When will DC area privates dump Lucy Calkins curricula ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Balanced Literacy is not identical to Science of Reading, nor is it even very close to Science of Reading.

Science of Reading puts Phonics front and center, not as a supplement, to name one difference. SoR does have much more than Phonics, that part IS true. The key is that SoR is based on actual scientific data - controlled experiments about what actually works.

Balanced literacy is closer to SoR than either is to Whole Language. Prove me wrong.

What worries me is language like the above. Let me make my popcorn and watch everyone run to the 'scientific data controlled experiments on what actually works' LOL LOL LOL. That right there is exactly what everyone did when they took up Lucy and Fountas and Pinnell, reading zealotry. I have nothing against SoR, but I hope the people who uptake it keep the child in the center of instruction, rather than over emphasizing grandiose 'scientific' claims. Education by way of Steve Jobs.

[Anonymous]

Landon literally uses Lucy Caulkins in describing their curriculum - they are not even trying to hide it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Orton-Gillingham follows the Science of Reading (phonics) and not Calkins

Highly recommend listening to the Sold a Story podcast before anyone goes to back to school night!

As the commenter notes on the first page mentioned, so many of the veiled Calkins teaching methods are noted on these private school website. It may not explicitly say her name anymore but the practice is still there.

Beauvoir, GDS, Maret, Sidwell, NPS - they all are still pushing the outdated (and not based on science) methods

Is NPS using Calkins? I have never heard them say that but I did hear at back to school they are using writer’s workshop for writing and that was the first time I’d heard that. I thought they’ve said Orton in the past but maybe I misunderstood?

I honestly don’t know what approach NPS is using because it seems like a hybrid of “guess based on the picture” and memory worlds and phonics. I have been absolutely devoted to forcing her to practice phonics with me every night and teaching her letter combination sounds. It’s frustrating to see her looking at a picture and guessing the wrong word when she can easily sound it out. I have in the past had to keep asking her not to guess and to sound out the word and she tells me the school is telling her to look at the picture for clues.

I’m sorry but with the amount of $$$ you are paying for tuition, why aren’t you demanding that they stop this Lucy Caulkins insanity?

Because demanding a school change their reading program always works so well! This comment is hilarious. It IS a big undertaking to change curriculums from LC to OG. It goes beyond teachers taking a 2 day course and buying new books. It takes a year + of training and at my DD's school all the teacher trainings are not about teaching but all about diversity and inclusion not about teaching children to read. I only wish they'd focus on adopting OG! Wouldn't that be nice.

Yeah - this country has lost its marbles over the DEI crap. Soon everyone will be included in the “nobody can read and write” club and it will be very diverse.

Spoken like a true racist. It's the white supremacists who have lost their marbles over DEI.

How dare you. You are so insanely ignorant and people like you are exactly why we have so much division. Moreover, to your surprise, I identify as a person of color. Believing that the obsession with DEI in schools is not a good use of limited energy and resources does not make someone racist or a white supremacist. A lot of people of color agree with this. You need to get out more.

I really don't care if you identify as a person of color. Your internalized racism and classism is showing through loud and clear.

Right and you are an unreasonable left wing radical who cries racism at any and everything. I follow the King’s teachings, you know judge people by the CONTENT of their character. Nobody gets a pass with me. You don’t need hours of DEI training - what you need is to teach ALL colors that the only thing that matters is the content of their character.

Beautiful example of internalized racism. Look up unconscious bias, institutionalized racism, and maybe do a little studying up on factors affecting educational outcomes for children of color in this country.

“Internalized racism” - you literally made that up. DEI will create a new type of racism - mark my words, in 5 to 10 years, all of this will backfire.

You’ve done a fine job of exposing your ignorance. Congratulations!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Roughly 30% to 40% of students will learn to read regardless of which method (or even any method) is used. For the other 60-70% of students, approaches like Balanced Reading / Lucy Calkins / Whole Language simply do not work. Read "Sold a Story". Read the actual peer-reviewed studies with statistical controls. There is real data on this and the results are consistent - those BL / LC / WL approaches do not work for most kids.

