Although it’s not the most technologically advanced spelling program out there, the affordably-priced All About Spelling does offer parents and students an effective and very hands-on learning experience.
With tactile activities keeping learning multisensory and fun, and with open and go teaching making teaching it a breeze, All About Spelling should make learning to spell as stress- and tear-free as possible, for both parent and student.
What We Like
But watch out for…
What is All About Spelling
Produced by All About Learning Press, the makers of All About Reading, All About Spelling is an Orton-Gillingham-inspired, phonogram-based spelling program designed for homeschoolers and one-on-one instruction.
Using a combination of lesson books, flash cards and letter tiles, All About Spelling integrates a variety of hands-on, tactile activities to its spelling lessons to create a very multisensory program.
Age and Grade Level
Like many other homeschool programs, All About Spelling does not really correspond to a set age or grade level.
Instead, the program is divided up into seven levels that are centered around particular knowledge and skills relating to spelling:
| Level 1 | Concepts and skills taught: Individual letter sounds, identifying first 26 phonograms, segmenting words with two/three sounds, syllable counting, exchanging and playing with vowel sounds, initial and final blends, compound words, plurals, open and closed syllables and more. |
| Level 2 | Concepts and skills taught: Review of Level 1 plus 11 new phonograms, distinguishing open and closed syllables, writing from dictation, multisyllabic words, open and closed syllables, dividing compound words, using silent E, R-controlled syllable type, Vowel Team, soft and hard c and g, third sound of a and more. |
| Level 3 | Concepts and skills taught: Review of previous Levels plus 16 additional phonograms, identifying base words,vowel suffixes/prefixes, multisyllabic syllable division rules, past tense, common contractions, double consonants, common homophone pairs, and more. |
| Level 4 | Concepts and skills taught: Review of previous Levels plus additional phonograms, common abbreviations, months of the year/days of the week, numbers to 100, adding prefixes, multisyllabic spelling strategies, Y sounds, and more |
| Level 5 | Concepts and skills taught: Review of previous Levels plus additional phonograms, I before E rule, alphabetizing words to the second letter, guide words, dictionary strategies, adding two suffixes, unaccented syllables, common holidays, irregular plurals and more |
| Level 6 | Concepts and skills taught: Review of previous Levels plus additional phonograms, exceptions to I before E rule, additional suffixes, additional strategies for dividing words, EI vs IE, various advanced phonograms and more |
| Level 7 | Concepts and skills taught: Review of previous Levels, e-consonant-e pattern, Latin roots, plural Latin roots, Greek word parts, French/Spanish/Italian loan words,ch and silent s, Silent E with consonant/vowel suffix and more |
In essence, All About Spelling caters to those just starting out in spelling with the very basics of what a syllable is and carries forward to high school level techniques and strategies, discussing loan words and spelling the most difficult and complex phonograms (and their exceptions).
The only real limitation with All About Spelling is that it does require students to be able to read at a beginning level to get started, particularly they need to be able to read consonant-vowel-consonant words and basic blends.
While perhaps less intuitive than age or grade, we think that this method of breaking up learning is more useful for homeschoolers.
Kids who learn differently or who fall outside their peer-range in spelling (gifted or struggling) can use this program without confusion or embarrassment.
As there is no indication of grade or age, parents and students can find their own level based on their needs without attaching a stigma to learning.
All About Spelling Placement Tests
A program without a clear link to age or grade can be a bit confusing for new homeschoolers and those looking to switch into the program alike.
If parents aren’t sure about their child’s ability or the program’s exact scope and sequence, it can be hard for them to figure out where to start.
Helpfully, All About Spelling does offer placement tests that parents can use to figure out, broadly speaking, which level matches their students current skill set.
These tests are available in PDF form, and much like the lessons themselves are read to the student by the parent. There are five parts that cover segmenting skill, knowledge or recognition of various phonograms and their sounds, their ability to write phonograms and short words from dictation, as well as their knowledge of essential spelling rules.
