Stacy,
Yes, I completely agree! I have used rereading very successfully with my own daughter and it has made a wonderful difference in her confidence and fluency with reading.

Deb,
This is pretty common, especially with children that have struggled. Do not expect perfection before moving on. Reaching the goal of fluent reading will be a gradual process over many lessons. Students may need to read a word thirty times before they can read it fluently without having to sound it out! Here’s an article on How to Develop Reading Fluency that you might find helpful.

The Word Cards allow you to track what has been mastered and what still needs work. Keep word cards in daily review until she can read them easily, without needing to sound them out. Here are some fun review ideas for word cards. The Word cards will stack up as you go, so just rotate through a portion for 2-3 minutes each day and then pick up in the book wherever you left off previously.

The fluency pages can be re-used as well. You might enjoy our “Top Tips” for using the fluency practice pages. (And check out the comments as well–lots of fun suggestions in there!)

The appendices in the level 1 and level 2 teacher’s manuals have lots of ideas for reviewing word cards and fluency pages–be sure to check both of those for more ideas.

Students who struggle with fluency will also benefit from rereading the same story two or three days in a row to gain fluency and confidence. Buddy Reading can be very powerful in helping students who are in this stage of struggling with fluency.

I hope this helps. Please let us know how it goes as you continue or if you have additional questions. My own daughter had exactly this problem, so I understand completely. However, I am very happy to say that she is now close to finishing AAR 4 and reading chapter books for pleasure in her free time!

Sarah,
It is okay! In fact, it is the best way to teach as it individualizes instruction to your unique student. If you keep the goal in mind, that is that your student learns to read fluently and easily with great comprehension, then making adaptations to help your student toward that goal is beneficial.

However, if you wonder if what you are considering doing may not be beneficial, just ask! We are available on the blog here, on Facebook, through email at support@allaboutlearningpress.com, and by phone at 715-477-1976.

Tara,
Have you tried buddy reading with your child? My daughter struggled a lot because of the effort to decode the stories, but buddy reading helped her both to get through the stories more easily and to build her fluency so that her ability to read smoothly increased. On the first day of a story, she read one page and I read the next until we finished the story. The next day, I would read the pages she read the day before and she read the pages I had read. On the final day, the story was familiar enough and her practice with the words allowed her to read the story herself with a fair amount of fluency. In addition, buddy reading made reading a social and together activity that was more fun.

You can also do a variation of buddy reading called “echo reading.” You read a few sentences with full expression, and then your child reads the same sentences, matching your expression as closely as possible. Do this for approximately five minutes a day, or whatever is a comfortable length of time for your child. Add in lots of praise when your child shows even a bit of improvement.

Lastly, you may find this blog post on ways to keep lessons motivating helpful.

Please let us know how things go, especially if you try these ideas and find she is still resistant to rereading.

Kara,
I’m sorry to hear your older child struggled so. If you ever have any questions or concerns with your youngest child, please just ask. We want to help you help your child succeed with reading!

Elena,
Yes, rereading a story or practice page multiple times is very effective, especially for children that struggle to read smoothly and fluently.

Kelli,
Barton and All About Reading and All About Spelling are all based on the Orton-Gillingham approach, which is a proven approach for helping students with dyslexia and other reading struggles. Marie Rippel, the creator of All About Reading and All About Spelling, is a member of the International Dyslexia Association and has instructed graduate-level courses in Orton-Gillingham Literacy Training offered through Nicolet College in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. She is also a member of Pro Literacy, has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Literary Task Force in Wisconsin, and tutored students for more than 20 years. Marie’s son is severely dyslexic, and being told by experts that he would never learn to read led directly to her creating the programs. You can see a short video about her son’s story here.

So, the programs do have similarities.

An important difference with our programs is that reading and spelling are independent of each other so students can move as quickly or as slowly as they need to with each skill. Students generally move ahead more quickly in reading, and we don’t want to hold them back with the spelling. They will still get all the reinforcement of learning the spelling rules, but they don’t have to wait for mastery in spelling before moving on in reading. For more information, check out this article on Why We Teach Reading and Spelling Separately.

Another difference is with AAR and AAS, parents don’t have to go through a seminar or watch training videos to learn how to teach the programs. Everything you need is right there in the book as you go through the lesson, so it’s very open and go.

The rules in AAR and AAS are worded so they are as easy for children to remember as possible, and we include fully illustrated kid-friendly readers. We took care to make sure that the illustrations don’t give away the words though, so students still have to sound out what they are reading.

We recommend working for just 20 minutes a day with AAR, and another 20 minutes per day for AAS. We find that short lessons every day are very effective for long-term retention.

Here are some specific ways that All About Reading and All About Spelling can help kids with learning difficulties:

– Each lesson time is simple and explicit and will include 3 simple steps: the review of what was learned the day before, a simple new teaching, and a short practice of that new teaching.

– Incremental lessons. AAR and AAS break every teaching down into its most basic steps and then teach the lessons in a logical order, carrying students from one concept or skill to the next. Each step builds on what the student has already mastered.

– AAR and AAS are multisensory. Research has shown that when a child is taught through all three pathways at the same time, a method known as simultaneous multisensory instruction, he will learn significantly more than when taught only through his strongest pathway.

– AAR and AAS use specially color-coded letter tiles. Working with the letter tiles can make the difference between understanding or not understanding a concept.

– AAR and AAS are scripted so you can concentrate on your child. The script is very clear, without excess verbiage.

– AAR and AAS have built-in review in every lesson. Children with learning difficulties generally need lots of review in order to retain concepts. With AAR and AAS, your child will have a Review Box so you can customize the review. This way, you can concentrate on just the things that your child needs help with, with no time wasted on reviewing things that your child already knows.

– All About Reading has lots of fluency practice. One of the things that Marie noticed when she was researching reading programs is that few programs have enough review built in for kids who struggle to gain fluency. AAR has practice fluency sheets or a story to be read with every lesson, so children can practice reading smoothly with expression and confidence.

– All About Spelling has a gradual progression for increasing the student’s stamina and fluency in writing, from words and short phrases in Level 1, to phrases and short sentences in Level 2, to 12 dictation sentences per step in Level 3. Partway through Level 3, the Writing Station activity is introduced. In this exercise, students write sentences of their own that they make up using some of their spelling words. In this way students have begun to use words in a more real-world context through dictation and writing, to help them transition to longer writing assignments.

All About Reading and All About Spelling have a one-year guarantee. You can try them, and if for any reason you feel that they aren’t the right match for your child, return them for a full refund.

I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have additional questions.

Pam,
I have found asking my daughter to “touch the vowel” when she misreads them is very helpful. Asking her to touch the letter, even when printed on the page, forces her to slow down and focus. Anyway, you may try that with your daughter. If she continues to have difficulties or if you have questions, let us know.

Julie,
The stories are hugely motivating for many students! I love that he is so happy to read them twice. It shows his confidence and enthusiasm and rereading the stories also is a great way to build fluency, expression, and ease of reading.

Thank you, Crystal!