Lucy Calkins alarmists

[Anonymous]

Is any public school actually using a curriculum with student workbooks? Ours does phonics, secret stories, heggarty, but from what I can there is no set textbook or workbook. They do literacy exercises on the tablet or Chromebook, and whatever writing or phonics work I see on paper is clearly just printed off from a TPT type of website. Same with math! Aren’t kids supposed to be working math on paper in a student workbooks? Our school send home a photocopied sheet of homework once a week and there’s no textbook to go over material or explain anything if DD struggles (which she hasn’t so far, but should there be something available at home for me to help her if necessary?).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The important piece is that the youngest children (K-2) are also having phonics-based instruction. I heard Lucy Calkins adapted her curriculum to include phonics - is that accurate?

The issue is that phonics isn't the only thing wrong with the curriculum. It is all based on theory that kids will teach themselves because everyone is intrinsically a reader, which is total nonsense. You can't do a short phonics lesson, hand a kid a book, and expect them to teach themselves to read. It's awful, even with a phonics add on.

Different kids need different things. But no one can get anything different so everyone must get the same thing so no one will get what they need.

They've done studies. Something like 5-10% of kids can learn to read using LC. I'm sure a few more can make progress with some additional phonics. But the curriculum still assumes kids teach themselves, and that is a recipe for failure for most kids.

More parent used to read to their kids and teach them at home. Expecting school to teach your kid to read is a recipe for failure for most kids.

LC was so so bad. I knew so many parents panicking and hiring tutors when their kids weren't learning ot reading using LC. I have also seen huge improvements in learning when schools after dropped it. The writing coming home now with my 3rd grader is so much stronger than anything my older daughter ever wrote with LC. It's really night and day. Don't make excuses for it.

SAME, SAME. I have a 6th grader who learned LC in K-2 and a current 3rd grader. The difference is night and day. Even in K and 1st grade I could tell a HUGE difference in the ways they were taught. We're in FCPS - my 3rd grader is a stronger writer than my 6th grader because 6th grader ever had a rigorous writing curriculum until this year. FINALLY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is any public school actually using a curriculum with student workbooks? Ours does phonics, secret stories, heggarty, but from what I can there is no set textbook or workbook. They do literacy exercises on the tablet or Chromebook, and whatever writing or phonics work I see on paper is clearly just printed off from a TPT type of website. Same with math! Aren’t kids supposed to be working math on paper in a student workbooks? Our school send home a photocopied sheet of homework once a week and there’s no textbook to go over material or explain anything if DD struggles (which she hasn’t so far, but should there be something available at home for me to help her if necessary?).

Do the Benchmark packets count as workbooks? I think they do, I've been really impressed by them and all the worksheets that come home with my 3rd grader. A lot of parents think it's too hard for their kids, but I think it's necessary. Very impressed, and I hope they stick with it and parents stop complaining - it's only hard because their children weren't taught properly until now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is any public school actually using a curriculum with student workbooks? Ours does phonics, secret stories, heggarty, but from what I can there is no set textbook or workbook. They do literacy exercises on the tablet or Chromebook, and whatever writing or phonics work I see on paper is clearly just printed off from a TPT type of website. Same with math! Aren’t kids supposed to be working math on paper in a student workbooks? Our school send home a photocopied sheet of homework once a week and there’s no textbook to go over material or explain anything if DD struggles (which she hasn’t so far, but should there be something available at home for me to help her if necessary?).

Do the Benchmark packets count as workbooks? I think they do, I've been really impressed by them and all the worksheets that come home with my 3rd grader. A lot of parents think it's too hard for their kids, but I think it's necessary. Very impressed, and I hope they stick with it and parents stop complaining - it's only hard because their children weren't taught properly until now.

How long are the packets and how often are they sent home? We literally have single sheets of paper double sided. I don’t understand it because there is a set math curriculum. I guess I could purchase the student workbooks from on my own, but I know they aren’t doing every page. Maybe that is why they photocopy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're referring to the Writing Workshop, that is generally considered good. Of course we all now know her reading curriculum was garbage and did considerable harm.