All in all, we like that All About Spelling provides a free placement test.
It is short enough not to be too much of a hassle for parents and it does test for knowledge and ability in the specific way that All About Spelling teaches spelling (phonograms and rules), which can be helpful for those coming in from a different program that may have taught using a different approach.
What’s included
Overall, All About Spelling has three components: a Teacher’s Manual, a Student Booklet and a Spelling Interactive Kit that contains the bulk of the hands-on material.
Each level requires parents to buy a Teacher’s Manual and Student Booklet specifically for that level, while the Spelling Interactive Kit is a one-time purchase that is reused yearly.
Teacher’s Manual
All About Spelling’s Teacher’s manual is designed to carry parents through each lesson in a pretty open and go manner.
They contain the teaching material for each lesson and lay out pretty much everything needed to organize all the material provided. They also give parents various tips on how to understand and teach the material more effectively.
The books themselves are softcover and printed in black and white, and while not exactly spectacularly interesting to look at, they are written very concisely. In fact, despite containing about 25-30 Steps, or lessons (depending on the level), they come in at well under 200 pages each.
Student Packet
The Student Packet contains most of the learning activities to carry the student through their lessons, and All About Spelling does include a fair bit for each level.
What is included depends on each level and its learning goals and outcomes, but packages might include:
- Word banks
- Various worksheets and activities for the student to complete
- Various rules charts
- Specialized tiles and other manipulatives for use with segmenting, prefixes/suffixes, and at the upper level Latin and Greek root words
- Progress chart with included cute stickers to help mark completion
- and even a Certificate of completion
The student packets also include level-adjusted flashcards for phonograms, dictation, spelling rules and various word cards for practice.
These are printed on fairly thick paper and they have to be separated and organized before starting. Although they come perforated, it can be a bit of a time sink and a little annoying if your child isn’t old enough to do this themselves.
Some Student Packets contain the occasional extra booklet that focuses on a particular important concept or rule that students need to know, such as Silent E (Level 3), Plurals (Level 5), I before E (Level 6).
One time purchases
In addition to the yearly level materials, parents will have to make a one time purchase of a Spelling Interactive Kit.
These kits provide various nonconsumable multisensory tools to be used in the lessons (at all levels). Because each level’s lessons refer to their contents specifically and give specific directions based on their contents, it would be quite difficult to get around their use and so they are essentially required for this program.
Previously, the company had two options when it came to their kits, the Basic Spelling Interactive Kit and the Deluxe Spelling Interactive Kit.
Both kits contained a core of letter tiles, magnets, a phonogram sounds app (for hearing the spelling) and divider cards to keep the flashcards neat, easily accessible and organized.
The Deluxe kit offered a couple items that the Basic kit did not, particularly a box for keeping flash cards and a nice All About Spelling tote bag.
Parents should note that as of December 2022, All About Spelling only offers the Basic Kit.
Opportunities for Technology Integration
While it is multisensory, we found All About Spelling to be more of a traditional, pen and paper spelling program.
There is an optional letter tiles app that can be purchased that can be used to replace the physical letter tiles with digital versions that can be used on a tablet, which can be helpful if a students hands get tired or if they prefer using a tablet for some reason.
There is also a Phonogram Sounds App, which comes included with the student packet and is accessible on most computers and mobile devices. The app reads aloud the various phonograms included in the program, to help with proper pronunciation and auditory learning.
Beyond those apps, however, mostly takes place as an interaction between parent and students using their respective booklets and with hands-on activities.
There are no adaptive programs to be used, educational video games to play or much in the way of songs and video, which would increase the multisensory nature of All About Spelling.
This is something of a double-edged sword.
If you’re a parent looking for a technological solution to spelling and to maintain a student’s interest you might need to look elsewhere.
On the other hand, the lack of games, software and videos/songs means there is a lot less to distract a student when using All About Spelling.
