Homeschool Reading/Phonics Program Comparison II All About Reading vs Logic of English Foundations

What is the best reading program for your child? There are so many good ones available, in today's video I will be comparing my experience with Logic of English as well as All About Reading. Have you used either of these programs?

Other homeschooling videos you might like:

____________________________________________________________________________________
Hi! I’m Angie. I’m a homeschooling mom to 4 amazing kiddos (7, 5, 3, and 3 years old). On this channel I enjoy sharing our homeschooling journey as well as my serious love for all the books! You can expect videos on homeschooling curriculum, schedules, and tips/tricks as well as book reviews, wrap-ups, and book hauls. Excited to have you following along!!

NOTE: Some of the links above may be affiliate links. If you purchase through the link that I have provided, I may receive a small commission. There will not be an additional charge to you, I appreciate your support!

Where to find me!

[gardenia]

This video brought back such warm and fuzzy memories for me. My son attended public school until I pulled him in sixth grade, but I used both LOE and AAR with my son, starting in Kindergarten, because I didn't like the whole language approach being used at his school. I love them both. Eventually, I dropped LOE and finished with AAR simply because I was afterschooling my son and it became too difficult to tease out the reading lessons in LOE. Mt son is about to turn 13 and still talks about memories from these programs. 💜

[brittanyshaffer]

Thank you for this! I watched it when choosing LOE, now I’m back again in a similar position with my son after completing LOE B. Thank you so much for your content! You are my go to!

[OdetoAbode]

I debated between these two for weeks. Finally landed on AAR because I prefer to use lots of resources for ELA and it made more sense for us to really get reading down on it's own. My 7yo is currently flying through L1, mostly for review and to build her confidence back up. Love it so far!

[WhimsicalFamilyLife]

Thank you for sharing this, I particularly appreciated hearing your experience (and your sons:). I made the mistake at the beginning of using too many worksheets, etc and my daughter started to resist it all. I backed off totally for a year and just read a ton to her & introduced audiobooks. We started using Hooked on Phonics last year, added in Hooked on Spelling this year. I was feeling nervous, despite what others said, about where we were at. But, it was the best decision. CONFIDENCE is THE most important element I have found. There has been a huge shift in terms of learning fast in the past couple months. She will be totally on par by the end of our school season (PLUS, she loves books & reading:)

[capturinglifeinprogress]

I have to say that I'm so thankful that you did this video. I watched your math comparison and you were the one who sold me on Dimensions Math. We're using it and loving it! I tried to start my daughter with Logic of English, which I love, but she's just not going for it. Part of it is that she is a perfectionist and doesn't like making mistakes, so she refuses to answer something if she's not 100% sure of the answer. Another thing is that she's a visual learner, and having me just say sounds to her was not very appealing. She did well on the first few lessons, but didn't seem to enjoy it. Another problem is that her younger sister tries to be part of it and answer the questions, which is fine by me, but my daughter gets distracted by that and ends up wanting to be done with school so she can go play. Because of all of that and me being pregnant then and now dealing with a newborn, I've ended up putting it aside and deciding we'd pick back up in the fall, after she turns 5. What bothers me is that she's eager to learn to read and already started reading a few cvc words. I've been thinking about trying AAR, but I already bought the first 3 levels of LOE (that's how in love with it I was) and it's hard to make the decision to invest in a different program without knowing if my kid would even be into it. My question is: which program do you feel like would allow her to start reading faster? She already knows most of the single letter phonograms (she loves the Doodling Dragons songs) and has started trying to sound out a few words and recognize familiar ones. Should I just try LOE again? Would AAR introduce reading faster, since it's a reading-only program?

[olgazavor]

Thank you so much for for this review! I’ve never tried AAR, but it was good to hear your perspective on it. I am using LOE with 2 of my boys, my 8 year old finishing level D and my 6 year old finishing level C. It works great for our family, I love that it’s all in 1 program and everything in a lesson is connected.

[melodychan]

We decided to go with All about Reading! I was thinking of options on how to store the activity book pages (I don’t make my daughter glue or write on them, so totally reusable). Love the binder and sheet protector idea, so I put one together tonight! Thanks!