I almost spit out my coffee at this. Just because there's been no expose on Writing Workshop yet doesn't mean it's good.

PP check out the book The Writing Revolution for a breakdown of what needs to be done to actually teach kids to be good writers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is any public school actually using a curriculum with student workbooks? Ours does phonics, secret stories, heggarty, but from what I can there is no set textbook or workbook. They do literacy exercises on the tablet or Chromebook, and whatever writing or phonics work I see on paper is clearly just printed off from a TPT type of website. Same with math! Aren’t kids supposed to be working math on paper in a student workbooks? Our school send home a photocopied sheet of homework once a week and there’s no textbook to go over material or explain anything if DD struggles (which she hasn’t so far, but should there be something available at home for me to help her if necessary?).

Our school uses Envision for math. It's a workbook. However, the workbook stays at school, so I only see stuff when they teacher send a bunch of completed pages home every so often. DS also does a lot of work on his Chromebook because he's quite a bit ahead of the rest of the class. A somewhat frustrating situation.

For ELA they use CKLA. So a detailed curriculum, but no workbook. The teacher prints off the worksheets for the day. Worksheets come home each day. Plus, CKLA is available online so hypothetically, I could look up the material at any point.

[Anonymous]

The trouble with all of these worksheets that come home is that there is no consistency. I have twins so I can see how differently two different teachers teach. If they are all creating their own worksheets or downloading them from the internet, it is quite haphazard. Plus, you can't go back and look to see what you missed if you were sick - or look ahead to prepare for what is coming next. I'm in favor of treating teachers as professionals and not dictating how they teach, but I don't want my children to learn from worksheets some random has uploaded onto "teachers pay teachers" or Etsy.

I want a structured, consistent curriculum so it doesn't feel like my kids are learning whatever popped into the teachers mind today.

[Anonymous]

LC is bad. I watched my kindergartener go from being able to read dr Seuss to not being ble to read it anymore. Teacher said he was doing great! I didn’t buy it and put him in kumon and drilled phonics at home.

Look some kids just learn to read independently and that’s fine. But if you don’t have one of those it’s a disaster. Our school system switched to ckla and it’s amazing (also it’s free online to read.) What a waste we lost a whole generation of readers over the greed and ego of caulkins and f&p and Columbia. They should have to forfeit those profits to the students they screwed over.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't ever remember writing more than a sentence until 2nd grade and I went to a top private school. We were taught the letters, then the words then how to create a sentence. When I had to write a paragraph, it was the natural next step. Then, in middle school maybe, 5 paragraphs for an essay. All completely structured. My kids were supposed to write about whatever in 1st grade and what came home was a mishmash of words. Stayed that way too, until covid, when I realized that my daughter could not write at all.

As a writer, I was floored when she had no idea how to even structure a paragraph.

What grade was she in? I think it’s important to understand what the class as a whole has learned. Was your daughter one of only a few who couldn’t grasp the concept or was the whole class doing poorly.

I have one child who is not a very good reader. She’s slow and it’s hard for her to retain what she read. As a result she doesn’t read that often for fun. She does get reading help in school and she knows how to read, she just will never be as strong a reader as most of her classmates.

My son was always more than a few grade levels ahead of his class. It’s because of the reading material he chooses. He starting reading books in 2nd grade written by comedians, their biographies, adult graphic novels, most books that involve comedy. He got the clever nuanced comedy and the big words.

I don’t fault the teacher’s style for my daughter’s inability to read well and I don’t give credit to the teaching method used for my son’s skills.

