All About Reading Review: Is This Phonics Program Right for Your Homeschool?

A Structured, Multisensory Phonics Program Built for Parent-Led Instruction

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Continue reading to learn more about All About Reading.

What Is All About Reading?

All About Reading is an Orton-Gillingham-based phonics program developed by Marie Rippel and published by All About Learning Press. Rippel created the program after working to help her own dyslexic son learn to read, and that origin shapes the program’s approach throughout. It is designed for parent-led instruction in a homeschool setting and is consistently ranked among the most recommended phonics curricula in homeschool communities.

The program spans five levels: a Pre-Reading program for preschool readiness and Levels 1 through 4, covering phonics instruction from foundational letter-sound knowledge through roughly fourth-grade decoding. Because the program is mastery-based, it also works for struggling readers of any age who need to fill significant decoding gaps, not only young children beginning their reading journey.

All About Reading covers all five components of reading instruction identified by the National Reading Panel: phonological awareness, phonics and decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Each level includes a scripted teacher’s guide, a student activity book, coordinated decodable readers, and color-coded letter tiles used for hands-on word building throughout instruction.

Each level is sold separately. According to the Cathy Duffy Homeschool Curriculum Reviews, the Pre-Reading level is priced at $119.95, and Levels 1 through 4 are $159.95 each. The letter tiles set is a one-time household purchase used across all levels of both All About Reading and its companion program All About Spelling. All About Reading does not include spelling instruction, which families typically add through All About Spelling as a separate purchase.

Is All About Reading Easy to Use?

The following factors impact the overall usability of All About Reading.

Open and Go Design

All About Reading is widely described by homeschool families as one of the most parent-friendly structured literacy programs available. The teacher’s guide is fully scripted, with explicit lesson language written out so that parents who have no background in phonics or reading instruction can deliver lessons accurately from the first day. No training is required and no certification is needed.

Lessons follow a consistent four-part structure: review of previously taught concepts, new teaching with multisensory activities, reading practice in the decodable readers, and a daily read-aloud component. That consistent format means children know what to expect and parents know how to proceed without preparation between sessions. The scripted lesson plans are illustrated and include teaching tips throughout, making it straightforward for inexperienced parents to present lessons with little or no prep time.

A free online placement test is available through the All About Learning Press website to help families determine the appropriate starting level. This is a practical feature for families adopting the program mid-curriculum or for older students catching up.

Physical Materials and Setup

All About Reading is a physical program. Each level requires the teacher’s guide, student activity book, decodable readers, and letter tiles. The teacher’s manual and readers are non-consumable and reusable across multiple children. The student activity book is consumable, though some families laminate pages or save activities in binders to extend use.

Some initial setup is required before beginning each level. Parents typically sort letter tiles by group, separate perforated phonogram and word cards for storage, and organize materials for daily lessons. Experienced users in the r/homeschool community note that a standard Level 1 materials kit includes the teacher’s manual, student packet, activity book, and readers. The letter tiles and reading review box are additional purchases, though the tiles are a one-time investment for all four levels.

Lesson Length and Flexibility

Recommended lesson length is approximately 20 minutes for younger children. Pacing is fully flexible and parent-controlled. Families can move as slowly or as quickly as their child’s mastery allows. Importantly, one lesson does not necessarily equal one day. Experienced users in the homeschool community consistently note that many lessons require two to four sessions to complete well, and that rushing through lessons to maintain a pace undermines the program’s mastery-based design.

What the Program Does Not Include

All About Reading has no app and no digital student component, though a letter tiles app is available for families who prefer digital over physical tiles. The program is not suitable for independent student use. It requires an engaged adult to deliver every lesson.

Engagement in All About Reading

The following factors influence how young learners experience All About Reading.

Multisensory Activities

All About Reading integrates visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning channels in every lesson, reflecting its Orton-Gillingham foundation. Letter tiles give children a tactile, manipulable tool for building and analyzing words. Activity sheets, word cards, and phonogram cards provide varied practice formats. The student activity books include short reading games. For example, Lesson 3 of Level 1 features a Feed the Monster activity where children read words and feed them to a monster character. These game elements give lessons a playful quality that breaks up the card and fluency work.

The Decodable Readers

The hardcover decodable readers are consistently praised as a standout feature. Cathy Duffy describes them as beautifully illustrated books that could stand on their own, with finely detailed full-color drawings. Parents in homeschool communities report that children are motivated to keep reading because of the illustrations and storylines, which is meaningful for children who have previously experienced frustration with reading.