How All About Spelling works
All About Spelling is a bit different from other spelling programs out there for kids in that it uses the Orton-Gillingham approach as a basis for its instruction.
Perhaps more familiar as a way of teaching dyslexic students, Orton-Gillingham is used for both dyslexic and nondyslexic students for the purposes of teaching reading and spelling.
An approach that was one of the first to explicitly establish the connections between letters and sounds, the Orton-Gillingham approach to spelling has a few characteristics of note:
- Teaching the rules of spelling and phonograms, rather than memorizing words
- Incremental and sequential lessons
- Multisensory activities to activate different learning pathways.
And for the most part, we found that All About Spelling follows this approach pretty closely.
Rules Based Learning, Less Memorization
Unlike more traditional spelling programs out there, which teach spelling through a variety of activities, such as memorizing spelling lists, sight words, the order of letters or the visual look of a word, All About Spelling uses a rules based approach to spelling.
Its curriculum is largely dedicated to learning the why of spelling, with lessons centered around explicitly teaching the 72 basic phonograms, their sounds and the various rules and patterns that spell most English words
Rather than treating each spelling task as a problem solving or memory-recall exercise, All About Spelling gives kids a framework with specific guidelines and strategies to use as they go along, as well, known as spelling rules.
In addition to learning a lot of different basic phonograms and their sounds throughout the program, students learn things like how to break words into syllables, when to capitalize words, when to double consonants, I before E, when to add a silent E, when to use certain phonograms based on the letters around them, IE and EI, and so on.
Overall, we think that All About Spelling’s rules-based approach to spelling can be quite good for a wide variety of students (and research seems to back this up), but in particular it can be beneficial for those who get frustrated, bored or struggle with memorization in language arts or those who have had issues with other programs.
Where a rule based strategy tends to be of concern to parents and teachers is with the irregular words of the English language, of which there are famously quite a few.
Helpfully, About Spelling has included lessons on these exceptions, as well as providing a variety of learning components and activities for dealing with what they call “Rule Breakers,” such as a printable activity called Jail for Rule Breakers that has kids identify irregular spelled words and put them in a printed “jail.”
Incremental and Sequential Learning
All About Spelling is an Incremental program made up of seven levels, each of which contain about 25 lessons (or “Steps” as the program calls them).
Starting from the very basics of identifying letter sounds and their first phonograms, All About Spelling progresses all the way to the high school level, teaching spelling rules for words with Latin or Greek roots, word analysis and more.
Each lesson and level builds on the previous one, gradually introducing spelling concepts and in this way teaches in a manner that isn’t very overwhelming for students.
As a downside, however, this approach does make it a little tricky to switch into the program at a later grade or stage, since it assumes knowledge from previous lessons and levels.
Other spelling programs may not move at the same pace or cover the same topics in the same way, so any skill or knowledge gaps in spelling will need to be filled in.
Multisensory Learning
Unusually for a spelling program, but in line with an Orton-Gillingham approach, All About Spelling does use a lot of tactile, hands-on learning activities to help kids learn to spell.
In addition to oral lessons and flashcards (auditory/visual) The Spelling Interactive Kits contain a variety of manipulatives, and students make ample use of these during lessons as they use tiles to spell and break apart words, place stickers, use flashcards as part of their activities and so on.
What’s It Like To Teach An All About Spelling Step
In general, Steps, or lessons, in All About Spelling are highly focused, centered around teaching a single new concept and working on it until some level of proficiency is achieved.
Each lesson follows a similar three-part format, which makes them very consistent for both student and parent.
There is a brief review of previous concepts, new teaching and a reinforcement of that teaching.
Review
Each Step or lesson in All About Spelling starts with a review of the previous lesson’s (or level’s) concepts or rules.
