Writing in elementary school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ in school or out of school reading? Are kids read to or do they read the book themselves?

DP
At my third grade level students in book clubs read to themselves in school. They do the activities and discuss with other members and I meet with them periodically.

Another DP, mine are also doing book clubs now in class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is a wonderful writer. She has worked with me throughout her childhood on wiring in her diary, poems, essays, etc.

It’s really not impossible to teach your child to write. It only takes doing a small amount consistently.

Parent, the buck stops with you. Not the schools.

I fundamentally disagree with this. The point of schools is to teach children. Some parents are not great teachers. The idea that you have to send your child to school and THEN do all of the real work after your tired kid comes home and you finish your workday is just not the way this is supposed to work.

That said, if my FCPS would like to send HOMEWORK home that I could do with my 3rd grader to help her learn grammar or spelling of fractions etc, that's fine. But there is no homework sent home. Let's bring back homework.

Homework is not equitable.

Right, that's why there is no assigned reading anymore.

My students have done 4 rounds of books clubs this year.

My DD is in 9th grade Honors English. They did 1 assigned reading this year over the course of an ENTIRE QUARTER. It was not a long or complicated book, either. She had ZERO assigned reading all through HONORS middle school english.

[Anonymous]

It varies school to school and teacher to teacher....it stinks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be better writers, kids need to READ more. If you're not comfortable with or don't have time to reinforce writing instruction at home, at least make sure there is daily reading time to they see sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, etc.

Yes, +1,000!

Do you think most great/influential writers (in literature or for professional success) have formal writing training? No, they READ a lot and have basic intelligence (plus some writing instruction, feedback on writing, etc.). It's not all about whether your FCPS elementary or middle school "teaches" writing...make sure they read, and write, and are generally intelligent humans...and they can learn colons versus semi-colons later in life if their teachers happen to miss those in the instruction. Jeesh.

Explicit instruction instruction in writing matters. It’s hard to pick up grammar rules just from reading alone. School is the place for teaching those rules, and parent should be able to expect that to be happening.

[Anonymous]

It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

Grammar has always been important. So is spelling. And handwriting. It is still being taught in other school districts. Stop acting like this is all new and parents are being unreasonable to expect our kids are taught the basics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

school’s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

Grammar has always been important. So is spelling. And handwriting. It is still being taught in other school districts. Stop acting like this is all new and parents are being unreasonable to expect our kids are taught the basics.

It isn't important to public schools. If it was, it would be tested. What is tested is taught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ in school or out of school reading? Are kids read to or do they read the book themselves?

6th grade teacher here. Book Clubs are read independently. We also do a full class read aloud novel. My students read a lot.

[Anonymous]

Peer editing is the most ridiculous thing ~ relying on students who know so little, to do the corrections. Lazy teachers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Peer editing is the most ridiculous thing ~ relying on students who know so little, to do the corrections. Lazy teachers!

I don’t rely on students to do the corrections. I don’t know anyone who does that. Students meet with peers to share, revise and edit, but that’s for practice. They listen to each other, ask questions, make suggestions, and often are able to help each other improve their writing. They still conference with the teacher about their writing and receive input and corrections then. Often, many revisions and edits have been made before the student conferences with the teacher, but why would you see that as a negative?

Have you never had someone else look at your writing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Peer editing is the most ridiculous thing ~ relying on students who know so little, to do the corrections. Lazy teachers!

I don’t rely on students to do the corrections. I don’t know anyone who does that. Students meet with peers to share, revise and edit, but that’s for practice. They listen to each other, ask questions, make suggestions, and often are able to help each other improve their writing. They still conference with the teacher about their writing and receive input and corrections then. Often, many revisions and edits have been made before the student conferences with the teacher, but why would you see that as a negative?

Have you never had someone else look at your writing?

+1, they are learning a skill in writing and in communication (giving oral feedback appropriately).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

Grammar has always been important. So is spelling. And handwriting. It is still being taught in other school districts. Stop acting like this is all new and parents are being unreasonable to expect our kids are taught the basics.

It isn't important to public schools. If it was, it would be tested. What is tested is taught.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe writing is not on those standardized tests anymore because it is much harder and time-consuming to grade then multiple choice questions? Writing used to be on standardized tests. I remember doing it for standardized tests when I was in grade school. My mom who taught elementary remembers it being on the standardized tests. Then once it stopped being on those tests schools stopped including writing instruction in their curricula. Horrible mistake. They didn’t drop writing instruction because writing isn’t important. They dropped it because they are teaching to these stupid test. No Child Left Behind absolutely ruined education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unbelievable that people are suggesting kids will pick up grammar just from reading quality literature. My third grader loves to read but still isn’t capitalizing proper nouns. This is the schools job. I am not trained to be a teacher.

You can’t teach you kid about proper nouns? It’s public school and grammar has never been that important. Same with spelling and handwriting.

Grammar has always been important. So is spelling. And handwriting. It is still being taught in other school districts. Stop acting like this is all new and parents are being unreasonable to expect our kids are taught the basics.

It isn't important to public schools. If it was, it would be tested. What is tested is taught.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe writing is not on those standardized tests anymore because it is much harder and time-consuming to grade then multiple choice questions? Writing used to be on standardized tests. I remember doing it for standardized tests when I was in grade school. My mom who taught elementary remembers it being on the standardized tests. Then once it stopped being on those tests schools stopped including writing instruction in their curricula. Horrible mistake. They didn’t drop writing instruction because writing isn’t important. They dropped it because they are teaching to these stupid test. No Child Left Behind absolutely ruined education.

I took standardized tests in ES. Back then it was the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. No writing on that. It was fill in the bubble testing. What standardized tests did you take that involved writing? I agree that writing is important. I am not defending public schools. I'm a math teacher in a public school. I switched my kid to Catholic school in part because of his terrible writing.