When will DC area privates dump Lucy Calkins curricula ?

[Anonymous]

If a "top local private" like GDS isn't bothering to teach children to read, instead relying on parents to hire Orton-Gillingham tutors, it's worth considering that whatever list GDS is atop is merely rating the quality and status of students who attend. If you rate the schools themselves, Christ Is King Evangelical, which sits in a strip mall storefront between a Mexican grocery store and Jim-Bob's Tax & Accounting, and actually teaches its kids, is going to be leagues better.

[Anonymous]

One of the reasons we chose a Catholic school is that they don't chase trends. At least our school always had a straightforward phonics-driven reading and writing curriculum and old-school math. It's not "joyful" but it works. It's maddening to see private schools chasing the same shiny bait that has made a joke out of so many public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If a "top local private" like GDS isn't bothering to teach children to read, instead relying on parents to hire Orton-Gillingham tutors, it's worth considering that whatever list GDS is atop is merely rating the quality and status of students who attend. If you rate the schools themselves, Christ Is King Evangelical, which sits in a strip mall storefront between a Mexican grocery store and Jim-Bob's Tax & Accounting, and actually teaches its kids, is going to be leagues better.

None of the GDS parents in my kid's class has ever complained about having to "hire Orton-Gillingham tutors" or any tutors for reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drawbacks of the Lucy Caulkins curriculum have been reported on ad nauseam since 2019. It's depressing to me that independent schools feel fine being so out of the loop on discourse in the field. It's like that doctor who's prescribing the same painkillers since 1989. Always a tradeoff with independent schools.

2019... right when GDS lower school added it, in addition to their whole language / balanced literature look at the pictures fun.

Well they had some home-baked thing before that, also with zero phonics.
Subs, when needed, couldn’t even figure out what to do and it differed between teachers within the same grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a "top local private" like GDS isn't bothering to teach children to read, instead relying on parents to hire Orton-Gillingham tutors, it's worth considering that whatever list GDS is atop is merely rating the quality and status of students who attend. If you rate the schools themselves, Christ Is King Evangelical, which sits in a strip mall storefront between a Mexican grocery store and Jim-Bob's Tax & Accounting, and actually teaches its kids, is going to be leagues better.

None of the GDS parents in my kid's class has ever complained about having to "hire Orton-Gillingham tutors" or any tutors for reading.

It all works out come 6th grade. Just don’t take any reading comp tests.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know if Maret uses Lucy Calkins?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if Maret uses Lucy Calkins?

Yes, they do!

[Anonymous]

DD’s school uses it in combination with Orton-Gillingham. This week is back to school night and I plan to ask about why they’re still using it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD’s school uses it in combination with Orton-Gillingham. This week is back to school night and I plan to ask about why they’re still using it.

What’s Orton-Gillingham?

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Our pk-12 just does reading groups w peers starting in grades 1-4. Only once in awhile do they read out for leveled testing so that’s not great feedback once every 6-8 weeks to read to an adult teacher).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD’s school uses it in combination with Orton-Gillingham. This week is back to school night and I plan to ask about why they’re still using it.

The thing that's frustrating to me is that Units of Study isn't just weak on phonics! It's weak on text selection, vocab-building, writing, and knowledge-building. Its flaws go WELL BEYOND phonics, so training your teachers in OG and then giving Units of Study is NOT sufficient.

Parents should absolutely be challenging school leadership about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD’s school uses it in combination with Orton-Gillingham. This week is back to school night and I plan to ask about why they’re still using it.

What’s Orton-Gillingham?

Orton-Gillingham is a structured, multisensory approach to teaching reading that directly and systematically teaching the relationship between letters and sounds. It was originally developed as an intervention for struggling readers.

[Anonymous]

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

Oh there you have it. Just as I suspected, ALL of these schools are the same and any extra “prestige” attached to any of them more than others is completely made up and meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The drawbacks of the Lucy Caulkins curriculum have been reported on ad nauseam since 2019. It's depressing to me that independent schools feel fine being so out of the loop on discourse in the field. It's like that doctor who's prescribing the same painkillers since 1989. Always a tradeoff with independent schools.

A countless number of public education students have been placed in Special Education programs because they had difficulty learning to read and were subjected to her methods and other similar reading curricula. Tragic.