This might be a short overview as well as some kind of hands-on activity, and the general idea is to act as a warm up, refresh a student’s memories and get them into the general mindset of spelling for that day, something that can be quite helpful if students are switching between unrelated subjects.
This process of continual review is an important part of all about spelling and it is something we like quite a bit and we think can be quite helpful in the learning process.
Mixing older concepts briefly into newer lessons can cumulatively give kids more practice and repetition over the year.
This stronger emphasis on review and practice can help make spelling skills and rule retrieval more automatic (known as procedural fluency) in the long run.
Similarly, although it can get a little boring for some kids, cognitively speaking, periodic review can help with information retention, making memory more resistant.
New Teaching
Following a brief review, new concepts are then introduced and taught.
To teach new material, the program uses a combination of dialogue and hands-on activities, with information and rules imparted through scripted explanations and prompts that parents can either be inspired by or directly read from.
One feature of an Orton Gillingham approach is explicit instruction, meaning concepts are taught in a direct, structured way, making it crystal clear what the lesson is about.
And when it comes to teaching material, All About Spelling’s scripts are likely as direct as it gets.
Scripts are short and to the point, going in short steps, with not a lot of wandering or rhetorical flourish. Parents might, for example, be prompted to say something like:
“Today we will work on spelling words with the sound of /a/ spelled ai and ay.”
And will then immediately introduce the relevant tiles, followed by a direct explanation of the concept and an activity.
Followed properly, there really is no chance for missing what the lesson’s new material is all about.
And while highly independent students or those with a proficiency or talent in language arts may wonder why these overt statements and actions are necessary, perhaps wanting to skip ahead, this is actually a recognized and highly effective method of dealing with complex topics or subjects students are having trouble with, and can be particularly effective for students with learning difficulties.
Woven into the teaching are a variety of hands-on activities that allow students to work out what they’re learning in real time, for example by spelling words out, writing something down or by breaking apart multisyllabic words into their component syllables using tiles.
Alongside concepts and rules, throughout the lessons students will learn and practice a few techniques through focused activity and explicit instruction.
While a good amount of the these are phonics based, involving strategies like segmenting for example, students also learn visual spelling strategies (which helps students learn to notice visually when a word isn’t spelled correctly) and morphemic strategies (in which students use the meaning of roots, prefixes and suffixes to form certain words).
Reinforcement
At the end of each lesson there is a reinforcement section that helps solidify what’s been learned.
As lessons can last several days or longer, and each lesson is built around a particular concept, this is a good way to review material before moving onto the next topic, something that tends to help strengthen memory formation in the long run.
There are two sections in the reinforcement section that reappear frequently and stood out to us:
Reinforcement Words
These are a group or list of words that kids can work on with word tiles, which relate to the concept taught in some way.
A lesson on /a/, for example would end with kids working on words such as air, sail, pray, claim, and tray.
Dictate Phrases and Sentences
Another key learning tool used by all about spelling that reappears at the end of the lesson is dictation.
Dictation tends to help kids learn to spell from memory and as part of a greater context, teaching kids to use them correctly and using the words as part of a sentence.
It can be particularly useful when dealing with tricky homophones and near homophones, and we feel it is a fine and natural addition to a lesson in spelling.
All About Spelling uses classical dictation, the teachers manual provides a list of sentences for the parent to read aloud and the student writes it down in their booklet to the best of their ability.
Parents can easily modify it to accommodate French or reverse dictation if they’d like an extra challenge but, overall, we find the regular dictation pretty straightforward and probably enough for most students.
How “Open and Go” are All About Spelling Lessons?
Aside from the initial tearing and organizing the various perforated cards that All About Spelling uses, we feel it is actually a very open and go program.
The program uses a fully scripted approach for its lessons, with the Teacher’s Manual able to carry parents through teaching a lesson in a step by step way, with very little to do in the way of preparation.
Not only does it guide parents through the lessons themselves with instructions, guides, teaching tips, but the Teacher’s Manual gives clear visual instructions on how to use and organize its manipulatives and activities.