Those of you whose kids did well in reading at whichever school almost certainly have kids in that first much smaller group. I am happy your experience was positive, but it does not change how bad some reading curricula happen to be.

Can you explain why some kids learn to read regardless of the approach while others don’t (genuinely curious)? My child learned to read by the end of 1st grade, so I never had a reason to question the curriculum and I’m not even sure what approach they use. Fwiw we weren’t one of those families who are tried to teach reading on our own before K, we just waited for them to start school and learn from the teacher. I know there were kids in the class who required outside help though.

I would assume neurotypical kids who are not on the autism spectrum nor have ADHD nor have dyslexia can learn alright via brute force (read by yourself a la Balanced Literacy BS), combined with exposure to large verbal or written vocabularies at home and school.

But everyone can learn to read, decide and recode (ie spell correctly) when systematically being taught and tested on phonics, roots/suffixes/prefixes, grammar, and sight words (the anomalies).

The first paragraph is how things used to be viewed and assumed and that’s now pretty outdated. It’s not as simple or cut and dry. There were so many Dyslexic kids flagged in the United States compared to others places in the world and they wanted to figure out why - when you have kids guess words when they learn to read instead of decoding it only works for so long. In fact, if you start with the science of reading approach the majority of kids can learn this way. Kids are really smart and can memorize thousands of words but if they’re not taught how to decode words it’s a huge issue. This reading thing is also not just isolated to 1st and 2nd grade - it can pop up in middle school when they don’t have the tools to decode words. They’ve now studied how the brain words in regards to reading - and it’s old fashioned decoding, phonics- tapping and sounding words out. It is not guessing or cueing words.

Agree!
Why would anyone put in place a curriculum that doesn’t center around phonics, decoding and recoding.

Memorizing sight words from picture cues is a joke.

What happens once words get multisyllabic and usually can be sounded out or roots memorized and applied? Kid skips the word and thus the comprehension and learning. Pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Roughly 30% to 40% of students will learn to read regardless of which method (or even any method) is used. For the other 60-70% of students, approaches like Balanced Reading / Lucy Calkins / Whole Language simply do not work. Read "Sold a Story". Read the actual peer-reviewed studies with statistical controls. There is real data on this and the results are consistent - those BL / LC / WL approaches do not work for most kids.

Those of you whose kids did well in reading at whichever school almost certainly have kids in that first much smaller group. I am happy your experience was positive, but it does not change how bad some reading curricula happen to be.

Can you explain why some kids learn to read regardless of the approach while others don’t (genuinely curious)? My child learned to read by the end of 1st grade, so I never had a reason to question the curriculum and I’m not even sure what approach they use. Fwiw we weren’t one of those families who are tried to teach reading on our own before K, we just waited for them to start school and learn from the teacher. I know there were kids in the class who required outside help though.

I would assume neurotypical kids who are not on the autism spectrum nor have ADHD nor have dyslexia can learn alright via brute force (read by yourself a la Balanced Literacy BS), combined with exposure to large verbal or written vocabularies at home and school.

But everyone can learn to read, decide and recode (ie spell correctly) when systematically being taught and tested on phonics, roots/suffixes/prefixes, grammar, and sight words (the anomalies).

The bolded above is actually whole language. Balanced literacy is a response to both whole language and the earlier "See Spot Run" look-say approach. Basal readers, which many of us experienced, were an interesting 70s/80s interlude in which a balanced literacy approach was packaged up in anthologized text-books. Balanced literacy instruction today employs more authentic literature experiences and related process writing, and may be taught in a workshop framework. The biggest detriment today to balanced literacy is probably Fountas and Pinnell. They are under attack for their own reasons that I won't go into, but the 'balanced literacy approach' exceeds any one contributor. Despite the recent and much needed introduction of phonics, the Lucy Calkins units when implemented without supplementation, are more whole language than balanced.

'Science of reading' is very similar to 'balanced literacy'. It appears to both draws upon and advance it with a little more of a phonics-forward emphasis. I hope that in the rush to this side of the ship, some of the richest parts of balanced literacy aren't thrown overboard (ie a return to extremely rote learning). But when have we ever gotten reading and writing instruction wrong in this country, LOL.

