All About Reading and Spelling: An Honest Review (2026)

Introduction

All About Reading and All About Spelling are two sister programs from All About Learning Press, a family-owned publisher founded by Marie Rippel. Rippel built the curriculum after her nine-year-old son was diagnosed with severe dyslexia and she trained in the Orton-Gillingham method to teach him herself (All About Learning Press, About page). That origin explains a lot about how the programs are shaped: they are explicit, sequential, and built to work for the child who does not learn to read by osmosis.

Among homeschool families, All About Reading is one of the most frequently recommended phonics programs, and it draws a particular kind of loyalty from parents of struggling readers. After a decade of trying most of the major reading curricula, one widely-viewed reviewer named it her top overall reading and phonics pick and described returning to it again and again (“Top Homeschool Pick! // All About Reading Review,” Angela Braniff (53K views)). The honest tension in the reviews is not about whether it works. It is about what it asks of the parent, and what it costs.

What it is

All About Reading is described by its publisher as a full-color, scripted, open-and-go program that uses research-based multisensory instruction (All About Reading, publisher page). Its method sits in the Orton-Gillingham tradition, the structured, multisensory phonics approach originally developed for readers with dyslexia. The publisher’s own page carries an endorsement from Susan Wise Bauer calling it “the most age-appropriate and parent-friendly Orton-Gillingham program on the market.” All About Spelling uses the same approach and the same color-coded letter tiles, so the two programs are designed to run alongside each other (All About Spelling, publisher page).

The reading sequence has five stages: a Pre-Reading level for preschoolers and kindergartners that builds letter knowledge, phonological awareness, print awareness, listening comprehension, and motivation to read, followed by Levels 1 through 4. The publisher states that after Level 4 a student has the skills to decode almost any word (All About Reading, publisher page). All About Spelling is a separate, seven-level program written for elementary and middle-school students, though the publisher notes it has been used by teens and adults as well.

How it teaches

A daily lesson pulls from several physical pieces: phonogram and word cards, magnetic letter tiles, an activity book, fluency practice sheets, and a set of decodable readers. The teacher’s manual is thick and completely scripted, walking the parent through exactly what to say and which piece to use at each step. A Level 1 reviewer described the lessons as scripted from start to finish, moving from cards to letter tiles to an activity page or a story, with comprehension questions built into the reading rather than left as an afterthought (“HONEST REVIEW of All About Reading Level 1,” The Nerdy Homeschooler (15K views)).

The pacing is mastery-based rather than calendar-based. The program is not laid out as a fixed set of weekly lessons a family must finish by a certain date. Instead, a child moves forward when a phonics skill is solid, which means a level might take less than a school year or more than one, depending on the reader (The Nerdy Homeschooler (15K views)). That design is a strength for a child who needs extra time on a hard concept, and it removes the pressure to keep pace with a schedule. It also means the parent, not a teacher’s guide calendar, decides when to move on.

What families praise

The most consistent praise is that it works for children who struggled elsewhere. One reviewer explained that she had hired a reading tutor for some of her children because fluency was not clicking, and that All About Reading was the program that finally addressed the jump from sounding out words to reading them smoothly (Angela Braniff (53K views)). Another family that used it for five years across three children framed it as a well-established program worth the money, and a third titled a full review around it being the best choice for a struggling reader (Life in the Mundane (41K views); Anna Bruce (14K views)).

Reviewers also like that the scripting removes prep once you are in the lesson, that the hands-on letter tiles keep young children engaged, and that a single purchase can be reused across siblings when the consumable pieces are re-bought. One long-term user walks through reusing the program by taking apart the student book, storing the reusable pieces in a binder, and only repurchasing the student materials for the next child (Life in the Mundane (41K views)). She also notes a small touch families enjoy: the company will draw custom art on the shipping box if a child requests it in the order notes. A separate one-year check-in review took up the plain question of whether the program actually delivers over a full year of use (“All About Reading Review, One Year Later, Does It Work?” This Homeschool House (7K views)).

What families criticize

The first and most repeated caution is that this is a teacher-intensive program. Every lesson is delivered by the parent, one-on-one, with the letter tiles and cards in hand. It is not a curriculum a child opens and completes alone, and families looking for independent work will not find it here. One reviewer was candid that teaching phonics this closely is, for her, “a little boring and a little slow,” and that a cooperative, typically-developing child would likely learn to read with any solid phonics program, so she did not experience All About Reading as uniquely transformative for her son (The Nerdy Homeschooler (15K views)). That is an important balance point: much of the strongest praise comes from families of struggling readers, and a family with an early natural reader may not see the same payoff.

