Everyone hates Benchmark. FCPS do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to replace this awful tool. Students and teachers alike hate it. Students find the readings uninteresting and are not at all inspired. There is no independent reading time in class anymore which students also hate. Students feel they have to interpret readings in the exact same manner, no room for diversity of thought. Students find the questions really confusing. In conclusion, benchmark really really sucks. FCPS do better.

I said this last year and was pilloried for it here. The defenders jumped into action, screaming how their child’s reading scores actually improved. Thankfully we moved on the middle school where they are not using Benchmark. My child’s love of reading has finally - her class did a book club. And my child is finally reading independently again after a whole year off.

\

Anyone who describes those of us who said that Benchmark helped our children as "screaming" and who claims that a school curriculum is the reason their child didn't read outside of school is just not credible.

It's YOUR job as a parent to make sure your child is reading outside of school, not the school's. Weren't you buying her books, taking her to the library, etc.? There are a TON of resources out there to help you find the perfect books for your child's interests. I subscribed to a middle school librarian's substack and get great recommendations from her. There is BookTok if you're a TikTok person, librarian influencers on Instagram, even Barnes & Noble has lists of the most popular middle grade books out there. You're doing your children a great disservice if you're not helping them find great books to read.

My child lost interest in reading outside of school the one year they did Benchmark. This year is the first year since then that they have expressed an interest in a book outside of school, despite everything I tried.

[Anonymous]

Upper ES teacher here. While I don’t like benchmark, this year is way better. I am able to differentiate for my AAP kids. My students have an assigned novel for each fiction unit and I am using small group to select stronger articles about thematic topics. Vocabulary instruction is actually happening this year. No one is policing like last year. It also helps we are cutting down on the unit tests.

I still hate the writing. But things have improved now that we have flexibility To adapt.

[Anonymous]

The phonics portion sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to replace this awful tool. Students and teachers alike hate it. Students find the readings uninteresting and are not at all inspired. There is no independent reading time in class anymore which students also hate. Students feel they have to interpret readings in the exact same manner, no room for diversity of thought. Students find the questions really confusing. In conclusion, benchmark really really sucks. FCPS do better.

I also hate many parts of Benchmark, but when I hear “diversity of thought” from parents, that means your kid gave the incorrect answer and I didn’t agree with them.

So students can’t have a different interpretation? Can understand if non fiction but for fiction?

Sometimes a different interpretation can still be wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Already have a 12-page thread discussing the pros and cons of Benchmark. It’s not perfect. However, I will say that the quality of student writing has gone up dramatically.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1271921.page

If you’re so upset with it, contact your former governor and VDOE. There were a limited number of curriculums that FCPS could choose from. My friend was on the selection team that met for over a year. They had to select from a company that could meet the demand for how much material would be needed.

Which curriculum would you suggest replace it? Or are you just here to trash FCPS with no real solutions?

I suggest they replace it with teachers who actually are trained on how to teach. My older children didn’t use this crap. Their teachers knew how to teach. Who needs a crappy tool like benchmark. Even teachers hate it.

Sure. Sounds great. Where was that on the list of approved curricula that VDOE provided? Go to any county in the state. Every one of them has to use a state approved reading curriculum.

+1, there was only so many choices from the state and “let trained teachers teach” wasn’t one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to replace this awful tool. Students and teachers alike hate it. Students find the readings uninteresting and are not at all inspired. There is no independent reading time in class anymore which students also hate. Students feel they have to interpret readings in the exact same manner, no room for diversity of thought. Students find the questions really confusing. In conclusion, benchmark really really sucks. FCPS do better.

I also hate many parts of Benchmark, but when I hear “diversity of thought” from parents, that means your kid gave the incorrect answer and I didn’t agree with them.

So students can’t have a different interpretation? Can understand if non fiction but for fiction?

Teacher: What are some clues that Red Riding Hood wasn’t really talking to her grandmother?
Student: The grandmother was screaming for help from inside the wolf’s belly.

No, that is not a different interpretation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The phonics portion sucks.

The phonics portion is the main aspect that is actually good for the little kids, K-2 who are still learning how to read and sound out words. My K has made so much progress this year.

[Anonymous]

This is what’s funny about FCPS and benchmark….

After last year was such a mess, they spent the summer editing many of the units, even REWRITING the entire launch unit for some grades. In addition to writing comprehension and writing scaffold guides for every grade.

On the one hand, they realized what a difficult curriculum it is and helped us teachers out. But on the other hand, we couldn’t even go more than a year before they wanted to put their spin on things and in some cases made it more difficult because instead of just following this book, we are also following 3 other FCPS created documents. This proves that it wasn’t a great choice and I dread doing this for 5 more years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The phonics portion sucks.

The phonics portion is the main aspect that is actually good for the little kids, K-2 who are still learning how to read and sound out words. My K has made so much progress this year.

I teach kindergarten and while this is true, it does not align to the state VALLS testing very well and only the students with good background knowledge are making real strides. The letter order is confusing and frustrating and not easy for the MLLs. We actually are doing things differently this year because learned how terrible it was last year.