Balanced literacy:  "There’s a misconception around balanced literacy that it doesn’t provide systematic, explicit phonics instruction, but it absolutely does. A balanced literacy program as described by Fisher, Frey, and Akhavan, includes all five of the essential components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension." https://www.weareteachers.com/what-is-balanced-literacy/

Science of Reading: "What it IS
A Collection of Research Research, over time, from multiple fields of study using methods that confirm and disconfirm theories on how children best learn to read.
Teaching Based on the 5 Big Ideas
Phonemic Awareness - The ability to identify and play with individual sounds in spoken words.
Phonics - Reading instruction on understanding how letters and groups of letters link to sounds to form letter- sound relationships and spelling patterns.
Fluency - The ability to read words, phrases, sentences, and stories correctly, with enough speed, and expression.
Vocabulary - Knowing what words mean and how to say and use them correctly.
Comprehension - The ability to understand what you are reading. "https://improvingliteracy.org/brief/science-reading-basics#Teaching%20Based%20on%20The%205%20Big%20Ideas

SOUND FAMILIAR?

You can call it whatever you want. And slap up all kinds of semantics and smoke.

My kid had a sheet from school saying a look at the Pictures and guess. And sh could not easily sound out soundable words for years.

Balanced literacy in practice was mostly whole language. Poor kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So why aren’t schools just switching to Science of Reading and calling it a day?

A lot of smaller ( ie not huge counties) public schools did a couple years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Roughly 30% to 40% of students will learn to read regardless of which method (or even any method) is used. For the other 60-70% of students, approaches like Balanced Reading / Lucy Calkins / Whole Language simply do not work. Read "Sold a Story". Read the actual peer-reviewed studies with statistical controls. There is real data on this and the results are consistent - those BL / LC / WL approaches do not work for most kids.

Those of you whose kids did well in reading at whichever school almost certainly have kids in that first much smaller group. I am happy your experience was positive, but it does not change how bad some reading curricula happen to be.

Can you explain why some kids learn to read regardless of the approach while others don’t (genuinely curious)? My child learned to read by the end of 1st grade, so I never had a reason to question the curriculum and I’m not even sure what approach they use. Fwiw we weren’t one of those families who are tried to teach reading on our own before K, we just waited for them to start school and learn from the teacher. I know there were kids in the class who required outside help though.

I would assume neurotypical kids who are not on the autism spectrum nor have ADHD nor have dyslexia can learn alright via brute force (read by yourself a la Balanced Literacy BS), combined with exposure to large verbal or written vocabularies at home and school.

But everyone can learn to read, decide and recode (ie spell correctly) when systematically being taught and tested on phonics, roots/suffixes/prefixes, grammar, and sight words (the anomalies).

The bolded above is actually whole language. Balanced literacy is a response to both whole language and the earlier "See Spot Run" look-say approach. Basal readers, which many of us experienced, were an interesting 70s/80s interlude in which a balanced literacy approach was packaged up in anthologized text-books. Balanced literacy instruction today employs more authentic literature experiences and related process writing, and may be taught in a workshop framework. The biggest detriment today to balanced literacy is probably Fountas and Pinnell. They are under attack for their own reasons that I won't go into, but the 'balanced literacy approach' exceeds any one contributor. Despite the recent and much needed introduction of phonics, the Lucy Calkins units when implemented without supplementation, are more whole language than balanced.

'Science of reading' is very similar to 'balanced literacy'. It appears to both draws upon and advance it with a little more of a phonics-forward emphasis. I hope that in the rush to this side of the ship, some of the richest parts of balanced literacy aren't thrown overboard (ie a return to extremely rote learning). But when have we ever gotten reading and writing instruction wrong in this country, LOL.