[Julie-fpbn]

I am using AAR for my kindergartner and second grader, levels 1 and 3! I didn't start Level one until a few months ago and my daughter is progressing and loves the readers. My son seems to fly through the warm ups and activities, but he still needs to work on his fluency and the level 2 readers help a lot with that. My sister is a former second grade teacher and she said that can be very normal for boys at that age, so I'm so happy the readers are my kids' favorite things to do in homeschool. Great video!

[estherbouchillon]

We use Logic of English Foundations and have only 2 lessons left in foundations D. The end of Foundations B has a focus on high frequency words. We actually ended up repeating those end of B lessons before moving on to C when I realized she needed more help with fluency. We used some other games with the High Frequency Words cause I got tired of playing fox in the hen house so much. :-) But parking it on those lessons at the end of B for a while really made a huge difference in her success in C. We have a had a wonderful experience with LOE and the support you can get in the Facebook group is phenomenal.

[bethanyatkinson]

Thank you for being so thorough and systematic, I can tell you put thought into this. I need reviews like you in my journey, subscribed!

[kimthulin]

I used AAR 1 with my son and we took it really slow through the second half of the book. He didn’t like the fluency sheets. I would split up the words and even tried doing different games but it didn’t work. He enjoyed most of the stories. We finished AAR 1 and he was still struggling to read and didn’t have confidence. We just read a lot of books after that. Halfway through this year my friend suggested LOE. It was a program I had done some research about and we started it. I’m using it with my 8yr and 5 yr old. I love it. All the games are so fun and good for reinforcement. I do use AAS with my 8yr old and that is a great program too. He is becoming more confident and I don’t have a fight him to do his reading. The books in Level B are getting challenging for him but then we can just slow down or do shared reading. Both are great programs.

[emilykinison]

Had heard great things about LOE beforehand but decided it would work perfectly for my son after your video last year. My son is 5.5 and this is his “kindergarten” year, however he was ready for foundations. He could have started at B but I thought it best to set a good foundation starting with A. We went a bit faster through A then a solid lesson a day through B and C. We are about 10 lessons into D but only doing a half a lesson or so per day. We love it!! It is a good fit for both of our personalities, it has addressed so many questions and pain points I had with other programs, and I couldn’t have been happier with the program. I will say D seems like a bit of a step up from C. He’s doing well and loves it but it’s become a more technical than I expected (nouns, etc) and definitely NOT what I was doing at almost 6 😁

[SevenInAll]

I've never used either of these programs! Thanks for sharing your experience, they both look like really solid and thorough. Our family has used Sing, Spell, Read, and Write since the 90s....I suspect I'll use that with my sons just because my mom already has all the teacher's guide and games and such....AND because all the songs are stuck in my head.

[faithfullyinfertile]

Both of these are excellent programs and I have used both. I absolutely love LOE! We have found that the games & activities in LOE are way more fun and engaging than AAR. I LOVE the way LOE teaches phonics.

[extrae]

This was incredibly helpful. I am definitely leaning towards AAR because my son also had problems with a different reading program where once we advanced to a certain level he just struggled.

[meghanamidei]

This is such a great comparison video! I am so intrigued by LOE. I really don’t love AAR, so I will be tempted to try LOE next time I have a rising kindergartener. I really like that it’s complete.

[monikakamila]

I’m excited for the book club. Will get the book at the end of the month

[HarvestingFaith]

My daughter hates to sit for too long at a time but she is 6.5 and I feel like we are just now getting her letter sounds down. I'm a beginner homeschooler so I really struggle with worrying about 'falling behind' even though I know part of the beauty of homeschooling is going at your own pace. We started with TGATB but the lessons were quite long (again as a new homeschooler I started out without knowledge/confidence of breaking up lessons) and then it seemed to jump ahead too quickly for her which brought us to a halt for a bit. I'm really considering jumping into AAR and AAS. Thanks for the comparison review!

[Dreblueskies]

So happy to see this video pop up 🙌🙌

I think AAR sounds like a better program for us, thank you for this.

[kendraparks]

We use AAR1 with our grade 1 son and it is working really well for us. I looked at both and ultimately decided to focus on reading alone so we could move through reading & handwriting separately, as he needed. That has worked really well! Here in our province (in the public school my children used to attend) reading isn't started until grade 1, so he knew his letters from public school kindergarten, but hadn't had any reading instruction. I found AAR1 a perfect level of challenging enough but not frustrating for him.