TOS Review: All About Spelling

All About Spelling is a complete spelling program from beginning non-reader to high school level. When complete, there will be 6 levels of the program. Currently there are 4 levels available with a new level planned each year. All About Spelling uses Orton Gillingham Approach to teaching spelling. This program works well with non-readers to children needing remedial spelling help, to everyone in between. The program is not dumbed down, so an older learner or even adult will not feel "babied."

What is Orton Gillingham Approach and why is is more superior method of teaching spelling? Here is info from the website (click here):

Multisensory—it is visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Students learn best when we teach using all the available pathways to the brain: seeing, hearing, saying, and writing.
Sequential—students are taught concepts in a logical sequence.
Incremental—each lesson carefully builds upon the previous lesson. Lessons progress from simple to more complex.
Cumulative—the method integrates constant review of previously-taught concepts.
Individualized—to meet the unique needs of each student.
Based on phonograms
Explicit—the student is taught what he needs to know in a direct manner.

You can learn more info about Samuel T. Orton on the All About Spelling Website or at Wikipedia.

The components of the program consist of for each level:

Teacher Guide Book for each level. A necessary component of the program. Tells you want to do with each lesson. No prior knowledge needed. Read through the introduction and some helps and your on to lesson one. Each lesson spells out specifically what to do with each lesson. What is new and what is review. More on this later...

Activity Material Packet for each level - includes Phonogram Cards (for visual and verbal review) used for each level, Sound Cards (aural and tactile review), Key Cards (reinforce new concepts), and Word Cards (aural, verbal, and tactile review.) Plus some additional items depending on the level.
Duplicates only needed if more then one student will be working on a level at one time. However, when I was doing level two, I had to use the phonogram cards for review from the level one. So if you begin after level one, you may need to purchase additional phonogram cards.

***Your initial purchase of the All About Spelling Set for each level includes the Teacher Guide and the Activity Materials Packet.***

Spelling Tiles - A necessary component of the program. The tiles of each phonogram are color coded to help them learn the phonograms faster. Also available, to purchase separately, are magnets to put on the spelling tiles to help them to stick to a magnetic board (store bought or home made.) The magnets help anchor the tiles to the board when working and are a helpful addition.

Also of help, but not necessarily required, but highly recommended:

Phonogram Audio CD-Rom - Consist of a screen with all the phonograms listed in their proper colors. When you click on them they say their name(s). I was pleasantly surprised with this simple tool. I left it up on the computer and they would stop by several times a day and just sit and listen and say the sounds. My older children got in on it also. This was a great help in them mastering their phonograms.

Also available as an optional purchase is Phonogram Bingo to review phonograms and Phonogram File Folder Games to review Phonogram Cards, Sound Cards, Key Cards, and Rule Cards. This are available in PDF format for immediate download after purchase.

Set up for the program consisted of cutting up the phonogram tiles and the activity cards. Then we set up the Spelling Review Box.

Next, you need to learn the phonograms. Having used a similar program in the past, I was familiar with the phonogram as was my son, who I am working through the program. But if you don't know the first 26 phonograms you need to learn them before starting step one, where you will introduce these. You will learn all the sounds a phonogram makes right from the beginning (c makes /k/ and /s/ sounds.)

Then we learned how to set up the Letter Tiles for the lessons. We only put down the initial letters A to Z in step 3. I like this exercise and have my son set up the tiles for each lesson to help him learn the letters and put them in alphabetical order. We use a homemade black board that we had painted with magnet paint before putting on the black board paint. As the program progresses you add more phonograms to the board when setting it up.

Having used a program similar to this before that required a lot of teacher preparation, I was pleasantly surprised at how user friendly this program is. Each step is specifically laid out so that after the initial prep work, you can just pick it up each day and use it.

A basic lesson (or step) would go like this:

-Review of Phonogram Cards, Sound Cards, Key Cards and Word Cards.

-New Teaching: Here new information is taught and what you need to say is written out for you and also explained. There are often extra teacher helps to help you with new concepts.

-The child spells a list of words from tiles, then on paper. More words are available for reinforcement for each step.

-Words taught follow a similar pattern. For instance short "a" words are taught together in one lesson (at, bag, hat, map, etc.) In another lesson later on, plurals are taught in one step. You can spend more time on a step as needed for your child to master the topic, but they also will be reviewing the material at each step. At the start of each level the child is brought through a quick review of the previous level book.

-Then by the end of level one, the child will be dictated phrases, then on other levels sentences are dictated with each step.

-We filled in the honey comb spelling progress chart for each step as we completed it. Which we kept hung up on the wall.

I did email the author and asked about what they use to teach reading. She explained that is program was exactly what she used to teach reading. It is not called a reading program because of the lack of reading material. However, they are in the process of developing these. After spelling the words, I would have my child read me the word cards. We also used McGuffey's Readers to supplement this program for the reading aspect and he did well.

Like I said previously, I enjoyed the fact that I did not have to take a class, watch a video, or read an entire book before being able to begin with my child. Everything you need to do with each step is spelled out completely for you, no guessing or worrying you forgot something. The steps are incremental and I could see progress and a smile on my son's face as he got each lesson. It made more sense to do each lesson on the same theme then isolated words with different rules you needed to mark. Review of the rules is built into the program on the key cards. You just need review the rules already covered.

We hope to continue to use this program all the way through and look forward to the next levels as they come out. This is the best, most complete and easiest spelling programs we have used!

