Learning to read is an important milestone in any child’s life.
With reading being a foundation for further learning, it can also be something of a stressful experience for parents, particularly those new to teaching themselves.
Logic of English and All About Reading are two well-known and respected programs that can make learning to read a lot less nerve-wracking for both parents and students.
They are both excellent programs, and have well-deserved reputations for being easy to use and fun.
On the surface, both of these programs seem very similar.
They are both hands-on, multisensory programs that teach using systematic phonics, they are open and go, and are aimed at students in elementary school or earlier.
Due to their respective strong reputations, it can be hard for parents to choose between these two programs.
To help out, we’ve decided to compare Logic of English and All About Reading so parents can make a more informed decision as to which best suits their needs.
What is Logic of English
Logic of English Foundations is a full Orton-Gillingham-inspired language arts curriculum that teaches reading, spelling, grammar and handwriting.
It does so through clear, rules-based instruction, various manipulatives and a variety of engaging and multisensory activities and games.
The program is divided into two parts: Foundations and Essentials, and is available as a traditional pen-and-paper curriculum, in digital PDF form and as a video-based digital course.
What is All About Reading
All About Reading is a multisensory, mastery-based and Orton-Gillingham-inspired reading program that provides comprehensive, phonics instruction (as well as vocabulary and reading comprehension development) using clear instruction, manipulatives and a variety of hands-on activities and games in its lessons.
It is divided into two programs – Pre-Reading and Levels 1-4 and is taught largely as a paper-based curriculum.
What Age or Grade Levels Do They Cover?
In terms of grade or age level, All About Reading has two programs – All About Reading Pre-Reading and All About Reading Levels 1-4.
Together, these roughly correspond to pre-K to Grade 4.
Logic of English also has two programs that it offers – Foundations and Essentials.
Logic of English Foundations roughly corresponds to Pre-K- Grade 2, while Logic of English Essentials roughly corresponds to Grade 2 through about Grade 6.
By extending its topics a little past Grade 4, it can be said that Logic of English covers a bit of a wider audience, at least in terms of grade level.
However, at the end of the day, both programs are really skill based and don’t really make reference to age or grade, and so can easily be used by older students who are a bit behind to brush up on their fundamentals.
Placement Tests and Assistance
As they are more focused on skill and move at their own pace, scope and sequence, it can be harder for parents to know where to start with Logic of English and All About Reading compared to programs that simply rely on grade or age.
This is especially true for parents and students switching into the program or those who have already started teaching their kids reading fundamentals to some degree.
Both Logic of English and All About Reading do a good job at providing parents with placement tests that can help them figure out what level is most appropriate for their child’s current abilities.
Both programs offer these as downloadable PDFs on their respective websites, and both make sure that the tests are well scripted and use very easily understood rubrics and checklists to evaluate performance.
As a result, generally speaking parents need very little in the way of experience or knowledge to use them and simply need to follow their instructions.
We feel Logic of English goes a bit further in this regard, however.
In addition to their standard tests, they also offer a good deal of additional help for parents on their website, including flowcharts, comparison pages and even an interactive placement test in the form of a google document that can yield some helpful insights and suggestions.
As a result, although both programs provide placement help for their programs, we feel that Logic of English offers a little more.
What English Language Subjects Do They Teach?
Although Logic of English and All About Reading have some strong similarities in their method of teaching, they do have some significant differences in the scope of their program.
All About Reading is largely a reading program.
However, in addition to reading and phonics, it also covers vocabulary development, some grammar rules and reading comprehension, so it is a little more expansive than its name might imply
Further, All About Reading can also be easily used alongside its sister program, All About Spelling, which adds systematic spelling instruction and makes the overall instruction more comprehensive, although it still doesn’t formally cover handwriting.
Keeping reading and spelling separate is something that All About Learning (the makers of All About Reading) do by choice, as they feel that reading and spelling involve two different phonics processes and skills (decoding and encoding) and that it is preferable for students to have focused lessons for reading and spelling so that they can better dedicate their attention to each.
Logic of English, on the other hand, is something of an all-in-one language arts program.
Like All About Reading, its curriculum covers phonics and reading, but also touches on vocabulary, spelling, grammar and reading comprehension, as well as handwriting and composition.
And it does so in an integrated way, where each lesson shifts between these different topics in language arts.
In other words, Logic of English covers most English language arts (ELA) topics in its lessons and requires little in the way of outside supplementation.
Which is the better approach really depends on the parent, the student and their particular learning philosophy and desired outcome.
Parents who are looking to use a single curriculum to cover all their bases might find Logic of English a little simpler and more efficient to use.