Honest Feedback From Families

The homeschool community’s experience with All About Reading is enthusiastic but not without nuance. In the r/homeschool community, families describe the fluency word sheets and growing flashcard decks as the most challenging aspect of sustaining daily lessons. Parents who found success adapted the program by splitting longer lessons across multiple days, playing games with the word sheets, using timers, or incorporating physical movement with the flashcards rather than treating them as rote drill. The program’s mastery-based structure means some children move quickly through early levels while others need considerably more time, and both outcomes are by design.

Many families of children with dyslexia, ADHD, and autism describe positive experiences with the program, citing the multisensory approach, hands-on activities, and scripted delivery as features that made it accessible where others had not worked.

Literacy Learning With All About Reading

The following factors impact the quality of literacy instruction in All About Reading.

Orton-Gillingham Foundation

All About Reading is built on Orton-Gillingham principles, the same research-backed framework that underpins Wilson Reading System, Barton Reading and Spelling, and other structured literacy interventions. The approach is explicitly multisensory, systematic, and cumulative, meaning each new concept builds directly on what was taught before and review is built into every lesson.

The program uses synthetic phonics as its primary decoding method, teaching individual phoneme-grapheme correspondences and explicitly instructing children to blend those sounds from left to right to read words. The National Reading Panel established that systematic and explicit phonics instruction produces significantly stronger reading outcomes than implicit or incidental approaches, and synthetic phonics produces the strongest results within that category.

Scope and Sequence

Level 1 introduces short and long vowels, consonant digraphs, sight words, and compound words. Level 2 adds twelve new phonograms including the jobs of silent e and introduces syllable division as a decoding strategy. Level 3 covers 17 new phonograms, syllable types, suffixes, prefixes, and figurative language. Level 4 addresses advanced suffixes, 15 new phonograms, word morphology, and words with influence from Greek, Spanish, French, and Italian. High-frequency words that do not follow regular phonics patterns are introduced alongside phonics lessons as explicitly irregular words rather than as a separate memorization list.

Decodable Readers

Each level’s decodable readers contain only the phonics patterns taught up to that point in the sequence. Children are never asked to read words containing patterns they have not been explicitly taught, which protects against guessing and reinforces the connection between phonics instruction and reading practice.

The Evidence Gap

All About Reading does not appear in the Evidence for ESSA database and has not been reviewed by the What Works Clearinghouse. This is not unusual for homeschool-focused programs, which are rarely submitted for the large-scale independent efficacy studies those databases require. What the evidence does support is the broader Orton-Gillingham approach and the synthetic phonics methods the program is built on. Families should understand that confidence in All About Reading rests on the evidence for its underlying methodology and on the extensive practitioner experience reported across the homeschool community, rather than on program-specific independent research.

What All About Reading Does Not Cover

All About Reading is a reading program only. It does not include spelling instruction, writing, grammar, or broader language arts. All About Learning Press publishes All About Spelling as a companion program built on the same letter tiles and scope and sequence, which many families use alongside All About Reading.

Is All About Reading a Good Literacy Program?

All About Reading is a well-regarded homeschool phonics program with genuine strengths in instructional design and usability. The scripted open-and-go format removes barriers for parents without a teaching background, and the Orton-Gillingham foundation gives the program a research-backed methodology. The mastery-based pacing and reusable materials make it a practical long-term investment for families teaching multiple children.

That said, it is not the right fit for every learner or every family. Some children find the fluency sheets and growing flashcard decks tedious, and parents who treat one lesson as one day often report frustration. The program works best when paced flexibly and supplemented with games and varied practice, which requires consistent parental involvement and some creativity in delivery.

Cathy Duffy includes All About Reading in her 103 Top Picks list and describes it as a very reasonably priced option for an interactive, multisensory program. That reflects one widely respected reviewer’s assessment, and it aligns with what many homeschool families report. Others in the community have switched away from the program after finding it did not suit their child’s pace or learning style, which is worth acknowledging as well.

The per-level cost of $159.95 is a real consideration for families on tight budgets. The reusability of the non-consumable materials across multiple children helps offset this over time. Families can also purchase levels individually as they are ready rather than buying the full program upfront, and used copies frequently appear on Facebook Marketplace and eBay at significantly reduced prices.

The absence of an independent evidence base specific to the program is worth acknowledging honestly. Families making this choice are placing confidence in a well-established instructional approach with strong practitioner endorsement rather than program-level efficacy data.

All About Reading is particularly well-suited for homeschool families new to phonics instruction who want a complete scripted program, children who have not responded to other reading curricula, students with dyslexia or language-based learning differences who need explicit multisensory instruction, and families planning to teach multiple children over several years using reusable materials. It is less suited to families seeking a fully digital program, children who need independent screen-based practice, or families looking for a complete language arts curriculum in a single purchase.

For more on evidence-based phonics programs, structured literacy approaches, and how to evaluate reading curricula for your child, visit Phonics.org for regularly updated reviews and research-grounded guidance.