Reading Pedagogy at DCPS Elementary?

[Anonymous]

Actually, following up, it does depend on the kid of course. If there are any delays, for example, it would matter very much how they are teaching it at school. I do feel some of the reading instruction is pretty mind numbing for a lot of kids and takes a lot of the joy out of reading.

[Anonymous]

If you are the typical DCUM poster and have been reading to your kid before bed since the toddler years, talking and having conversations with to your kid, have books at home, go to the library, etc… your kid will be fine and pick up reading in any program that has a phonics component. The phonics doesn’t need to be the end all and be all, just basic phonics instruction.

I would argue that in kids like above, once basic phonics is down and east, writing workshop and creative writing is the better part of the program. It encourages ideas, thought processes, gathering information and conveying it, grammar and sentence structure, etc…

Our charter does phonics and writing workshop. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. In a high performing school where the kids are already reading, they are more stimulated and interested in writing workshops where they can write whatever they want.

The reason why some programs rely heavily on phonics over everything else and keeps on repeating the same mind numbing phonics instruction is because some kids, predominantly in lower income households don’t get what I posted in the 1st paragraph at home. Also kids with delays, dyslexia, IEP also need much more heavy phonics base instructions.