There are even actual scripts that parents can read, which is great as a fall back when parents have to explain a concept that is a little more abstract, hard to explain or one of the many esoteric rules of English, or if they just don’t feel comfortable teaching spelling themselves.
One thing we really liked is at the beginning of the book there is s a short diagnostic or troubleshooting guide that parents can use to help their student with words or concepts that, for one reason or another, they have a hard time with.
It offers various possible reasons and explanations for these difficulties, which can help parents better understand their students and their learning, and helpfully goes a step further by offering direct strategies to help in each possible situation.
All in all, if a parent were to open All About Spelling and start using Level 1 without doing any prep, we think they would be able to teach a lesson without much of a problem.
On the downside, All About Spelling lessons can require more time than some other spelling programs on the part of parents.
Lessons generally include a fair amount of back and forth dialogue between parent and student, with explanations and instructions given and they include a variety of hands-on activities that will require parents to oversee.
While the teachers manual does make this pretty easy, with scripts to follow and helpful teaching hints along the way, it does require some rather intensive parent-student interaction throughout the lesson.
This is by no means a self-study or independent study spelling program, and parents should be aware of that.
Lesson Flexibility
Interestingly, despite the fact that the lessons are pretty scripted, there is a lot of in-built flexibility when it comes to pacing.
Designed as they are to move along at the students pace, with their understanding and proficiency as a key driver, there’s no hard and fast rule for how long each step should take.
Steps in All About Spelling may take a day to complete or two or more weeks, it really depends on the student and how they’re absorbing the material.
In terms of teaching flexibility, there is some with this program.
It certainly does offer a pretty direct, to the point, script that parents can follow there’s nothing stopping parents from using the script and its hints as a base and improvising or teaching the concepts in a way they’d prefer.
While there aren’t many ideas for alternative scripts or help in changing lessons around offered in lessons, as long as the work gets done and ideas are conveyed, we don’t think there is much to worry about if parents decide to go off script.
The only caveat to this being that lesson order is quite important in All About Spelling, as the learning is incremental and things may not make all that much sense if re-arranged.
Pros & Cons of All About Spelling
Pros
Affordable
At less than $50 per year for each level’s instructional material, All About Spelling is a fairly affordable spelling program compared to others out there.
While there is a package that has to be purchased to get the multisensory material, it is a one time purchase that, in its basic form, costs less than $30 and it can be reused across the life of the program and across several students.
Easily supplements any phonics based reading program
All about spelling takes an Orton-Gillingham, phonics based approach to spelling.
As such many of the techniques and approaches to words and their spelling can be a natural fit if parents are already using a phonics-based program as part of their language arts programs.
Continual Review Promotes Memory Retention
Each lesson in All About Spelling begins with a review of previously learned concepts.
Frequent repetition and review of information can be a great way to help students consolidate memories, moving information into long term memory, and it can help improve retrieval of information, meaning students will be able to spell things correctly faster in the long run.
Very easy to teach, Open and Go Curriculum
All About Spelling is well scripted program, with a clearly outlined process, clear guidance, hints and tips and even an actual script parents can follow if they so choose.
Overall, the program does a very good job at taking parents by the hand and guiding them through lessons.
In fact, we would say that a parent with no experience in teaching language arts at all would have no problem using this program as a main spelling supplement, and could do so effectively by merely following the instructions provided in the Teacher’s Manual.
Very clear and to the point
When opening a chapter in All About Spelling, one thing becomes abundantly clear: how straight to the point it gets.
There is no extraneous text, artwork or images added for flourish or effect, or really any busywork. Whatever is written on the page is intended to be used in the lesson.
Flexible pacing
Designed around the student’s performance, there is no real indication of how long any lesson should take.
Instead, the assumption is that lessons can take as long as necessary, with each Step taking days or even a week or more to complete, so there’s not a lot of pressure on parents or students in that regard.