On the other hand, All About Reading’s more focused reading approach makes it a little more flexible to use with other programs, since they can slide its reading instruction into one (or more) programs that cover spelling, writing, handwriting, etc., something that might be trickier to do with a lesson that already blends those subjects into each lesson.
Another thing to consider is the student and their attention span and learning preferences.
Some students benefit from more focused, deep-dive lessons in phonics and reading, while others may prefer taking on a diversity of topics and activities in each lesson.
Logic of English Vs All About Reading: Approach to Teaching
We believe Logic of English and All About Reading to be broadly similar in the way they teach.
Both programs are teacher-led, with parents introducing and guiding students through lessons, and generally involve a fair amount of interaction between parent and student.
Additionally, both are inspired by Orton-Gillingham methods, meaning that lessons teach the materially explicitly, with parents directly teaching and explaining various rules and strategies in English language arts, rather than following an implicit methodology, i.e. by allowing students to acquire an understanding of English and its mechanics naturally and without knowing they are doing so (such as by exposing them to literature, for example).
Similarly, both stand out in a sea of English programs by being very hands-on, making extensive use of manipulatives and involving a lot of activities, games and even craft work in their lessons.
Rather than sitting and watching/listening, students in both Logic of English and All About Reading will have plenty of opportunities to get up, move around and touch things, making the lessons far more multisensory.
Finally, both Logic of English and All About Reading teach their material sequentially and cumulatively.
They start out teaching the very fundamentals of reading and literacy, i.e. letter recognition and sounds, and gradually build on these skills throughout their series of books until students are capable of demonstrating more independent ELA skills, such as reading short stories on their own.
Approach to Teaching Reading
We found that both Logic of English and All About reading are pretty similar in how they approach reading instruction.
Both programs are rooted in the Orton Gillingham approach. Although best known as an approach to help students with dyslexia, it is a popular and proven way of helping both dyslexic and non-dyslexic students learn to read.
Consequently, both programs teach phonics explicitly, emphasizing rules and strategies for reading with less of an emphasis on memorization than some other programs.
They are also very systematic, starting with the very fundamentals of phonics and working their way towards more advanced rules and phonics instruction in a step by step manner.
Finally, both Logic of English and All About Reading are very multisensory.
They make ample use of dialogue, visual examples, and weave a host of activities and games into each lesson, making them ideal for kids whether they are visual, auditory and tactile learners.
In contrast to many other reading programs out there, both programs emphasize a very hands-on approach to phonics.
During the course of each program, students work with various manipulatives as they go through lessons and participate in various activities, crafts and games.
With All About Reading, students use letter sound cards, alphabet charts and magnetic letter tiles in a variety of engaging ways, such as seen below.
With Logic of English, students learn phonics with phonogram letter tiles, whiteboard work, various flash cards, phonogram game cards and, eventually, morpheme cards.
Both Logic of English and All About Reading also make use of illustrated, fun readers that use a lot of humor and colorful drawings to keep kids interested and practicing.
Each level of All About Reading includes two readers, which are like collections of short stories. There are also an assortment of optional reading games in the earliest levels (like the optional book Reading Games with Ziggy) that can help reinforce the fundamentals.
With Logic of English, the readers used really depends on the program.
Logic of English Foundations includes around 8 shorter, dedicated books per level, as well as similarly fun and illustrated letter sound books for levels A, B, and C.
The Essentials program continues on and offers an optional reader with 30 high-interest texts.
Interestingly with Logic of English, these readers are a blend of fiction and nonfiction titles, with quite a few texts that are STEM oriented, which is nice.
What Are Lessons Like
In terms of lessons, Logic of English and All About Reading, once again, share some similarities.
Lessons for both programs are teacher-led, with parents providing instruction and guidance throughout the lesson and the students doing work in their workbooks.
Adhering to the best practices of an Orton-Gillingham approach, lessons in Logic of English and All About Reading also follow consistent lesson structure – lessons tend to follow a predictable and consistent pattern throughout their respective series.
In both programs, lessons are highly interactive and engaging, using lots of games and activities to introduce, demonstrate and practice concepts.
Subsequently, both Logic of English and All About Reading have a lot of moving parts and lots of different materials will come into play throughout the course of a lesson.
Consequently, in addition to teaching, parents will have to spend some time organizing and keeping track of things.
In terms of scheduling, both programs have lessons that span multiple days but provide a good deal of assistance and tips in slowing down or speeding up lessons to accommodate student needs.
Finally, both Logic of English and All About Reading make use of read alouds and dedicated reading periods, although All about reading makes this a little more open ended, with parents encouraged to spend 20 minutes a day reading a favorite poem or story, rather than using a text or the letter sound books that Logic of English includes.
While Logic of English and All About Reading can be quite similar in terms of lessons, they do have some significant differences that parents need to be aware of, as well.
