the same rate they could master phonics rules to read.   We moved forward with reading and just plugged along with the spelling.  I had one child (our severely ADHD Aspie) who completely skipped K and started school with 1st grade (I couldn't get him to sit long enough when he was 5 to do K).  Anyway, he mastered reading quickly and was reading Charlotte's Web by the end of the school yr though with SSRW, we hadn't even progressed 1/2 way through the materials before he started reading chpt books.

[Nm.]

2 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

I would not try to keep things lockstep.   I'd let her progress as quickly as she does naturally in reading and then just do the phonics lessons behind to make sure the concepts you want mastered are studied and learned.  I would not prevent a child who is rapidly progressing in reading from progressing bc the lessons aren't covering what she is capable of achieving.  

I have not use AAR, but I taught my kids to read with Sing, Spell, Read, Write.  Most of my kids could absolutely not spell at the same rate they could master phonics rules to read.   We moved forward with reading and just plugged along with the spelling.  I had one child (our severely ADHD Aspie) who completely skipped K and started school with 1st grade (I couldn't get him to sit long enough when he was 5 to do K).  Anyway, he mastered reading quickly and was reading Charlotte's Web by the end of the school yr though with SSRW, we hadn't even progressed 1/2 way through the materials before he started reading chpt books.

I *think* that’s what we are doing.  I’m letting her read anything she wants and teaching her phonics rules as they come up (just really quickly) and moving through AAR lessons to make sure she’s got the phonics rule down.  Skipping some of the redundant things she no longer needs.  She’s very fluent with what she knows and picks up new stuff so fast.  Almost too fast, I don’t want her learning things by sight 😂 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Lovinglife123

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, Lovinglife123 said:

She’s very fluent with what she knows and picks up new stuff so fast.  Almost too fast, I don’t want her learning things by sight 😂 

That's my 6 year old too. I started doing spelling with him, super gentle and low stress because I don't think I can really keep him from learning to read "by sight" or figuring out potentially erroneous word patterns on his own. I figured if he can spell and read all the words, not sure I can do a whole lot to make sure he isn't just learning by sight.

So, we do AAR for reading and phonics but not AAS. I thought AAS would be too rigid and require too much output for what he needs or can do. I use a spelling curriculum (Spelling Through Phonics) that's more flexible so I can just slowly go through spelling rules and he only has to spell 2 words a day.