Reading above grade level doesn't always translate to writing well. Mine is reading way above grade level and spends hours reading every day. He keeps his own notebooks with notes on geology and other weird facts. He writes stories and today wrote me a menu so I could order lunch. The advanced reading shows itself in his interests and his oral language, but not in his writing. His written syntax and spelling are awful, though it's gotten a bit better since we started doing word ladders at home. I may have to find him a writing workbook or tutor for the summer. He's only in 2nd grade, but they use the work shop approach where basically all you do is freewrite on a topic or book of your choice, and that work gets "edited" by other 1st and 2nd graders, you "conference" with the teacher if you're lucky, and if you work really hard and are lucky, at the end of it you come home with a 3 page piece full of errors but at least each sentence starts with a capitol and ends with a period.

I don’t know too many 2nd graders who can spell words like receipt or beautiful. They will learn that’s “I before E except after C”. They will learn there are exceptions to all these rules they will learn, but not in second grade. That’s why I can’t understand anyone thinking 2nd graders should be spelling better. They aren’t there yet.

This isn’t a response to you but based on quite a few parents who think their first grader is gifted I would be annoyed having a know-it-all 7 year old picking through my work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I don't ever remember writing more than a sentence until 2nd grade and I went to a top private school. We were taught the letters, then the words then how to create a sentence. When I had to write a paragraph, it was the natural next step. Then, in middle school maybe, 5 paragraphs for an essay. All completely structured. My kids were supposed to write about whatever in 1st grade and what came home was a mishmash of words. Stayed that way too, until covid, when I realized that my daughter could not write at all.

As a writer, I was floored when she had no idea how to even structure a paragraph.

What grade was she in? I think it’s important to understand what the class as a whole has learned. Was your daughter one of only a few who couldn’t grasp the concept or was the whole class doing poorly.

I have one child who is not a very good reader. She’s slow and it’s hard for her to retain what she read. As a result she doesn’t read that often for fun. She does get reading help in school and she knows how to read, she just will never be as strong a reader as most of her classmates.

My son was always more than a few grade levels ahead of his class. It’s because of the reading material he chooses. He starting reading books in 2nd grade written by comedians, their biographies, adult graphic novels, most books that involve comedy. He got the clever nuanced comedy and the big words.

I don’t fault the teacher’s style for my daughter’s inability to read well and I don’t give credit to the teaching method used for my son’s skills.

Reading above grade level doesn't always translate to writing well. Mine is reading way above grade level and spends hours reading every day. He keeps his own notebooks with notes on geology and other weird facts. He writes stories and today wrote me a menu so I could order lunch. The advanced reading shows itself in his interests and his oral language, but not in his writing. His written syntax and spelling are awful, though it's gotten a bit better since we started doing word ladders at home. I may have to find him a writing workbook or tutor for the summer. He's only in 2nd grade, but they use the work shop approach where basically all you do is freewrite on a topic or book of your choice, and that work gets "edited" by other 1st and 2nd graders, you "conference" with the teacher if you're lucky, and if you work really hard and are lucky, at the end of it you come home with a 3 page piece full of errors but at least each sentence starts with a capitol and ends with a period.

I don’t know too many 2nd graders who can spell words like receipt or beautiful. They will learn that’s “I before E except after C”. They will learn there are exceptions to all these rules they will learn, but not in second grade. That’s why I can’t understand anyone thinking 2nd graders should be spelling better. They aren’t there yet.

This isn’t a response to you but based on quite a few parents who think their first grader is gifted I would be annoyed having a know-it-all 7 year old picking through my work.

The only reason my 7th grader knows "i before e except after c" is because I taught it to her. The only reason she knows any phonics rules related to spelling are because I taught them to her. Same with grammar, other than briefly learning what nouns and verbs were in second grade.

Did your kids actually get explicit spelling and grammar instruction in a Writing Workshop school? Because Lucy says not to bother, kids will learn by reading. Except they don't. My 7th grader is a voracious reader.

Since we're now at private school with both a spelling curriculum (Houghton Mifflin) and grammar curriculum (Easy Grammar), my elementary aged kids are learning these rules.