Gives kids a very structured framework when approaching spelling
By teaching students a set of rules (with exceptions) that can be applied in different situations, All About Spelling gives students a more structured approach to spelling than relying on memory, feeling or visual identification.
Rather than approaching each spelling task as a problem to solve, the program ultimately provides students with a reusable and logical framework can take a lot of the stress out of spelling, something that can be particularly beneficial to students who have struggled with it in the past.
Multisensory, hands-on spelling
A core component of All About Spelling is its multisensory learning, with lessons integrating activities that use tiles, cards and more.
This turns spelling, a traditionally verbal and auditory task, into a hands-on activity, providing tactile experiences that can not only make lessons more interesting, but strengthen learning and memory by activating different learning pathways, as well.
Placement Tests
As with other homeschool programs, All About Spelling does not really link to age and grade standards, focusing instead on various knowledge and skill criteria that it splits across several levels.
This approach can sometimes require a bit of work on the part of parents, especially for those jumping into the program from another homeschool solution or for those needing differentiated solutions.
Helpfully, All About Spelling offers placement tests that parents can use to help figure out where their students should start.
Cons
Can be time intensive for parents
All About Spelling requires both parents and students to work together through the curriculum, and requires flashcards to be separated, prepared and organized ahead of time.
Consequently, it can require a fair bit of time on the part of parents compared to more independent learning options.
Highly scripted, incremental approach not for everyone
Not every parent wants to be told what to say with a curriculum, and All About Spelling essentially provides a complete script that parents can follow.
It’s true that parents can always improvise or create their own dialogue, but this means they will have to read through, absorb and then recreate the existing dialogue, which not every parent wants to do.
Such parents may prefer a curriculum that provides more explanatory text directed at the parent, with which they can use to explain things in their own words, rather than a direct dialogue aimed at the student.
Similarly, because lessons build on one another and need to be done in order, there is not a lot of room to switch lessons around on the fly, meaning it can be hard to customize the program’s lessons to individual needs.
Not always so easy to switch into higher levels
Because of its incremental approach to learning, where information and concepts build upon themselves from lesson to lesson and level to level, parents coming into All About Spelling will have to make sure that they carefully work through the placement test and inform themselves of the various expectations for each level, otherwise skill and knowledge gaps can develop that can worsen over time and cause confusion and frustration.
Who Is All About Spelling Ideal For
Parents uncertain about teaching spelling themselves
Not every parent has the experience or is confident in their ability to critical skills like spelling to their students.
All About Spelling’s highly organized and scripted lessons do an excellent job at guiding parents through lessons with little in the way of assumed knowledge of English or skill at spelling .
Those looking for a more structured, formal approach to spelling
In the end, All About Spelling teaches students a rules based approach to spelling, providing them with guidelines they can fall back on and use whenever they approach a spelling task, rather than relying on memory or their gut.
Those looking for an open and go spelling curriculum
All About Spelling is a very open and go program.
Aside from preparing and organizing its cards and manipulatives, there is very little in the way of prep required for it and no need to learn how to teach its approach as the teacher’s manual provides everything necessary to conduct a lesson.
Students who have a hard time with spelling
All About Spelling teaches spelling gently, in an incremental approach that allows students to take their time and develop proficiency at their own pace.
It explains concepts explicitly and clearly, allows students to explore spelling in a multisensory way and offers plenty of time for review and practice.
The program also approaches spelling in a much more structured and organized way compared with other programs, giving students rules that they can reliably use in the future when it comes to spelling, which can make spelling seem like less of a panic-inducing skill-test and more of a rote action.
Students who do well with hands-on tactile learning
Every student has their own preference for learning, and while there are plenty of audio/visual spelling programs out there, there are relatively few that use manipulatives and hands-on activities for spelling.
With its tiles, cards and an assortment of physically-engaging activities, All About Spelling can offer students an effective and tactile spelling experience.
