Kinder curriculum APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, they do writers workshop which I agree is absolutely ridiculous. But, for my kid, it really got him comfortable writing and he is very willing to write cards and letters because he practices writing every day (Even when he couldn't write out a single word and still struggled forming letters)

Writer's workshop made my kid recalcitrant to any writing. She's finally started being willing to write this year when the upper grade curriculum introduced scaffolding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All grades use dreambox and lexia in APS elementary. It’s not the main program it is a supplement.

Kinder uses Heggerty for Phonologocal awareness, and 95% group for core phonics instruction. We are getting a new math program for the fall.

What does supplement mean, they are in school 6 hrs, 1.5 hr for lunch and 2 recess, I would think most of the day would be instruction.

Do you mean supplement at home?

Even in kindergarten teachers are breaking the kids out into small groups. So while the teacher is meeting with a small group to give them siecifuc instruction (maybe this group is already reading, or maybe they all need help on a specific skill), the other kids will be doing some independent work which can include iPad apps.

I'm sorry there is no need to use apps in this case. Give them handwriting worksheets, practice cursive, indepdenently read, even math worksheets. Kinder is way to young for ipad instruction.

[Anonymous]

I talked with a lady who has taught at both private and public school and asked why we can't get rid of all this technology for such small kids. She said it is vital for differentiating lessons. I asked why it wasn't used at the private school then and she just laughed. I hate the new trend of teaching by app and am pulling my kids because of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I talked with a lady who has taught at both private and public school and asked why we can't get rid of all this technology for such small kids. She said it is vital for differentiating lessons. I asked why it wasn't used at the private school then and she just laughed. I hate the new trend of teaching by app and am pulling my kids because of it.

Uh, what does laughing tell you? They don’t need differentiation? They have smaller classes? Catholic school isn’t smaller for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I talked with a lady who has taught at both private and public school and asked why we can't get rid of all this technology for such small kids. She said it is vital for differentiating lessons. I asked why it wasn't used at the private school then and she just laughed. I hate the new trend of teaching by app and am pulling my kids because of it.

I’m sure there were educators railing against over head projectors and photocopied sheets (the writing of the chalk is vital to the learning process, the dark background helps focus the eyes; kids need to write down the problems before solving them, photocopying robs them of that osmosis that comes from copying equations 40 at a time).

[Anonymous]

My 2nd grader used Heggerty in K and 1st. No sight words were sent home until school closed for the pandemic. Perhaps they worked on them in class - but we didn’t see that at home.

My kid spends a lot of time on Dreambox, less so on Lexia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I talked with a lady who has taught at both private and public school and asked why we can't get rid of all this technology for such small kids. She said it is vital for differentiating lessons. I asked why it wasn't used at the private school then and she just laughed. I hate the new trend of teaching by app and am pulling my kids because of it.

Tell that to my kid who is 2 grades ahead in math and 1 grade ahead in reading. He politely follows the group lessons and then gets to spend a portion of the class on apps where he gets to work on new, interesting material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I talked with a lady who has taught at both private and public school and asked why we can't get rid of all this technology for such small kids. She said it is vital for differentiating lessons. I asked why it wasn't used at the private school then and she just laughed. I hate the new trend of teaching by app and am pulling my kids because of it.

Tell that to my kid who is 2 grades ahead in math and 1 grade ahead in reading. He politely follows the group lessons and then gets to spend a portion of the class on apps where he gets to work on new, interesting material.

I have kids who are far ahead and their strong preference is to read if given extra time. They also spend a more time on writing assignments (or the accompanying art) so they are longer or more complex. They also like to grab the extra challenge math packets offered in their classroom. Neither likes Lexia or Dreambox. There's better ways to differentiate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I talked with a lady who has taught at both private and public school and asked why we can't get rid of all this technology for such small kids. She said it is vital for differentiating lessons. I asked why it wasn't used at the private school then and she just laughed. I hate the new trend of teaching by app and am pulling my kids because of it.

Uh, what does laughing tell you? They don’t need differentiation? They have smaller classes? Catholic school isn’t smaller for example.

Laughing doesn't tell me anything! I was hoping another teacher had insight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, they do writers workshop which I agree is absolutely ridiculous. But, for my kid, it really got him comfortable writing and he is very willing to write cards and letters because he practices writing every day (Even when he couldn't write out a single word and still struggled forming letters)

Can I ask why you don't like writer's workshop? I teach K and I do writer's workshop daily with my students. About 85% of them can write 3-4 sentences on a topic with correct punctuation, capitalization and correctly spelled high frequency words. Do you feel like it isn't effective for your child? What do you wish schools did instead?

