Lucy Caulkins was wrong about reading

[Anonymous]

Why can’t the public school districts use a curriculum that is good and is already being used at top private schools? Is it inherently more expensive? What is stopping them for going adopting such curriculum? Why keep experimenting on our kids? Private school parents seem happy with their schools so why not adopt something that is working for someone ?

[Anonymous]

The retired early with a pension and go to places like Discovery to write bad curricula and see it to their public school admin friends.

It’s a viciou$ cycle and bad for kids if all skill levels.

Such a sad state of education in america.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t the public school districts use a curriculum that is good and is already being used at top private schools? Is it inherently more expensive? What is stopping them for going adopting such curriculum? Why keep experimenting on our kids? Private school parents seem happy with their schools so why not adopt something that is working for someone ?

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Some DC area progressive schools are even worse and faster to jump in bad curricula fads than MCPS, DCPS, etc.
And have little accountability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t the public school districts use a curriculum that is good and is already being used at top private schools? Is it inherently more expensive? What is stopping them for going adopting such curriculum? Why keep experimenting on our kids? Private school parents seem happy with their schools so why not adopt something that is working for someone ?

Even top private schools were using Lucy Caulkins. They're not perfect. Don't fool yourself.

[Anonymous]

Lucy clam is and Columbia school of Ed or whatever have made 10s of millions selling their goop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It's baffling to me that any competent teacher could ever believe that "good readers" look at the pictures and guess and only consider the letters/sounds as a last resort. Did they never reflect on how they personally learned to read? Consider that for centuries people learned to read from books without pictures?

My kid figured it out on their own at age three. Smart kid, not genius. We read to them and pointed out the words and did language apps and videos but, yes some kids just figure it out.

I have a kid like that. And they are certainly the outliers.

+1 I'm a children's librarian and read to both my children from birth. One picked it up from reading with me and could read well by 4. The other took a long time to get there, until she was 7 in mid first grade. We did work with her at home on direct phonics instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It's baffling to me that any competent teacher could ever believe that "good readers" look at the pictures and guess and only consider the letters/sounds as a last resort. Did they never reflect on how they personallye r learned to read? Consider that for centuries people learned to read from books without pictures?

Plenty of teachers didn’t believe this BS way of teaching but we are required to teach the curriculum. That’s our job. The problem started (like it almost always does) with the higher ups making decisions based on fads. The current fad is equity. Our LA curriculum is based on equity. Once our district heard that the curriculum is a knowledge building curriculum designed to promote equity and they bought it. Does it meet the needs of our students? Nope. Will they listen to us? Nope. So we are stuck with it and have to use it. Don’t assume we don’t what which end is up. We know but unless parents complain, nothing will change.

You have a problem with science-backed LA programs / teaching phonics?

Nope. I have a problem with the people making the decisions. They don’t know anything about how kids learn to read.

The current "trend" is science of reading. You can't get behind that?

And the curriculum is Wit and Wisdom which doesn’t include any phonics instruction at all.

That's not a "trendy" curriculum. Which school district is this?

In Northern VA, they are all moving towards phonics-based programs.

It is. Lots of urban districts are now using it because they are drinking the Kool Aid that it will lift up poor kids due to its equity building curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's baffling to me that any competent teacher could ever believe that "good readers" look at the pictures and guess and only consider the letters/sounds as a last resort. Did they never reflect on how they personallye r learned to read? Consider that for centuries people learned to read from books without pictures?

Plenty of teachers didn’t believe this BS way of teaching but we are required to teach the curriculum. That’s our job. The problem started (like it almost always does) with the higher ups making decisions based on fads. The current fad is equity. Our LA curriculum is based on equity. Once our district heard that the curriculum is a knowledge building curriculum designed to promote equity and they bought it. Does it meet the needs of our students? Nope. Will they listen to us? Nope. So we are stuck with it and have to use it. Don’t assume we don’t what which end is up. We know but unless parents complain, nothing will change.

You have a problem with science-backed LA programs / teaching phonics?

Nope. I have a problem with the people making the decisions. They don’t know anything about how kids learn to read.

The current "trend" is science of reading. You can't get behind that?

And the curriculum is Wit and Wisdom which doesn’t include any phonics instruction at all.

That's not a "trendy" curriculum. Which school district is this?

In Northern VA, they are all moving towards phonics-based programs.

It is. Lots of urban districts are now using it because they are drinking the Kool Aid that it will lift up poor kids due to its equity building curriculum.