Who is it not ideal for
Those looking for an independent-learning spelling program or who don’t have a lot of time for teaching
All About Spelling does require a good degree of interaction between student and teacher, with a lot of back and forth dialogue and activities included in each lesson.
As a result it may not be the best option for those looking for a self-study program for their students or for those who can’t dedicate a lot of time to its lessons.
Those looking for total control and customization in their lessons
While parents can, with a little work, recreate lessons to their liking, you can’t really reshuffle lessons or skip ones, since lessons often refer to past learning and knowledge gaps will form.
Those looking for a technology-centric solution to spelling
While there is an optional Letter Tile app and a Phonogram Sounds app included with the program, All About Spelling is really, at its core, a book and paper approach to spelling.
There is no app, adaptive software to use or videos, games and music to integrate into learning.
Parents looking for that type of educational methodology may need to look elsewhere.
Price
Note: Prices current as of writing, all prices in USD.
A complete package for All About Spelling at any level includes a Teacher’s Manual, a Student Packet, and manipulatives found in the Spelling Interactive Kit, which is a one-time purchase.
Due to differences in scope and sequence, there are slight differences in price between early and later levels when it comes to the Teacher’s Manual and Student Packets, which is why we’ve provided a range of prices.
All About Spelling Teacher’s Manual – $19.95 – $25.95
All About Spelling Student Packet – $18.95- $24.95
All About Spelling Level Materials (Teacher’s Manual + Student Packet bundle) – $36.95 – $47.95
Basic Spelling Interactive Kit – $24.95
Deluxe Spelling Interactive Kit – $46.86 (Note: Discontinued as of December 2022)
Letter Tiles App (optional) – $19.99
Overall, in terms of price, All About Spelling is fairly affordable to use.
Once parents purchase the one time kit, a complete year’s package (student and teacher’s manual) costs less than $45, making it less expensive than many of its competitors, such as Spelling You See.
Similarly, All About Spelling includes a lot of non-consumable items, such as its teachers manual, flash cards, tiles and more, which means much of it can be reused with future students, letting parents further split the cost across however many children they will use it with.
Is it Worth the Price
We feel that All About Spelling is worth its price.
At less than $50 per level per year (after purchasing a one-time Interactive Kit), All About Spelling is quite affordable for most homeschools, more so than many other spelling curricula out there.
It also offers a rather unique, Orton Gillingham-inspired, hands-on approach to spelling that isn’t very common, as well as an incremental learning approach offers a more gentle but effective way of learning that makes it a good choice for younger students, as well as those who have had a hard time with spelling in the past and those with learning difficulties
Similarly, All About Spelling is designed in a way that makes teaching spelling very easy for parents. Its lessons are well-laid out, highly structured and scripted, which gives new and uncertain parents the ability to teach from it with very little preparation.
Finally, the program offers a lot of material for the money. While it may not have much in the way of high tech learning, each level contains in-depth spelling instruction, as well as a plethora of tactile activities and practice for students to work on.
Adding to this value, much of the material All About Spelling provides is nonconsumable, meaning parents can reuse much of it with future students.
Bottom Line
Teaching kids spelling can, at times, be a frustrating task for any homeschool.
Although it’s not the most technologically advanced spelling program out there, the affordably-priced All About Spelling does offer parents and students an effective and very hands-on learning experience.
Its rules-based program offers kids a more structured approach to spelling, while its many tactile activities keep learning multisensory and fun. In addition, its lessons are very open and go, making them very easy for even new homeschooling parents to get started teaching effectively.
All this means that All About Spelling should make learning to spell as stress- and tear-free as possible, for both parent and student.
FAQ
Jennifer Keenes is a writer and a new mom living in Florida. She studied education and, prior to becoming a freelance writer, worked as a substitute teacher at the elementary and middle school level. She is a big fan of the beach, working out and homeschooling her two daughters.