Balanced literacy:  "There’s a misconception around balanced literacy that it doesn’t provide systematic, explicit phonics instruction, but it absolutely does. A balanced literacy program as described by Fisher, Frey, and Akhavan, includes all five of the essential components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension." https://www.weareteachers.com/what-is-balanced-literacy/

Science of Reading: "What it IS
A Collection of Research Research, over time, from multiple fields of study using methods that confirm and disconfirm theories on how children best learn to read.
Teaching Based on the 5 Big Ideas
Phonemic Awareness - The ability to identify and play with individual sounds in spoken words.
Phonics - Reading instruction on understanding how letters and groups of letters link to sounds to form letter- sound relationships and spelling patterns.
Fluency - The ability to read words, phrases, sentences, and stories correctly, with enough speed, and expression.
Vocabulary - Knowing what words mean and how to say and use them correctly.
Comprehension - The ability to understand what you are reading. "https://improvingliteracy.org/brief/science-reading-basics#Teaching%20Based%20on%20The%205%20Big%20Ideas

SOUND FAMILIAR?

You can call it whatever you want. And slap up all kinds of semantics and smoke.

My kid had a sheet from school saying a look at the Pictures and guess. And sh could not easily sound out soundable words for years.

Balanced literacy in practice was mostly whole language. Poor kids.

I'm sorry for the kids too. The same thing may well happen when schools introduce SoR, as great as it sounds on paper. People may think they're getting one thing, and get another. This is very typical of literacy instruction, in which schools have a curriculum and training learning curve to implement new programs, and/or go way overboard and take them in unintended directions. Stay vigilant to what is actually happening, and by all means advocate.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Balanced Literacy is not identical to Science of Reading, nor is it even very close to Science of Reading.

Science of Reading puts Phonics front and center, not as a supplement, to name one difference. SoR does have much more than Phonics, that part IS true. [b]The key is that SoR is based on actual scientific data - controlled experiments about what actually works[/b].[/quote]

Balanced literacy is closer to SoR than either is to Whole Language. Prove me wrong.

What worries me is language like the above. Let me make my popcorn and watch everyone run to the 'scientific data controlled experiments on what actually works' LOL LOL LOL. That right there is exactly what everyone did when they took up Lucy and Fountas and Pinnell, reading zealotry. I have nothing against SoR, but I hope the people who uptake it keep the child in the center of instruction, rather than over emphasizing grandiose 'scientific' claims. Education by way of Steve Jobs.[/quote]

There was and still is NO DATA showing that either LC or BL or WL work. No controlled experiments exist in the refereed literature with decent sample sizes and good controls for things like parental educational attainment, HHI, and so forth. People did NOT base decisions on LC or F&P because of scientific data - that run was driven by marketing prowess, not by science. SoR does not include BL, which some seem so keen to defend, despite the data showing it does not work.

Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So why aren’t schools just switching to Science of Reading and calling it a day?

A lot of smaller ( ie not huge counties) public schools did a couple years ago.

Arlington’s APS moved to SoR in Fall 2022, as did Fairfax County’s FCPS. I am grateful to the NAACP for pressuring both to switch to curricula that work for ALL kids.

I think APS did a better job with the transition, in part because they also are incorporating elements of the ED Hirsch “Core Knowledge” materials, which help students have the knowledge background to really comprehend what is being read.

(FYI: “Core Knowledge” is unrelated to the term “Core Curriculum”, and also predates the “Core Curriculum.”)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So why aren’t schools just switching to Science of Reading and calling it a day?

We have at least one generation of teachers who were taught by their Education School that LC / BL / WL were the best way to teach reading. Nearly all the (non-Catholic) Education Schools taught the teachers how to teach 3-cueing and other now widely discredited methods.

So a LOT of teacher re-training will be needed for K-3 faculty and their assistants. This likely will be problematic for good quality implementation of SoR, because even if a school (or school system like MCPS or APS) selects a good SoR curriculum, many of the teachers will still need to learn how to teach kids using SoR methods - and to stop teaching things like 3-cueing.

This likely will take years to happen, best case. And NY news media report that LC has formed a company to keep pushing her stuff, and keep making money for herself, even though even Columbia U. now has publicly admitted that both LC Readers Workshop and LC Writers Workshop curricula does not work.