All About Reading’s lessons are a little more focused, with an entire lesson dedicated to a particular concept in reading.
For example, the majority of a lesson might be about the phonogram “oo,” for example, introducing the concept and then doing activities based thereon.
This is in contrast to Logic of English, which is an integrative and complete English language arts program.
While the phonics instruction component may focus on teaching and practicing one or two new phonograms, a lesson will also cover things like spelling rules, grammar rules, handwriting/composition, reading practice and comprehension and more, as can be seen in the lesson objectives below.
Another point of difference is that All About Reading contains a dedicated review component at the start of each lesson, whereas Logic of English weaves their review throughout the lessons and adds a dedicated review and practice session every 5th lesson or so.
How much stuff do parents have to buy?
Both Logic of English and All About Reading incorporate a lot of activities and hands-on learning into their lessons, making them pretty multisensory and activity rich programs.
As can be expected, this means there are a lot of different components to these programs that parents will have to buy.
Besides the Teacher’s Guides, Student Workbooks and Readers, each curriculum has kits of manipulatives and other material that are used in each lesson at every level and must be purchased when starting the course.
Both Logic of English and All About Reading let parents buy these as complete kits or individually from their stores, but in both cases it’s usually easier and more convenient to buy these as a set.
These kits, and what is included in each, is compared in the table below.
| All About Reading – Reading Interactive Kit | Logic of English – Core Material |
| Letter Tiles | Reference Charts |
| Magnets | Phonogram Flash Cards |
| Divider Cards | Spelling Rule Flash Cards |
| Review Box | Grammar Flash Cards |
| Tote Bag | Morpheme Flash Cards |
| Optional: Ziggy the Zebra Reading Games and doll | Phonogram Game Tiles and Game Cards |
| Phonogram and Spelling Rule Reference | |
| Whiteboard | |
| Optional: Logic of English Essentials Readers |
As can be seen, Logic of English tends to have a bit more going on in the way of learning materials.
This can be a benefit in that they can be used to keep things fresh with a few more different activities.
It can also be a double edged sword, however, since it means that there is more to buy and keep track of between lessons, as can be seen below.
Beyond the Books: Technology Integration
In terms of the use of technology, there is once again a bit of a difference between Logic of English and All About Reading.
While All About Reading does make use of some apps, including digital versions of the letter tiles that can be used on tablets. a Phonogram Sounds App and a Letter Sounds A to Z app that helps with enunciation, overall the program is more of a traditional pen and paper curriculum with students and parents largely working out of physical books.
In contrast, Logic of English has integrated a fair bit more technology into its program.
Its traditional paper curriculum (including its readers, letter sound books and many of its flash cards and manipulatives) are also available in digital form as PDFs.
There are also a variety of apps available to the program, including phonogram songs for its letter sound books.
Finally there is an online course for both Foundations and Essentials that offers some video instruction and interactive language arts games and activities.
While this doesn’t exactly turn Logic of English into a self study program, it can go a long way to helping parents who are struggling to find the time to teach everything themselves or who don’t feel confident in leading the instruction themselves, which is nice.
An example of a Logic of English video lesson for phonics can be seen below.
It is important to note that how valuable a parent finds this technology integration depends on their individual preferences and philosophies.
Those who want to limit screen time or teach more traditionally, or those who simply don’t want to add another digital subscription to their budget, may find greater value in a more pen and paper curriculum, for example.
How easy are these programs to teach?
Both Logic of English and All About Reading Teacher’s Guides are well-designed and heavily scripted.
In other words, both do an excellent job providing thorough and detailed instructions for carrying out lessons and do so plainly, with minimal jargon and lots of illustrations to help parents properly use the manipulatives, and help them carry out the in-lesson activities and games.
In our opinion, both programs are about as open and go as a reading/English language curriculum can get and can be easily used by parents with no background or experience in homeschooling language arts, or homeschooling altogether, due to their highly detailed, step by step instructions.
One drawback that is common to both programs is that they do require some prep time.
Both programs bring in a variety of manipulatives and activities and to save time and conduct lessons in some kind of efficient manner, they do require parents to get things together before a lesson, which in turn means that these components need to be kept in some kind of order.
And for a busy family this can sometimes be a lot easier said than done.
Something we found interesting when looking at both programs was that All About Reading provides a little more context and help for parents at the outset of each lesson, sometimes explaining the purpose of the lesson, other times providing tips on how to effectively teach something or even a bit of an explanation of the rules or strategies that will be employed, as can be seen below.
With Logic of English this information is present as well but, rather than being laid out at the beginning of each lesson, they pop up here and there as informational boxes throughout the lesson.
It is important to note that these informational boxes offer a similar level of help as All About Reading, but being spread out through a lesson it does mean that parents will have to browse the lesson first to get the most out of them rather than just reading the objectives section at the start.
