What’s the Difference Between AAR & AAS?

One of our most frequently asked questions is “Do I need both All About Reading and All About Spelling or can I choose just one of these programs to teach both subjects?”

That’s a great question!

Read on to find out how the two programs are similar and how they are different, and then download sample lessons to help you decide.

How the Two Programs are Similar

This graphic shows the ways that All About Reading and All About Spelling are alike. The two programs complement each other in many ways, and the skills learned in one program are reinforced in the other program.

Additionally both programs are presented with our signature step-by-step lesson plans, making reading and spelling easy for you to teach.

How the Two Programs Are Different

We intentionally split reading and spelling into two programs because they each have their own ideal teaching sequence and teaching methods. In order to help your child master each subject, we teach them independently from each other. And by teaching reading and spelling separately, you can progress at your student’s pace until both skills are mastered. Students can move as quickly or as slowly as they need to with each skill.

There are significant differences in the skills that are taught in All About Reading and All About Spelling. Take a look at the graphic below to see those differences.

An important distinction is that All About Reading teaches decoding with the end goal of comprehension, while All About Spelling teaches encoding with the goal of writing thoughts on paper.

Take a Look Inside Two Actual Lessons

Let’s take a look at the lessons that teach the letter combination KN (which says /n/ as in knight).

All About Reading Level 3, Lessons 45 and 46

In these reading lessons, students will learn to decode words containing phonogram KN, such as knight, knock, and knot. The lessons guide you in presenting vocabulary, comprehension skills, and fluency practice, all while completing interesting activities like “Mush” and “Who’s in the Castle?” The lessons are reinforced with the engaging short story “Cedric the Brave Knight.”

All About Spelling Level 4, Step 13

Now let’s look at how KN is taught from the spelling perspective. In this lesson, students learn how to spell words such as know, knee, knot, and knife. They learn that KN is only used at the beginning of a base word, and they learn common homophone pairs such as knight and night. Students write sentences from dictation and compose original sentences using the Writing Station prompts.

As you can see from the lessons, there’s a big difference in the approach to reading and spelling, even though they share the same phonetic code.

Do you have any other questions about the differences between AAR and AAS?