[Anonymous]

In response to the person who posted that science of reading does not allow for kids to enjoy reading at school, please note that most curriculums don't allow for enjoyment of science or social studies either. That is because school is for learning and exploring your outside interests is for home. Educators, as professionals, are there to guide your kids in what they should know. You can take your kids to the library to guide them in enjoying reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In response to the person who posted that science of reading does not allow for kids to enjoy reading at school, please note that most curriculums don't allow for enjoyment of science or social studies either. That is because school is for learning and exploring your outside interests is for home. Educators, as professionals, are there to guide your kids in what they should know. You can take your kids to the library to guide them in enjoying reading.

Kids still have Library every week and go to pick out books. They are also always encouraged to read after finishing their work.

For my 3rd grader, the teacher also reads to the class after lunch every day.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My favorite LC story is the year my kid jumped from level E to level M in reading in a month. Why? The story she was tested on for E was about baseball and she couldn’t guess what some of the words were, which was supposed to be easy… Only we’d just moved to the country and she’d literally never heard of baseball, so had zero framework to even sound out from. (Like “pitcher” and “base” and “diamond” were all at Level E because you could guess from the first letter and the picture if you’d ever heard these words… but actually pitcher is not on the same level as dog as LC claimed (cvc and common/easy to depict words were the same) and is very hard for a kid to figure out if she’s never heard the word and doesn’t even recognize the sport. Then suddenly a different teacher declared her at Level M because she could read a Level M book about a topic she was familiar with (so where the first letter and guess method worked). Absolute lunacy.

Do you get any sort of idea where your kid is reading when they are above grade level phonics? For example, if a Kindergartner is reading at the end of first grade, it isn’t reported or noted anywhere?

A PP. My school district evaluated the kids in terms of lexiles. That's a different assessment system. I think they will be using iReady for this in the future. It doesn't have anything to do with Calkins or phonics.

https://readingrev.com/blog/jgon5w7jjk5analqa9bcmjm9h4hxwv#:~:text=A%20text's%20Lexile%20level%20is,indicates%20a%20more%20challenging%20text.

The big emphasis on lexile assessment started in first grade in our district and lasted until about fourth grade.

You may not get much assessed in K if your child is NT. I believe at my school they just noted whether the kid was able to keep up with the class. Report cards covered the skills the kids could demonstrate at the expected level. And any mild skill deficits were explained.

Ok thanks- I guess phonics instruction is tailored to their Lexlie level then?

PP. No. Lexiles are a measure of their reading development. Roughly, reading speed and fluency. And lexiles loosely correspond to K-6 grades. I thought your question was related to how you could get a measure of your child's advancement in reading. It sounds now like you want diagnosis of phonics-related strengths and weaknesses.

Phonics is about the correct reading and reproduction of sounds. Teachers should listen to your kid and determine if your kid has specific gaps in their phonics training or reproduction capability and work on the gaps in small reading breakout groups.

There aren't levels in phonics similar to guided reading. There are more basic/critical lessons and more advanced material. You either know how to read and say specific sound patterns/letters or you don't. The process of phonics education reviews and drills these patterns. A curriculum is an organized set of lesson plans that covers how phonics instruction will proceed (what will be taught, when it will be taught, what materials does the school have to support the lessons).

If you want information on your specific child, ask your teacher to share observations and maybe some drill sheets on phonics lessons that your child needs to work on. They may be able to give you a few ideas that will allow you to match bookstore-purchased workbooks to your child's level of development.

I am just confused. If my kid is reading above grade level and knows long vowel patterns in the end of, they are correctly reading Magic tree house books. Does that mean the phonics focus switches to the “reproduction of sounds’ like they get spelling lessons then? So if they can do cat, dog and CVC words easily, is the K teacher supposed to give lessons in how to spell long vowel patterns?

Sorry, I’m just not understanding what this is supposed to look like vs what we receive for instruction.