Price
Note: Prices are correct as of writing. All prices in USD.
Logic of English Pricing
Foundations
| Level A (with core materials) | $199.88 |
| Level B (with core materials) | $230.86 |
| Level B (without core materials) | $105.95 |
| Level C | $129.94 |
| Level D | $107.96 |
Logic of English Online Foundations – $139.99
Essentials
| Essentials 1-7$ | $224.86 |
| Subsequent levels | $83.97 |
Logic of English Online Essentials – $49.99 / year
Logic of English Online Essentials + Online Reader – $159.99 / year
All About Reading Pricing
Pre-reading bundles
Basic: $99.95
Deluxe: $144.95
All About Reading Levels 1-4
All About Reading Materials package: $159.95 for each level
One Time Purchases:
Reading Interactive Kits (for Levels 1-4)
Basic: $22.95
Deluxe: $49.95
With a full-color, activity rich, open and go curriculum and with manipulatives, color readers and more, it is perhaps unsurprising that neither Logic of English nor All About Reading are considered particularly cheap.
Interestingly, it is a little cheaper to start with All About Reading but once that first investment is made Logic of English is a little cheaper for every subsequent level.
Other than that, both Logic of English and All About Reading are in the same ballpark in terms of price.
Parents should note that both companies do run specials from time to time so it is worth checking out their latest prices and any offers.
Check out the latest prices and offers for Logic of English
Or
Check out the latest prices and offers for All About Reading
Curriculum Samples
Both Logic of English and All About Reading offer PDF sample lessons as well as samples of some of their materials, and both companies are surprisingly generous with these, letting parents sample a selection of lessons from each of their levels.
Check out All About Reading Lesson Samples here
Or
Check out samples of Logic of English Foundations and Essentials here
Logic of English and All About Reading: Summary Table of Similarities and Differences
| Similarities | Differences |
| Orton Gillingham approach to phonics and English – learning is rule-based and explicitly taught | Logic of English is an all in one English language curriculum that teaches reading, spelling, handwriting and more. All About Reading largely focuses on reading with some comprehension, grammar and vocabulary work as well. Those looking for spelling can purchase and use All About Spelling alongside it. |
| Lots of hands-on learning | All About Reading encourages parents to dedicate time to choosing and reading their favorite stories aloud. Logic of English provides more dedicated readers and read alouds with their curriculum. |
| Lessons are very multisensory | All About Reading readers lean more to fiction and short story collections. Logic of English offers more of a mix of fiction and nonfiction texts. |
| Lessons involve lots of fun activities and games | All About Reading is a traditional paper-based curriculum. Logic of English has several digital learning options available, including a video course. |
| Require parents to purchase kits with various manipulatives, such as cards and tiles | Each Logic of English lessons covers several different topics in language arts, including phonics, spelling, writing, comprehension and more. All About Reading lessons are more focused around a phonics and reading topic. |
| Full color, high interest readers and teaching materials | |
| Very open and go, highly scripted lessons | |
| Lessons are longish and divided over several days | |
| Lessons follow a familiar structure | |
| Both programs are skill-based, rather than focused on grade or age | |
| Both programs involve a lot of moving parts in the way of lesson materials |
Bottom Line: Deciding Which is Right for You
Both Logic of English and All About Reading are well-known, high quality and relatively widely used curricula and have helped thousands of families with reading and other English language skills.
As with any program, when choosing between the two parents need to.consider how their student learns best and their own homeschool needs and requirements.
To help out, we put together a small chart offering some points that parents might want to consider.
| I’m a parent and… | Consider |
| A strong, proven method of teaching phonics | Either |
| I’d like to buy one curriculum that can take care of my entire language arts curriculum | Logic of English |
| I’d like to focus on reading and phonics | All About Reading |
| I want a curriculum that I can quickly easily add to another ELA spine | All About Reading |
| I’d like a little more technological help in teaching from time to time | Logic of English |
| Lots of hands-on activities and games | Either |
| My student likes or benefits from learning different subjects during a lesson | Logic of English |
| My student really likes to focus on and master one concept at a time in a lesson | All About Reading |
| I’d like to integrate my own reading and favorite books into lessons | All About Reading |
| I’d like to expose my student to more STEM and nonfiction reading material while learning | Logic of English |
For More Information
To learn more about these programs you can check out:
Our in-depth review of All About Reading
Our in-depth review of Logic of English Foundations
Or visit each company’s website:
About the Author
Anne Miller is the editor of The Smarter Learning Guide and is a passionate advocate for education and educational technology. A mom of two, she majored in English Language and Literature and worked as a substitute teacher and tutor for several years. When not writing she continues to root for the Yankees and the Giants.