All About Reading vs Explode the Code: Which One to Pick

Before You Compare Programs

These two products answer different questions. All About Reading answers "how do I teach my child to read?" Explode the Code answers "how does my child practice phonics without me?" Knowing which question you're asking settles half the decision before you read another review. The other half depends on where your child is right now, and a free reading assessment tells you that in about ten minutes.

Both programs appear in our full phonics curriculum comparison alongside three others. This post goes deep on just these two, because they get cross-shopped constantly and the price difference makes the comparison feel unfair until you see what each one includes.

All About Reading

Best for: Parents who want a complete program that teaches reading, and kids who need explicit, mastery-based instruction.

All About Reading is an Orton-Gillingham-based program in a Pre-Reading level plus four numbered levels. Every lesson is scripted for the parent: you review flashcards, build words with letter tiles, teach the new concept from the script, and your child reads stories from decodable readers matched to the skills taught so far. Kids advance at mastery pace, never past something they haven't locked in, which is why the program keeps rescuing kids who have struggled elsewhere.

You pay for that completeness. Each level runs $159.95 direct from the publisher, plus about $44 in one-time materials (letter tiles and a review box) that carry through all four levels. Spelling is a separate program from the same company. The publisher softens the price with a one-year money-back guarantee, and the non-consumable manuals and readers resell well. Plan on 20 to 30 minutes at the table with your child every day, because you are the teacher in this program.

Explode the Code

Best for: Independent practice, tight budgets, and kids who like the rhythm of a workbook.

Explode the Code has drilled phonics into kids since the 1970s. The core is eight numbered workbooks, half-books (1½ through 6½) for kids who need extra practice before moving up, and three primer books (Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for the Code) that cover letter sounds for the youngest learners. EPS Learning publishes the second edition. Each workbook costs about $13.49, and the optional teacher guides run $19 to $21 and cover two books at a time.

The format never changes, and that's the point. Your child sees a phonics pattern, circles it, writes it, matches it to goofy black-and-white pictures, and reads short sentences built from it. A few pages a day takes ten to fifteen minutes, and most kids run it alone after you introduce the new sound. Families use two or three books a year, which keeps the annual cost under $45. The whole eight-book sequence costs less than a single level of All About Reading.

The catch: Explode the Code practices phonics, it doesn't teach reading. There is no scripted instruction, no decodable readers, no fluency work, and no one checking whether your child mastered a skill or just filled the page. A natural reader can ride the workbooks a long way. A child who needs the why explained stalls, because nothing in the book explains it. And some kids find the unchanging format numbing by book three.

Where They're Different

This is a teaching program versus a practice book, and every other difference follows from that. All About Reading supplies the instruction, the materials, the readers, and the sequence, and it asks for your time and $160 a level in return. Explode the Code supplies pages, and it asks for almost nothing: $45 a year and a child willing to sit with a pencil.

Your role flips between them. With All About Reading you teach every lesson. With Explode the Code you introduce a sound and check pages at the end. That makes the workbooks a gift for parents teaching several kids at once, and a trap for the parent whose child needed real instruction and quietly fell behind while filling in pages.

For a struggling reader, the choice isn't close. Explode the Code has no mechanism for a child who doesn't get it: the page just sits there wrong. All About Reading was built for exactly that child. If your child is already guessing words instead of reading them, workbooks alone will not fix it.

Can You Use Both Together?

Yes, and this is one of the most common combinations in homeschooling. All About Reading carries the teaching, and an Explode the Code page gives your child independent seat work that reinforces skills they already learned. The workbook buys you fifteen quiet minutes to teach a sibling, and the practice genuinely helps.

Keep the workbook a step behind the lessons, so your child practices what they know instead of meeting new material with no teacher. And drop it without guilt if your child starts dreading the pages. The workbook is the supplement here, never the spine.

Which One to Pick

Pick All About Reading if you're teaching a child to read from scratch, your child has struggled or shows signs of dyslexia, or you want one program that handles the whole job with you at the table. Pick Explode the Code if your child is already reading and needs practice, your budget is tight, or you need seat work that runs itself. Pick both if you want the strongest setup and can spend the money: the program teaches, the workbook cements.

If you're weighing All About Reading against other full teaching programs instead, our comparisons of Logic of English vs All About Reading and All About Reading vs Hooked on Phonics cover those decisions. And for the teaching sequence no matter what you buy, see how to teach a child to read at home.

Match the Tool to the Job

Most bad reviews of both products come from the same mistake: asking a practice book to teach, or paying for a teaching program when the child only needed practice. Kids who get instruction at their level plus daily practice become readers, whichever boxes the materials came in.

So figure out which job needs doing first, start at the right level, and protect the daily fifteen minutes. The tool matters less than the match.