[Anonymous]

CKLA would have been better, was adopted by both APS and MCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to replace this awful tool. Students and teachers alike hate it. Students find the readings uninteresting and are not at all inspired. There is no independent reading time in class anymore which students also hate. Students feel they have to interpret readings in the exact same manner, no room for diversity of thought. Students find the questions really confusing. In conclusion, benchmark really really sucks. FCPS do better.

I said this last year and was pilloried for it here. The defenders jumped into action, screaming how their child’s reading scores actually improved. Thankfully we moved on the middle school where they are not using Benchmark. My child’s love of reading has finally - her class did a book club. And my child is finally reading independently again after a whole year off.

\

Anyone who describes those of us who said that Benchmark helped our children as "screaming" and who claims that a school curriculum is the reason their child didn't read outside of school is just not credible.

It's YOUR job as a parent to make sure your child is reading outside of school, not the school's. Weren't you buying her books, taking her to the library, etc.? There are a TON of resources out there to help you find the perfect books for your child's interests. I subscribed to a middle school librarian's substack and get great recommendations from her. There is BookTok if you're a TikTok person, librarian influencers on Instagram, even Barnes & Noble has lists of the most popular middle grade books out there. You're doing your children a great disservice if you're not helping them find great books to read.

My child lost interest in reading outside of school the one year they did Benchmark. This year is the first year since then that they have expressed an interest in a book outside of school, despite everything I tried.

I don't see how your child could lose interest in reading because of the language arts unit at school. You were NOT doing anything to encourage them to read. Parenting fail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Upper ES teacher here. While I don’t like benchmark, this year is way better. I am able to differentiate for my AAP kids. My students have an assigned novel for each fiction unit and I am using small group to select stronger articles about thematic topics. Vocabulary instruction is actually happening this year. No one is policing like last year. It also helps we are cutting down on the unit tests.

I still hate the writing. But things have improved now that we have flexibility To adapt.

I have a 4th grader (not in AAP) whose teacher encouraged the class to, for example, check out Because of Winn Dixie from the library after they read that excerpt. My daughter looked through it in the classroom library and then asked me if we could check it out from the public library, which we did, and now she has a book to read tomorrow. So I don't see how, as a PP earlier suggested, a child could totally lose all interest in reading anything because of Benchmark.

[Anonymous]

My kid reads at home, she has tons of books and uses her kindle. Why isn’t your kid reading at home. My 6th grader is loving benchmark. She doing amazing on the test and is usually getting top grades. Last test she only missed 1/2 point. She has dyslexia and loves it better than I ready.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper ES teacher here. While I don’t like benchmark, this year is way better. I am able to differentiate for my AAP kids. My students have an assigned novel for each fiction unit and I am using small group to select stronger articles about thematic topics. Vocabulary instruction is actually happening this year. No one is policing like last year. It also helps we are cutting down on the unit tests.

I still hate the writing. But things have improved now that we have flexibility To adapt.

I have a 4th grader (not in AAP) whose teacher encouraged the class to, for example, check out Because of Winn Dixie from the library after they read that excerpt. My daughter looked through it in the classroom library and then asked me if we could check it out from the public library, which we did, and now she has a book to read tomorrow. So I don't see how, as a PP earlier suggested, a child could totally lose all interest in reading anything because of Benchmark.

Seriously? Your experience is not universal. The 6th grade Benchmark curriculum was god awful last year. All the excerpts were non fiction and boring. There was one on Queen Elizabeth 1 and one on archaeology technology and they were painfully boring. On top of that maybe we just had a crappy LA teacher. Her classroom library sucked (think lots of anime) and she complained all year to the kids about Benchmark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to replace this awful tool. Students and teachers alike hate it. Students find the readings uninteresting and are not at all inspired. There is no independent reading time in class anymore which students also hate. Students feel they have to interpret readings in the exact same manner, no room for diversity of thought. Students find the questions really confusing. In conclusion, benchmark really really sucks. FCPS do better.

I said this last year and was pilloried for it here. The defenders jumped into action, screaming how their child’s reading scores actually improved. Thankfully we moved on the middle school where they are not using Benchmark. My child’s love of reading has finally - her class did a book club. And my child is finally reading independently again after a whole year off.

\

Anyone who describes those of us who said that Benchmark helped our children as "screaming" and who claims that a school curriculum is the reason their child didn't read outside of school is just not credible.

It's YOUR job as a parent to make sure your child is reading outside of school, not the school's. Weren't you buying her books, taking her to the library, etc.? There are a TON of resources out there to help you find the perfect books for your child's interests. I subscribed to a middle school librarian's substack and get great recommendations from her. There is BookTok if you're a TikTok person, librarian influencers on Instagram, even Barnes & Noble has lists of the most popular middle grade books out there. You're doing your children a great disservice if you're not helping them find great books to read.

My child lost interest in reading outside of school the one year they did Benchmark. This year is the first year since then that they have expressed an interest in a book outside of school, despite everything I tried.

I don't see how your child could lose interest in reading because of the language arts unit at school. You were NOT doing anything to encourage them to read. Parenting fail.

That’s utter bs. How would you know what I did and didn’t do?