It makes me very sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So why aren’t schools just switching to Science of Reading and calling it a day?

A big reason IMHO is that SoR methods are harder to implement and that the current crop of teachers lacks the foundational knowledge required to properly teach reading. This is a result of de-emphasizing the importance of pedagogy with these “anyone can become a teacher” programs. I also think that as schools become a primary hub for the distribution of social services, there’s been a push to make school as gentle, supportive, and non-threatening as possible while imparting a “love of learning.” Discipline and rigor are required for teaching reading, but they’re definitely not fun or easy for anyone involved. And it seems that things have tilted more in favor of joy than competence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Landon literally uses Lucy Caulkins in describing their curriculum - they are not even trying to hide it.

Doesn’t Landon start at grade 3?

Presumably kids without learning differences should be tracking well with reading, comprehension and fundamentals already from their previous three years of schooling.

[Anonymous]

There is still a pervasive private school attitude that SoR sucks joy out of learning or that it doesn't work well for high achievers. More and more schools are adopting SoR but they also deal with the "second tier" label.

There's a lot of irony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So why aren’t schools just switching to Science of Reading and calling it a day?

A big reason IMHO is that SoR methods are harder to implement and that the current crop of teachers lacks the foundational knowledge required to properly teach reading. This is a result of de-emphasizing the importance of pedagogy with these “anyone can become a teacher” programs. I also think that as schools become a primary hub for the distribution of social services, there’s been a push to make school as gentle, supportive, and non-threatening as possible while imparting a “love of learning.” Discipline and rigor are required for teaching reading, but they’re definitely not fun or easy for anyone involved. And it seems that things have tilted more in favor of joy than competence.

And math.

The teachers can’t do math correctly.

The zoom schools days were eye opening. 2nd grade teacher’s math errors.

Other thing that is VERY confusing to YOUNG students as a WHOLE: no instruction or example first

Spending 20 minutes letting kids take turns guessing out loud at how to solve a new math problem, one after another. Incorrect method after incorrect method.

Kids tuning out. Kids trying to grasp on to what is right or wrong. Kids not bothering to follow along.

Then spend 2 minutes instructing the class how to actually solve such problems.

Wrong ratio. Kids just repeat whatever cockamamie “method” they had the attention span to watch.

Brainstorming around in circles might work and be fun 1:1 or with teen students but not for 6-7 yos. What a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Balanced Literacy is not identical to Science of Reading, nor is it even very close to Science of Reading.

Science of Reading puts Phonics front and center, not as a supplement, to name one difference. SoR does have much more than Phonics, that part IS true. [b]The key is that SoR is based on actual scientific data - controlled experiments about what actually works[/b].[/quote]

Balanced literacy is closer to SoR than either is to Whole Language. Prove me wrong.

What worries me is language like the above. Let me make my popcorn and watch everyone run to the 'scientific data controlled experiments on what actually works' LOL LOL LOL. That right there is exactly what everyone did when they took up Lucy and Fountas and Pinnell, reading zealotry. I have nothing against SoR, but I hope the people who uptake it keep the child in the center of instruction, rather than over emphasizing grandiose 'scientific' claims. Education by way of Steve Jobs.[/quote]

There was and still is NO DATA showing that either LC or BL or WL work. No controlled experiments exist in the refereed literature with decent sample sizes and good controls for things like parental educational attainment, HHI, and so forth. People did NOT base decisions on LC or F&P because of scientific data - that run was driven by marketing prowess, not by science. SoR does not include BL, which some seem so keen to defend, despite the data showing it does not work.

Sigh.[/quote]

OMG. BL emphasizes the exact same components as SoR -- the five pillars of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The [b]only[/b] difference is that SoR is somewhat more phonics forward (and the danger is in the wrong hands is your child will be drill and killed in phonics to the detriment of their overall reading development). In the right hands, SoR could work as a 2.0 building on the multi decade research in each of these pillars, that also fed BL. Balanced literacy is not WL or LC, no matter what the units claim. Please stop conflating.