Friday, August 31, 2012

All About Reading Level Pre-1 Review






 
 
 
 
This month we had fun learning with a real curriculum for pre-reading from All About Learning Press:  All About Reading Level Pre-1 .  

"All About Reading Level Pre-1 is our pre-reading program for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Your child will enjoy the special games, crafts, and storytime read-alouds, while as the parent and teacher, you will love how your child effortlessly learns the five essential pre-reading skills that we call the Big Five Skills."

What I loved most about this program was how easy it was to sit down and pull out the materials and start the lesson.  And the lessons could be as long or short as you want them to be.  I would do one lesson every other day and my son was ecstatic, especially when Ziggy the Zebra (puppet) was part of the action. My son is 3.5 and already knows almost all of his letters and we are starting to work on sounds.  He is quick to pick up on new skills and I was very surprised at how well he played the rhyming games right from the start.

So what makes All About Learning Press unique?  In each lesson there are 5 components that make a complete learning package called the Big Five Skills: 

1. Print Awareness teaches how print is used.   Each lesson provided opportunities to develop print awareness such as pointing to words in the reading book.  The teacher manual also gave many helpful tips for reading with your child that included print awareness activities like counting words in a sentence or identifying letters in the title of a book.  We also did sensory activities like the one below where we built letters with objects like dominoes.





2. Letter Knowledge is learning and understanding the alphabet. In each lesson we would look at the large poster with all the letters of the alphabet and sing the alphabet to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb."  My son picked up on this song rather quickly.  Here is short video of him singing it. 



3. Phonological Awareness teaches children to hear and identify the different sounds in words.  We loved the little rhyming games that Ziggy played with us using flashcards and also just oral questions and answers.  Shrade would always laugh when Ziggy made a mistake and in correcting him, he was able to use rhyming words to make the sentence right.  It was definitely a highlight of our lesson time.

4. Listening Comprehension is the ability for children to understand the meaning of the words they hear and relate to them in some way.  This was developed through questions and discussions with the poems and stories that we read.

5. Motivation to Read is an important skill demonstrated by a child's eagerness and and willingness to read.  My son has always been interested in books and continues to be even more intrigued since he is making connections between letters, sounds and words.  He loves to pick up a book and "read."

Playing a rhyming game "Get out of the Wagon!"
Completing a worksheet from My Book of Letters
There are 78 lessons in this curriculum and covers capital and lowercase letters and their sounds.  The variety of activities and also the systematic way they are taught is very appealing to me.  I was a teacher and I enjoy structure and it is very well laid out that even moms who were never teachers can pick this up and have lots of fun learning with their child.  The only consumable product is the activity workbook, so multiple children can be taught with only having to buy the workbook for each succeeding child.

If you are looking for a great way to introduce your young preschooler to letters without having to do a lot of preparation work, this is the resource for you!  Check out All About Learning Press for more information.



*This product was provided to me free of charge by All About Learning Press for the purpose of this review. This is my honest opinion of this product and no monetary compensation was received for my opinion.*




 
The All About Reading Level Pre-1 Deluxe Package includes:
  • Teacher's Manual (208 pages)
  • Student Packet
    • My Book of Letters and Sounds Activity Book (192 pages)
    • Picture Cards
    • Letter Sound Cards
    • Capital Letter Alphabet Chart
    • Lowercase Letter Alphabet Chart
    • Progress Chart
  • The Zigzag Zebra: a rhyming alphabet hardcover book
  • Lizard Lou: a collection of rhymes old and new hardcover book
  • Divider Cards (to keep your Picture Cards and Letter Sound Cards organized)
  • "Letter Sounds A to Z" CD-ROM
  • Ziggy the Zebra puppet
  • Activity Box to hold your student's learning cards
  • Adorable Animal Stickers for the progress chart
  • All About Reading tote bag to keep your components organized


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