Ask the kindergarten teacher for examples if you don't know from materials your kid brings home. Kindergarten is very flexible in what is taught and how it is taught.

If you have a Kindergartener who can read Magic Tree House already...you are unlikely to have many problems going forward. You can go to a store and buy some 1st and 2nd grade phonics workbooks and go through them with your kid one time to convince yourself she knows the basics.

From time to time, look at her written work and make flash cards out of the words she spells wrong and incentivize her to learn to spell them. Take your kid to the library and check out what ever she wants and buy bags of books at used booksales. Magic Treehouse is a good bridge to much longer elementary books. My generation moved into things like Beverly Cleary next. This generation likes Warrior Cats. Around 2nd grade, do your own spelling tests.

1st grade is a busy time. Your kid will have lots to do during
that grade. The teachers do a lot of assessment in 1st grade because of the importance of fixing any big issues early. So you should let your teacher know at the first conference that you are eager for information on how to best improve her skills. Which sound like they are already past 1st grade for reading. I do not think you will get a lot of advice in kindergarten because there are relaxed standards for student accomplishment while they get kids socialized, read a little, and print a few words, etc.

This is the best I can advise you as a layperson with teen children. I'm sure your teacher can help you/partner with you. You should not stress over the content of the kindergarten year. It's not a make or break year.

Thanks for your post PP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The trouble with all of these worksheets that come home is that there is no consistency. I have twins so I can see how differently two different teachers teach. If they are all creating their own worksheets or downloading them from the internet, it is quite haphazard. Plus, you can't go back and look to see what you missed if you were sick - or look ahead to prepare for what is coming next. I'm in favor of treating teachers as professionals and not dictating how they teach, but I don't want my children to learn from worksheets some random has uploaded onto "teachers pay teachers" or Etsy.

I want a structured, consistent curriculum so it doesn't feel like my kids are learning whatever popped into the teachers mind today.

At least with CKLA, they developed worksheets for the structured curriculum. No teachers creating their own or downloading random ones from the Internet. And all of it is available online, so if you are so inclined, you can download the materials yourself to see what your child might have missed or look ahead for what comes next.

Would I prefer a professionally printed workbook for the year? Absolutely. But unfortunately that is increasingly rare. CKLA is a highly structured curriculum, no "learning whatever popped into the teachers ming today."

And as I posted above, our school uses Envision Math, which does have a workbook. But it stays exclusively at school, so it's not like I as a parent can see what my kid missed or what the next unit is. I'm actually less knowledgeable about the math curriculum because it's not posted online like the Core Knowledge offerings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The trouble with all of these worksheets that come home is that there is no consistency. I have twins so I can see how differently two different teachers teach. If they are all creating their own worksheets or downloading them from the internet, it is quite haphazard. Plus, you can't go back and look to see what you missed if you were sick - or look ahead to prepare for what is coming next. I'm in favor of treating teachers as professionals and not dictating how they teach, but I don't want my children to learn from worksheets some random has uploaded onto "teachers pay teachers" or Etsy.

I want a structured, consistent curriculum so it doesn't feel like my kids are learning whatever popped into the teachers mind today.

At least with CKLA, they developed worksheets for the structured curriculum. No teachers creating their own or downloading random ones from the Internet. And all of it is available online, so if you are so inclined, you can download the materials yourself to see what your child might have missed or look ahead for what comes next.

Would I prefer a professionally printed workbook for the year? Absolutely. But unfortunately that is increasingly rare. CKLA is a highly structured curriculum, no "learning whatever popped into the teachers ming today."

And as I posted above, our school uses Envision Math, which does have a workbook. But it stays exclusively at school, so it's not like I as a parent can see what my kid missed or what the next unit is. I'm actually less knowledgeable about the math curriculum because it's not posted online like the Core Knowledge offerings.

I know that my kid's Envision workbooks come home empty every spring. So APS is paying for them but teachers aren't using them. Several teachers have told me they're no good.