The second common complaint is cost. All About Reading does not go on sale, so families used to seasonal discounts should not wait for one (Life in the Mundane (41K views)). The third is assembly and prep before the lessons begin: punching out and sorting the cards and tiles, taking the student book apart for reuse, and organizing the pieces takes time before day one. Some families weigh those factors and choose a barer, cheaper phonics path instead. A comparison review of two low-cost options, Alpha Phonics and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, is a useful window into that trade-off, and it is honest that even simple, inexpensive programs can bring tears when a parent pushes a child past readiness (“Alpha Phonics vs 100 Easy Lessons,” Homeschool With Plan Prep Pray (17K views)).

Who it fits, and who it does not

It fits well when a family wants a structured, open-and-go script and can commit to sitting with the child for a daily lesson. It is a strong candidate for a struggling or dyslexic reader, for a child who benefits from moving hands-on tiles, and for a household planning to teach several children over the years, since the reusable pieces spread the cost.

• Good fit: a struggling or dyslexic reader who needs explicit, multisensory, mastery-paced instruction.
• Good fit: a parent who wants a full script and does not want to assemble a phonics scope-and-sequence themselves.
• Weaker fit: a family that needs the child to work independently while the parent does something else.
• Weaker fit: a single-year, tight-budget purchase for one child, where the reuse savings never materialize.
• Weaker fit: a child who is already reading fluently and needs comprehension and literature more than decoding.

Cost and value

Pricing here is retrieved July 2026 from the publisher and applies to All About Reading Level 1. The complete materials kit lists at $159.95 and includes the Teacher’s Manual, the Student Packet, and three decodable readers. Bought separately, the Teacher’s Manual is $50.95 and the Student Packet is $67.95. The magnetic Letter Tiles are $25.95 as a one-time household purchase that serves All About Reading Levels 1 to 4 and All About Spelling Levels 1 to 7, and the Review Box is $17.95, a one-time per-student purchase (All About Reading Level 1, publisher pricing, retrieved July 2026).

The value case rests on reuse. Because only the Student Packet is consumable, a family teaching a second or third child re-buys roughly the packet rather than the whole kit, and the tiles are never re-purchased. That is why long-term users describe it as an investment that pays off across siblings rather than a one-year expense (Life in the Mundane (41K views)). Because the program is not discounted, some families also buy complete used sets, taking care to match editions so no pieces are missing; comparison shopping on the used and new listings at Amazon is one way to gauge current prices before committing. Every Homeschool classifies the publisher at a standard cost tier with a parent-intensity rating of 3 on its directory entry.

How it compares

Within the structured-phonics category, the usual comparisons are Logic of English Foundations, which folds reading, spelling, and handwriting into one integrated lesson, and the Barton Reading and Spelling System, a heavier and more expensive Orton-Gillingham program aimed squarely at significant dyslexia. All About Reading and Spelling sit between them: more thorough and more multisensory than a bare workbook like Alpha Phonics or Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and lighter on the wallet than Barton. Every Homeschool covers those trade-offs in depth in its dyslexia guide at /guides/homeschool-dyslexia-2026, and the broader field of first reading programs at /guides/teach-your-child-to-read-2026.

If the spelling side is the main question, the All About Spelling decision against Logic of English Essentials and other options is laid out in /guides/best-spelling-curriculum-2026. Families still deciding on a method more generally can start with /guides/how-to-choose-homeschool-curriculum-2026 or filter the full catalog by subject, worldview, and budget at /curriculum/find. The canonical publisher record, with the directory’s method, worldview, grade, and cost tags, lives at /directory/publishers/all-about-learning-press.

The bottom line

All About Reading and All About Spelling are among the safer structured-phonics choices a homeschool family can make, and they are especially well-suited to a child who has struggled to read. The Orton-Gillingham method is sound, the scripting takes the guesswork out of teaching phonics, and the mastery-based pacing meets a slow reader where they are. The catch is real and worth being clear-eyed about: it demands daily one-on-one time from the parent, it will not run itself, and the upfront cost is not trivial and will not go on sale. For a family that can give it the teaching time and plans to reuse it across children, the reviews suggest it earns its place. For a family that needs independence or is buying for a single already-fluent reader, a lighter or cheaper program may serve better.