Which school district uses this without fundations or other phonics-based program?

[Anonymous]

Forcing early reading on little children has zero value. It fact, untold numbers of children have been harmed by that nonsense.

Read “The Hurried Child”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's baffling to me that any competent teacher could ever believe that "good readers" look at the pictures and guess and only consider the letters/sounds as a last resort. Did they never reflect on how they personallye r learned to read? Consider that for centuries people learned to read from books without pictures?

Plenty of teachers didn’t believe this BS way of teaching but we are required to teach the curriculum. That’s our job. The problem started (like it almost always does) with the higher ups making decisions based on fads. The current fad is equity. Our LA curriculum is based on equity. Once our district heard that the curriculum is a knowledge building curriculum designed to promote equity and they bought it. Does it meet the needs of our students? Nope. Will they listen to us? Nope. So we are stuck with it and have to use it. Don’t assume we don’t what which end is up. We know but unless parents complain, nothing will change.

You have a problem with science-backed LA programs / teaching phonics?

Nope. I have a problem with the people making the decisions. They don’t know anything about how kids learn to read.

The current "trend" is science of reading. You can't get behind that?

And the curriculum is Wit and Wisdom which doesn’t include any phonics instruction at all.

That's not a "trendy" curriculum. Which school district is this?

In Northern VA, they are all moving towards phonics-based programs.

It is. Lots of urban districts are now using it because they are drinking the Kool Aid that it will lift up poor kids due to its equity building curriculum.

Which school district uses this without fundations or other phonics-based program?

Everyone is moving to phonics + a knowledge based LA curriculum. I think this is a great combo. It give the kids more practice reading non-fiction and has them write about actual substance rather than writing personal narrative after personal narrative every single year. The phonics curriculum helps with early decoding, but then builds spelling skills and helps the kids access harder vocabulary that shows up in the knowledge based curriculum. The only thing I'd bulk up a bit is the study of grammar, though I believe this is usually tackled somewhat in the knowledge based curriculum.

The best part is that neither is Lexia, which I think is a huge waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t the public school districts use a curriculum that is good and is already being used at top private schools? Is it inherently more expensive? What is stopping them for going adopting such curriculum? Why keep experimenting on our kids? Private school parents seem happy with their schools so why not adopt something that is working for someone ?

Private schools aren’t good at reading instruction, because they don’t have to be. They don’t admit kids who are struggling or likely to struggle with reading, in general.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Forcing early reading on little children has zero value. It fact, untold numbers of children have been harmed by that nonsense.

Read “The Hurried Child”.

We're talking about curricula used to teach reading in elementary school. You think that's too early?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t the public school districts use a curriculum that is good and is already being used at top private schools? Is it inherently more expensive? What is stopping them for going adopting such curriculum? Why keep experimenting on our kids? Private school parents seem happy with their schools so why not adopt something that is working for someone ?

Money, politics, dislike of change, inertia. Listen to Sold a Story.
Also, private schools often get it wrong, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Forcing early reading on little children has zero value. It fact, untold numbers of children have been harmed by that nonsense.

Read “The Hurried Child”.

David Elkind, a child psychologist who lectures to college students, not a reading specialist who actually teaches in the early years, talks about the dangers of pushing an elementary school reading curriculum down into the early years (aka preschool). This thread is not talking about early years. It’s talking about elementary school. Regardless, as someone who has actually taught reading in both the early years and elementary school, I somewhat disagree with him anyway. I’ve had children as young as 3 show signs of reading readiness, but in my experience the typical age they start showing signs of readiness is 4-5. Still younger than 6… Take these books with a grain of salt. It’s how we got into the whole phonics-is-the-devil mess in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forcing early reading on little children has zero value. It fact, untold numbers of children have been harmed by that nonsense.

Read “The Hurried Child”.

David Elkind, a child psychologist who lectures to college students, not a reading specialist who actually teaches in the early years, talks about the dangers of pushing an elementary school reading curriculum down into the early years (aka preschool). This thread is not talking about early years. It’s talking about elementary school. Regardless, as someone who has actually taught reading in both the early years and elementary school, I somewhat disagree with him anyway. I’ve had children as young as 3 show signs of reading readiness, but in my experience the typical age they start showing signs of readiness is 4-5. Still younger than 6… Take these books with a grain of salt. It’s how we got into the whole phonics-is-the-devil mess in the first place.

Again, zero evidence for pushing a 3,4 or 5 year old child into early reading.