You can find tons of information, articles, and spelling helps at the All About Spelling website regardless of what spelling curriculum you use. They also offer free weekly spelling tips sent to your email box. Plus you can get a free report "20 Best Tips for Teaching Spelling" when you sign up for the spelling tips.

TOS Review: Puppetools

If you have an interest in puppets, whether for yourself or church group, you can get a ton of information on the "science of puppets" and imaginative play with children at http://www.puppetools.com/index.php. The author had put in hours of videos, patterns, and other things to get you and your child thinking about how to have a ball with puppets.

Basically you learn a basic puppet paper fold then children are encouraged to come up with there own ideas to make puppets. There are patterns there as well for those of us born without a creative gene. You can use these ideas for supplementing your curriculum by acting out a story or re-telling a history lesson. The uses are endless.

There is a 60 day trial available for $20, which should suffice most families, however the author of the website states he plans on offering an "individual" membership for $20 a year. That has not as of yet made it to the website, so you may have to email them for more information.

This website includes tons of research done over time by its' author. He definitely has a passion for this tool. His enthusiasm just bubbles over throughout.

TOS Review: Aleks

Aleks is a complete online web-based math curriculum for grades 3 though high school. Aleks' website calls itself "an artificially intelligent assessment and learning system." There are basic math, middle school math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics, business math, accounting and more available. There are no textbooks. Everything you need, including the calculator is available online. You do need to have pencil and paper handy for basic math work when you can't use an available tool.

Aleks is different then other online/computer curriculums that I have seen, in that they don't use grades. You take an initial assessment for the program you are signed up with to see what you don't know and what you do know. To picture how this works: You are given a circle pie which basically represents your brain or your knowledge in an area. The areas you know are colored in. The object is to learn the things you don't know to completely fill in the circle. You are not given grades, since knowledge /mastery is more important then an actually letter grade. The lessons only stress areas you need to work on to fill in your pie. It is a very custom program.

Also, I noted in the program is a build in "frustration preventer" (for lack of a better way to state it.) When you get stuck on something, it tries to explain it several times, then goes onto other topics you need to work on. You can stop a lesson at anytime and it automatically picks up where you left off next time. Reports are emailed to the parent weekly to see how the child is doing. You can also access assessment information anytime on the website.

Aleks is easily accessible to any computer with Internet access, 24/7. The curriculum is individualized, so you know always what areas your child is weak in or excels in. Aleks makes a great supplement or even a stand alone math curriculum, depending on what you are looking for. Price per month is $19.95 month. $99.95 for 6 months and $179.95 for 12 months subscription. Family plans are also available. The lessons I did are straight forward teach and learn. I did not see any games. There are no multiple choice questions, so there is no guessing allowed!

TOS Review: Core Learning

Core Learning is a publisher of software, books, multi-curricular projects and on-line learning applications. The products they sell seemed to be geared to the educator both at home and at school. The programs seem to be secular but did not see anything offensive in what I viewed.




For Math I previewed a demo lesson on fraction and factors. It sounded I like I had a sweet older teacher reading me information on the screen. The explanations were detailed with plenty of examples. There are no bells and whistles with this program. It is straight forward teaching and learning and quizzing.

For English Grammar II demo, I previewed a lesson on adjectives. It was very detailed with great explanations. At the end was a opportunity to print out worksheets on the topic and to complete a quiz. This is straight forward teaching and testing. Little bells and whistles. I did not notice any games.






For the above two programs there is a teacher chart which tells you time spent on the lesson, how they did on the lesson, and the ability to preview the actual quiz taken.


Also available for math is a series on Calculation Skills, Math Skills Builder and 4 math courses (decimals, geometry, measurement besides the fraction one above.) For English there is level I and level II.

I did enjoy both the math and the English grammar demos. They both taught with great detail and had excellent examples. I even learned I am not suppose to say "beautifulest", but rather "more beautiful" or "most beautiful."

From the Health Series Demo I previewed the human body we watched a few short videos that went through the parts of the mouth: the teeth, tongue, epiglottis, etc. These videos tend to remind me of "Magic School Bus" type. There are interactive quizzes that go along with the video segments. There is also a section on explore the body that has go through different systems of the body. This section is not a video but it is point, click and read. For example for the digestive system you click on the different sections as the boy swallows the food. There are clickable pronunciations of the parts of the digestive system. But the rest of the information is read by the student. The pronunciations are English (UK). They are definitely written from a modern kids perspective with common slang words for bodily functions. There are two main series available for health: Family Health Series and Health for Kids Series.

We also reviewed Crayola Art Studio. After installing it and watching a short online video we were anxious to see what we could do. You are given a blank screen to work with and the option to use 12 different mediums such as paint, pastels, crayon, and markers. There are special effects and "stamps" you can also add to your picture in several topics (animals, make a face, backgrounds, shapes, etc.) I guess with a little practice we will be able to make invitations, decorations, and greeting cards.





To say the children fought over the computer to play this was an understatement. They played this until bedtime then when they got up in the morning they started over again. They enjoyed making all kinds of pictures (we didn't save but a few.) From drawings to picture scenes they had a ton of fun with this. One of the boys commented, "I can paint with no mess!"





Here are a few of our pictures (you can save them in several different formats):

They also have a more advanced art program, Corefx- Three Level, with pictures and animation. There are add-ons for it and an activity guide to give you more details on how to animate your pictures with it.

You can find demos of some of the products by visiting their website at:

http://www.core-learning.com/