How to Set Up All About Reading So You Can Use It Again
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Furthermore, I cannot guarantee that my method saves any money. For me, however, it saves time and my sanity - esp. since I have three kids in three separate grades. I will be using the material 3 times and am terrible at night-before or week-of prep. I do far better with a project that I prep well in advance so that when school starts it is just open and go.
Read my All About Reading curriculum review.
This is how I set it up to REUSE all the materials with each kid.
I pre-assemble the activities in a large 3-ring binder before we ever start the next level
The student book that comes with each level has lots of hands-on manipulative games to reinforce the concepts being taught throughout the book. I hate collecting and assembling lesson pieces on a daily (or even weekly) basis. I would much rather have a huge “project” where I gather everything for the whole year at once, spend several hours, and get it all done. Then when we are in the middle of a busy homeschool day, I can just grab it and start teaching.
You Will Need:
Colored Dot Labels in colors that coordinate with the AAR levels - blue, green, red, purple - something like this. The ones I bought are no longer available.
Heavy Duty Sheet Protectors with secure top flaps - Avery 76000 is your friend. I have used regular sheet protectors that don’t have the flap, even ones that were considered “heavy-duty,” and I ended up having to tape the bottoms with packing tape to keep the game pieces from falling out - not to mention that you have to always keep the pieces from flying out the top.
Three Inch 3-ring binder with clear-view covers for each level you wish to prep - the AAR colors in order are: 1 - blue, 2 - green, 3 - red, and 4 - purple. Don't skimp on the binder size! You WILL need a 3 INCH binder. Here is a set that actually has blue, green, red, and purple binders included.
Paper cutter (If you don't have one - go buy one before you start! It will save you hours of time! And will be worth every. single. penny.) This is the one I have. It has worked well for several years for my homeschool mom and tutoring needs for a decent price.
Scissors (You'll probably find it's faster to cut out a few of the smallest pieces by hand.) Here’s some that are well-rated and I THINK I have had some of these before - I may have bought them at Costco. But, if I see “titanium” on the scissors I feel like they are really good ones.
Stapler (a few of the activities you’ll be prepping are “flip books”). If you need a good stapler, I love mine that has the reduced effort - this is not the same one, but looks similar and is highly rated.
Sharpie (fine/medium point)
OPTIONAL: If you have it, a utility knife (aka box cutter) comes in handy and a mat to cut on if you have a craft mat similar to this one. Those links are for your reference - of course feel free to buy using my link! (and thank you!!) But, I provided them so you know what I’m talking about because you probably have one or both already. Anyway…some of the games involve sliding smaller pieces of paper through larger pages & you will need to cut a straight line in the middle of the page. OR - you can ALWAYS just use scissors and slice the lines with the tip of one blade.
Prep the Binder:
Put the sheet protectors in your binder. Make sure the flaps are on the top and facing backwards - so you can put the label on the front.
Label the sheet protectors. Write #'s on the colorful dot stickers that correspond to the lessons for your level. My thought process behind labeling everything in color is so that when I have two (or three) kids using varying levels of AAR, and I find a random lesson sitting around, I can quickly identify which binder it belongs in.
Place the stickers at the top right of the sheet protectors (so you can easily flip through to find your lesson).
Demo Time!
One lesson at a time, carefully tear out the sheets of the STUDENT PAGES (don't tear your teacher's manual up!!) along the perforations.
Cut any activity pieces out and place them and the fluency sheets into the pre-labeled sheet protector for that lesson.
A few of the lessons will require you to staple little flip-books together. I suggest doing that now as well and placing those booklets in the sheet protector as well.
Tip: Check the back of each activity page for cutting and folding lines. Sometimes they have activities that involve the kid putting a small paper through a slit in the larger one (thus the utility knife mentioned above).
Make sure the flap is closed and you won't have to worry about all your activity pieces falling out and getting lost - or better yet, cut up by your 3 year old!
Finishing Touches and Time Savers:
Tear the front and back flaps off the student book and place them in the front and back of your binder. (I like to use my paper cutter to straighten out the torn edges first.)
Put your name on the front if you want.
Add a dot sticker with your name to the readers if you don't want to write your name in the books themselves.
DON’T bother laminating the flashcards - I don’t believe it is necessary. They are printed on cardstock, so the cards hold up well. If I had 10 kids I might think differently, but I have three and they should be fine to make it through three children without all falling apart. And if a few do, each AAR level comes with a few extra blank cards that you can use to make your own.
DON’T laminate the game pieces - I started to do this in the first level but then found that it wasn’t necessary and took a ton of time. Most of the games in the curriculum we have only played once or twice. And then we moved on to the next lesson and there was another game to play. So, even though the games are printed on regular paper from the student workbook, it shouldn’t be a problem to use with 2-3 kids.
Other Materials:
If you have a tablet, seriously consider purchasing the letter tiles app. As the company says, you can use it in addition to or in place of the letter tiles. I use it instead of the tiles, because I don’t want to keep up with ALL OF THOSE TILES. It is much less messy and much more portable. If your child really prefers the physical tiles by all means use them!! But, if you’re overwhelmed by keeping up with all of them or are limited on space, consider the app. As of April 2024 it is $19.99 on the app store, but once you buy it you can use it on multiple devices (on your family account).
You may want to have your teacher's guide spiral bound at a print shop. Call ahead to confirm they can cut through the thickness of the binding though - as some stores only can cut through smaller workbook sizes and aren't equipped to cut through the thickness of the AAR books. If you have it bound, consider putting a plastic cover and a plastic backing on it. (I purchased the clear-ish plastic cover with the cardstock backing from Kinkos and the backing tore off within the year, so I wish I'd bought two plastic covers from them and had them attach one to each side of the manual. I don't want my manual to tear up before I finish with all three kids.)
If you don't want to spiral-bind the teacher's guide, another option to make it sturdier is to put contact paper on it. This is what I did with my Pre-Reading level guide, and I'm pretty sure that's why it didn't fall apart. (I'm hard on books…and shoes…and everything...)
Consider whether you'd prefer to use the letter tiles app or the magnetic tiles that come with the “reading interactive kit.” Here is a link to view the interactive kit and the Letter Tiles App (scroll down to the bottom of the linked page). I have found the app much simpler to keep up with (on my ipad). If you buy the app, you don't need to prep the tiles! You're welcome- there's an hour of your life back!
Do yourself a favor and buy the little yellow flashcard box. If not you will definitely need a box that fits the cards for each level.
You can use this same process for the All About Spelling (AAS) program as well - since the new colorful edition has similar games and activities. I just finished prepping level 1 of AAS minus the labels…and I plan to put “S-#” on each label to identify it as different from the AAR lessons. (Reasoning: AAS repeats all of the colors of AAR so I’ll be using many of the same color labels.)
If you are not into color-coding your stuff, consider writing directly on the sheet protectors but include the level, not just the lesson number.
Final Notes:
1 - I have purchased and prepped each of these levels one at a time as my oldest moved through them. However, I did purchase a set of colored dots all at once and then saved them until I needed each color.
2 - This applies to AAR 1 through 4, not the Pre-reading curriculum. (The Pre-Reading is much simpler and works well if you keep all of that level in the bag you may have purchased with the curriculum. Ziggy fits in there nicely with the other materials.)
Related TTM Articles:
Is All About Reading “Enough”?
All About Reading Curriculum Review
Tips for Teaching All About Reading
What Do the Letters Say: How to Teach the Sounds from A to Z
