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Where to go after All About Reading
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My 7-year-old son just finished the All About Reading program and is a pretty strong reader. I am planning for next year and I don’t know where to go from here. I am going to have him read aloud to his brother as part of Morning Time, just to help him develop fluency and to gauge his reading progress. However, I’m wondering if I should do something more, like some sort of spelling work or grammar? I know that’s supposed to happen with copywork, but he is a truly terrible speller and doesn’t know how to sound out basic words and figure out how to spell them. We tried All About Spelling a year or so ago, but he HATED it. I’m wondering if he wasn’t ready and we should try again, or if we should keep waiting longer or try something new. Any suggestions would be helpful!
Have you watched the Natural Progression of Language Arts yet https://simplycharlottemason.com/learning-library/videos/ it might help answer your questioms, as well as the other videos on that page concerning copy work and dictation and all that.
I would not do grammar or spelling, continue with reading a loud and copy work, what ever he is comfortable with. At 7 one of my children was able to do a sentence or two of copy work, for another one word was about all he could do but he slowly worked up to longer selections.
For my children spelling did not improve until 5th or 6th grade, after years of copy work and then moving into prepared dictation, as well as maturity. I think maturity helps so much! Spelling is not the same skill as reading they require different skills just as reading to self is different than reading a loud. I think reading out loud and copy work are so good for spelling. I struggled with spelling my entire life, phonics never did make sense with all the rules and my mom believed likely a form of dyslexia, but I could read well. It was not until I was an adult and started reading to my own children out loud that my spelling improved. Reading those words slowly vs skimming when reading to myself really forced me to see each word. I am not a natural speller at all, it is still challenging, but has improved so much. I see the same in my children around the age of 11 they start caring more about their spelling and continue reading out loud and prepared dictation and things start coming together.
Some people do find that their student needs something different than copy work and reading out loud, but I would give it some time since your student is so young.
Here is another perspective;) I used AAR with my son and daughter. Son 7 finishing 2nd grade (8 in june) is almost finished with level 4. I did AAS level 1 with him in K and 1st and it went well_, however AAS level 2 had no retention and only frustration in 1st grade. I dropped it. We did something else for a few weeks this year then went back to the beginning of AAS 2. It is going well now. We will do AAS 3 for 3rd grade next year. My k daughter did AAS 1 this year and it was good fit for her. But she also finished AAR 3 this year and reads well. She also seems to have more of a visual memory both for reading and spelling than son. I did realize that not going too fast, like a lesson a week, is best for us now. Also my son was not ready until this year for any more than very basic spelling words. We even reviewed plurals -s and -ex this year. Another thing to remember is the beginning of level 1 may be redundant after AAR. We flew through those phonics / prespelling lessons with both kids.
AAS is not really CM but my husband and I are terrible spellers so I want to do something;) My spelling greatly improved after an Orton Gillingham training course I took in college so that’s why I’m going this rout. We do some copy work too. And I love the dictation in AAS especially in level 2 and above.
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