We recently had the chance to review ABeCeDarian Company.
Our family had the chance to review the ABeCeDarian Reading Program.
What is ABeCeDarian Reading Program? They are a research based, comprehensive, multi-sensory decoding program. They focus on phonemics awareness, fluency and phonics. They offer 4 levels.
- Level A: For the nonreaders or beginning readers.
- Level B: For students reading at mid 1st - 2nd grade level
- Level C: For students at the 3rd - 4th grade level
- Level D: For students at the 5th - 6th grade level
Our schoolhouse Review crew team has been given the opportunity to review levels A and B.
Up front, I want to note: It is extremely important for those who are interested in using this material, that you read ALL of the information noted within the teachers booklet before beginning your lesson with your child. There are 4 main sections to read before you begin.
- Understanding the Task
- The Activities in ABeCeDarian
- Key Features of ABeCeDarian
- Getting Ready to Teach ABeCeDarian
After you read these important sections then you will be ready to begin your first lesson with your child. Truthfully there is a lot you need to read before using this program with your child. It is extremely important and useful information to help equip you with the tools you will need when you begin teaching this program to your child.
A Fun Fact For You Today:
This is just a neat little piece of information that I totally never knew, dont ask me why...
ABeCeDarian (adj.) and it means 1.) One who teaches or studies the alphabet, 2.) One who is just learning, a beginner.
- of or pertaining to the alphabet.
- arranged in alphabetical order.
- rudimentary; elementary; primary
Thought I would share that piece of information with you, just for fun. --->> :-p
For this review we received the following:
Ahead of time, I just want to note: Over at ABeCeDarian , they offer everyone Free Supplements to help you through out the program. Thats super right!
Teacher Manual A1 - We received a softcover spiral book. You can purchase for $28.50
Student Workbook A1 - We received a softcover spiral book You can purchase for $12.25
We received a set of 10 softcover books. You can purchase set of 10 storybook, softcover readers for $21.50
We also received the Aesop softcover booklet with 11 fables. You can also purchase this for $2.50.
About our review time:
We have been reviewing level A in our household. When we first got this, I quickly zipped through it to see what I was getting myself in to. Lol. It's all good tho.. I was not quite concerned about anything other then all the reading I was going to have to do up front. (Tip) In a rather large household, I have very little time to spend on reading a lot of material like this. What little time I get is in my alone time usually in the weee hours of the am. But I managed to get this in, little by little. Whew! Im not gonna pretend like I could do that again. I honestly could do with out so much reading ahead of time. But I know that is was useful for making this program work like it should.
Level A lessons work on sound blending, spelling, letter and sound correspondences. We started this curriculum from the beginning and we are still moving forward on this journey. It has been really good thus far. I like that my younger kiddo's are reading and my middle kiddo is reading a lot better.
The teacher's booklet offers you step by step instructions for each lesson --> Super plus. There is a lot of detail and how to's in each step we covered. Everything is all set up for you, all you have to do is follow it. If you find your child may be struggling with one of there ways, you can always re-word it for them so that they understand it. We worked this program 4 days a week for 30 minutes. If there was a need for one on one, I would improvise that and make sure that each of my 3 understood what they needed before moving on to their next lesson. We are able to stick together for the most part which was super. I did have a few areas where I had to spend extra time with my youngest, which was really no problem.
In my opinion: The only thing I really did not like about this program, there is a lot of reading up front. I managed to do it because this is a review that I am doing and my honest opinion is needed. But as I mentioned with a larger household and constantly on the go, I have very little time to cover such a large amount of information. It would be nice to have a brief amount of information disclosed for this program. But I understand a lot of it is helpful and necessary to begin the program.
There is one question I would ask anyone that is interested in this program or any reading program: What are you looking for in a reading program? If you are looking for visual preferences like pictures and words together. Your not going to find that here. While this program is a great reading program, it does not offer or focus on the pictures. Honestly, I believe it is so much better with out the pictures because sometimes kids will get hooked on the pictures vs the word when they learn to read only by recognizing the pictures.
For instance, when a child is reading a picture book that may or may not have the word underneath it, they will associate the picture over the word. For instance, look at the picture I added to the side. Here is a picture of a "dad" and the word is noted below it. Some kids will pay attention to the picture and the word while other kids may replace the word with just the picture and they will say, I can read -- But only because they know what the picture is, they do not know or recognize the word. (Make sense?) With this program, it eliminates the pictures and helps each child learn to read the words. So if we held up the letters D - A - D then they would be able to recognize each letter, the sound they make and begin to form the word DAD. (I hope this makes sense.)
Other great benefits: Spiral Binding! Need I say more... LOL! Most workbooks are a pain in the butt because they wont stay open. This baby rocks with spiral binding. :) The lessons are pretty easy, they are not lengthy and your not spending a lot of time on them. There are a variety of activities and at the end of each lesson is a unit check out which helps you determine if your child should continue on or stay with this lesson a little longer. I like that they have a section in the teachers booklet that shows the parents/teacher(s) how to help our children correct their errors. That is a huge benefit in my book for this program.
(I) as the parent and WE really like this program. I believe we really are getting somewhere finally, thanks to this program. Whew! I am considering looking at the next levels for coming year already. Haha. I would recommend using this material for your reading time.
Do you want to see what my fellow crew mates are saying about this program? Have you used this program before? I would like to hear your thoughts on this program. You can leave your comments below.
Read what others are saying about the ABeCeDarian Reading Program by clicking the attached schoolhouse review crew link.
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