[Anonymous]

I’m not understanding what is wrong with writers workshop either? My kid brought home the cutest pieces of writing, and really grew in writers workshop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, they do writers workshop which I agree is absolutely ridiculous. But, for my kid, it really got him comfortable writing and he is very willing to write cards and letters because he practices writing every day (Even when he couldn't write out a single word and still struggled forming letters)

Writer's workshop made my kid recalcitrant to any writing. She's finally started being willing to write this year when the upper grade curriculum introduced scaffolding.

What types of scaffolding did the upper grades use? And when you say upper, do you mean 2nd and 3rd or 7th and 8th? When I taught first grade, I used the scaffold of providing possible opening sentences, closing sentences, and we did a lot of work on writing details and supporting sentences. Most of my students could write very strong paragraphs. I think different people use the term writer's workshop to mean different things. In my writer's workshop, I did about 20% whole group instruction, 50% small group instruction and then about 30% of the time I co-taught or had other teachers in the room to work with kids individually on the exact skills they needed to move forward. I suspect that writer's workshop isn't the problem...it's how it is implemented. I'm a little OCD about my students' progress and every weekend I spend several hours looking at kids' work and figuring out exactly what they need the following week to keep growing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I talked with a lady who has taught at both private and public school and asked why we can't get rid of all this technology for such small kids. She said it is vital for differentiating lessons. I asked why it wasn't used at the private school then and she just laughed. I hate the new trend of teaching by app and am pulling my kids because of it.

Tell that to my kid who is 2 grades ahead in math and 1 grade ahead in reading. He politely follows the group lessons and then gets to spend a portion of the class on apps where he gets to work on new, interesting material.

So kids who are behind get extra teacher time, and kids on or above level get apps? That’s 2022 APS differentiation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, they do writers workshop which I agree is absolutely ridiculous. But, for my kid, it really got him comfortable writing and he is very willing to write cards and letters because he practices writing every day (Even when he couldn't write out a single word and still struggled forming letters)

Writer's workshop made my kid recalcitrant to any writing. She's finally started being willing to write this year when the upper grade curriculum introduced scaffolding.

What types of scaffolding did the upper grades use? And when you say upper, do you mean 2nd and 3rd or 7th and 8th? When I taught first grade, I used the scaffold of providing possible opening sentences, closing sentences, and we did a lot of work on writing details and supporting sentences. Most of my students could write very strong paragraphs. I think different people use the term writer's workshop to mean different things. In my writer's workshop, I did about 20% whole group instruction, 50% small group instruction and then about 30% of the time I co-taught or had other teachers in the room to work with kids individually on the exact skills they needed to move forward. I suspect that writer's workshop isn't the problem...it's how it is implemented. I'm a little OCD about my students' progress and every weekend I spend several hours looking at kids' work and figuring out exactly what they need the following week to keep growing.

We've seen a huge turn about this year in third grade writing. The teacher told me it's because she's doing more scaffolding that was part of Lucy Caulkins. I don't know most of it as I'm not in the classroom, but I've heard talk of an adjective wall and seen note cards with ideas and topic sentences.

In 2nd grade (by Teams) the kids were just given topics and asked to fill a page. The teacher would give her own example or two, but the writing was assigned as a single step. This didn't work for my child, though I'm sure many can do it. She'd end the hour long writing class with a blank page every day and burst into tears if you asked her to keep working on it.

From my experience trying to help, she does better if you ask her first to identify a setting, then a problem, then to talk through what would happen first, then second, etc. When she has most of the bits, then she'll be able to put it together. But she needs those steps to help her.

She basically wrote nothing in K-2. We even showed at her 1st grade conference and the teacher was shocked to open her writing folder and find it blank. She'd sat quietly without writing a word from the beginning of school until late February without the teacher noticing. This is a huge issue for a kid who is many grades ahead in both reading and math. I think she wants to write like the author of a middle grade novel but doesn't know how, so you get nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I talked with a lady who has taught at both private and public school and asked why we can't get rid of all this technology for such small kids. She said it is vital for differentiating lessons. I asked why it wasn't used at the private school then and she just laughed. I hate the new trend of teaching by app and am pulling my kids because of it.

Tell that to my kid who is 2 grades ahead in math and 1 grade ahead in reading. He politely follows the group lessons and then gets to spend a portion of the class on apps where he gets to work on new, interesting material.

So kids who are behind get extra teacher time, and kids on or above level get apps? That’s 2022 APS differentiation?

No, they all get both. But the kid that’s reading or performing a grade/2 ahead in math can be challenged based on their individual level on the app instead of a worksheet that’s the same for everybody.