5 Reasons I Love the All About Reading Curriculum

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Are you interested in the All About Reading curriculum? Today I give you 5 reasons why I love it and 5 reasons you may not! I also share how we have used it for 2 kids over the course of 4+ years!

This post contains affiliate links. While I am affiliated with All About Reading, this review is 100% my own and I purchased every program with my own money.

We love the All About Reading curriculum in our homeschool. To me, reading, writing, and math are the foundation for education. I tried to use new, trendy curriculums or curriculums that moved too quickly and it just didn’t work. I even tried something I thought would work better for a child who didn’t struggle with reading, but ended up coming back to All About Reading. Now, I plan to use it in our homeschool to teach all four of my children how to read!

What is the All About Reading Curriculum?

The All About Reading Curriculum is a fun and engaging program that teaches children to be fluent readers. It uses the Orton-Gillingham approach. This curriculum was created for children with dyslexia, but helps all struggling, or non-struggling readers as well.

Why I Love the All About Reading Curriculum

It’s Open & Go

While the All About Reading curriculum does require some prep work, the actual lessons themselves are open and go. They’re also scripted, making it even easier for parents to be able to help their children learn to read. Everything you need is provided for you, you simply grab what is needed for that particular lesson and complete the lesson, in no more than 20 minutes a day.

It’s Mastery Based

After using another popular language arts curriculum, I hated how it jumped all over the place. When we started using All About Reading, I loved how it focused on one thing at a time and you continued to practice that until your child got it. My eldest struggled with reading and would sometimes take a week or more on each lesson, whereas my younger son, sometimes took a few days. It didn’t matter though, because they were mastering that specific rule until we moved onto the next.

It Works at the Child’s Pace

The wonderful thing about a mastery based program is that you can work at the child’s pace. As I said, my eldest struggled with reading, whereas my younger son did not. My eldest son had attempted two programs before All About Reading. This is the program that clicked for him. I had not planned to use All About Reading for my younger son because I was worried it would be too slow paced for him, but that is when I realized, we could go as slowly as a child needed, or as quickly! In the beginning, my son would take a few days to complete a lesson, but by book 4, he was sometimes, completing two a day!

It’s Hands On & Multisensory

No matter what your child’s learning style, it is multisensory, hands-on, and engaging. They provide many games and activities. There are also lots of creative mama’s out there who have come up with their own. If that is not your child’s style, that’s okay too! You can simply go through the lesson with the tiles, do the cards, and finish with the new words in the activity book. My younger son did the activities in the first few books, but we skipped a lot of them by the fourth. My eldest son needed the activities to fully master the whole program. Again, at the child’s pace and what they need for their level of mastery.

It Can Be Used with Multiple Children

Now, a lot of people don’t know this. I have seen many people who allow their children to draw or color in the activity book. If you don’t mind buying new activity books for each child, that is okay. I like to save money in any way I can. When I first started All About Reading, I only had two children. Now I have four. So I really thank my past self for doing this. I simply prepped everything about 6 weeks at a time and put them in sheet protectors. I put each level in its own hanging file and when we were on that level, it went into a binder. That way, I had to do the prep work for my eldest, but all of my other children, it’s already been done. Making it even easier on Mama. Check it out here if you want to see visually what I did.

Who the All About Reading Curriculum May Not Be For:

It’s Not All-in-One

If you’re looking for something that has “all the things”, this isn’t it. It’s not going to have reading, geography, art study, and anything else you can cram in there. However; this is actually one of the things I love about it. It doesn’t distract with other subjects. We focus on reading in the early years and everything else is just extra.

It’s Not a Full Language Arts

While there is some components in it that are related to reading, like comprehension, literary effects, and poetry, this is not an full language arts. You are going to have to use separate grammar or spelling. We don’t start grammar until about age 10, so this wasn’t a concern for us. All About Spelling 1 is recommended after you complete All About Reading Level 1.

It Doesn’t Incorporate Spelling

Speaking of spelling, All About Learning Press has a wonderful spelling program called All About Spelling. It works in a similar way to All About Reading in that it is a multisensory approach. You will use tiles, cards, and dictation. Like AAR, it works at the child’s pace and uses a mastery approach. I think spelling and reading are best learned this way. If they learn and master the spelling and reading rules, they can read and spell almost any word. Spelling goes up to Level 7.

It May Seem Pricey

I get it, it looks pricey and intimidating. If you are on an extremely tight budget like I was when I started homeschooling, it just seems unreachable. I ended up finding the first level of All About Reading used on eBay. That started it all. I ended up finding All About Spelling used as well. This started my love of All About Learning Press. There are ways to make it work, especially if you can buy used and use it for multiple children, like I did. It just makes sense!

It May Take Longer

A lot of reading curriculums on the market are wrapped up in one book. When you see that All About Reading has 4 books and a pre-reading book, you may feel that it’s going to take 4-5 years. That isn’t necessarily true. My younger son started this curriculum in the middle of kindergarten with level 1 and was finished by the middle of second grade. My eldest started this program in the middle of second grade and was finished by the end of third grade. It totally depends on each child. Since it is mastery based and works at the pace of the child, it could take longer than most other reading programs or less. It totally depends!

There you have it! 5 Reasons I love the All About Reading Curriculum and 5 Reasons it May Not Work For You! Have you used AAR? Let me know down in the comments!