Schools simply do not teach writing any more

[Anonymous]

I'm not affluent but I send my child to a Catholic school. I'm a single parent and a public school teacher. The basics are not the newest fad so public schools aren't really interested in teaching them. You shouldn't have to pay tuition for the basics IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grammar and parts of speech are pretty easy to supplement with Khan Academy and Bee Star, if you are so inclined.

Yes, I will supplement, but that is not the point. This is the most basic thing that the school should be able to do.

The education industry follows whatever trend is fashionable, and the currently the trend is to not explicitly teach most of the basics. The idea is that is better for kids to pick things up naturally, through osmosis. From the school's perspective, this seems to work for many kids. Of course, behind the scenes, the kids for whom this is "working" are generally those whose parents are now either doing the explicit teaching at home or are driving them to one of the many tutoring centers that have opened up since the fad seized hold.

This trend is pointless and contrary to how little kid brains work. Who comes up with this stuff? My kindergartener was being taught to guess at quote hard words like “cake” today. There’s an easy phonics rule for that - why guess? Meanwhile I’m sitting at home teaching phonics. Maddening.

Don’t even get me started on word study lists versus teaching spelling phonetically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grammar and parts of speech are pretty easy to supplement with Khan Academy and Bee Star, if you are so inclined.

Yes, I will supplement, but that is not the point. This is the most basic thing that the school should be able to do.

The education industry follows whatever trend is fashionable, and the currently the trend is to not explicitly teach most of the basics. The idea is that is better for kids to pick things up naturally, through osmosis. From the school's perspective, this seems to work for many kids. Of course, behind the scenes, the kids for whom this is "working" are generally those whose parents are now either doing the explicit teaching at home or are driving them to one of the many tutoring centers that have opened up since the fad seized hold.

This trend is pointless and contrary to how little kid brains work. Who comes up with this stuff? My kindergartener was being taught to guess at quote hard words like “cake” today. There’s an easy phonics rule for that - why guess? Meanwhile I’m sitting at home teaching phonics. Maddening.

Don’t even get me started on word study lists versus teaching spelling phonetically.

Which district is not teaching phonetics? My kid's at DCPS and they have had explicit phonics instruction all along, combined with sight words, from K into at least second grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grammar and parts of speech are pretty easy to supplement with Khan Academy and Bee Star, if you are so inclined.

Yes, I will supplement, but that is not the point. This is the most basic thing that the school should be able to do.

The education industry follows whatever trend is fashionable, and the currently the trend is to not explicitly teach most of the basics. The idea is that is better for kids to pick things up naturally, through osmosis. From the school's perspective, this seems to work for many kids. Of course, behind the scenes, the kids for whom this is "working" are generally those whose parents are now either doing the explicit teaching at home or are driving them to one of the many tutoring centers that have opened up since the fad seized hold.

This trend is pointless and contrary to how little kid brains work. Who comes up with this stuff? My kindergartener was being taught to guess at quote hard words like “cake” today. There’s an easy phonics rule for that - why guess? Meanwhile I’m sitting at home teaching phonics. Maddening.

Don’t even get me started on word study lists versus teaching spelling phonetically.

Which district is not teaching phonetics? My kid's at DCPS and they have had explicit phonics instruction all along, combined with sight words, from K into at least second grade.

Our FCPS doesn’t. Based on the wide flexibility given to principals in FCPS, other schools might.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a big reason we plan to pay for private school.

+1

[Anonymous]

Yes. It's appalling.

[Anonymous]

Agreed. Have them read more challenging books and over time it should self correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Have them read more challenging books and over time it should self correct.

Not true. You can’t learn how to write solely by reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grammar and parts of speech are pretty easy to supplement with Khan Academy and Bee Star, if you are so inclined.

Yes, I will supplement, but that is not the point. This is the most basic thing that the school should be able to do.

The education industry follows whatever trend is fashionable, and the currently the trend is to not explicitly teach most of the basics. The idea is that is better for kids to pick things up naturally, through osmosis. From the school's perspective, this seems to work for many kids. Of course, behind the scenes, the kids for whom this is "working" are generally those whose parents are now either doing the explicit teaching at home or are driving them to one of the many tutoring centers that have opened up since the fad seized hold.

This trend is pointless and contrary to how little kid brains work. Who comes up with this stuff? My kindergartener was being taught to guess at quote hard words like “cake” today. There’s an easy phonics rule for that - why guess? Meanwhile I’m sitting at home teaching phonics. Maddening.

Don’t even get me started on word study lists versus teaching spelling phonetically.

Which district is not teaching phonetics? My kid's at DCPS and they have had explicit phonics instruction all along, combined with sight words, from K into at least second grade.

Our FCPS doesn’t. Based on the wide flexibility given to principals in FCPS, other schools might.

MCPS doesn’t teach phonics, either.

Listen — I expect to have to teach my child some things. I’m not trying to pawn it off entirely to the school, but I do expect the school to provide a foundation. I have neither the time nor the training to provide my child the core of her education. I also resent the notion that she should spend an entire day in school, only to come home and—rather than playing or learning some fun things to supplement her education—have me teach her an entire English curriculum. It’s so completely asinine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Have them read more challenging books and over time it should self correct.

Believing that elementary school kids can induce basic principles of Language Arts from lots of examples is what caused this trend. It will not fix it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grammar and parts of speech are pretty easy to supplement with Khan Academy and Bee Star, if you are so inclined.

Yes, I will supplement, but that is not the point. This is the most basic thing that the school should be able to do.

The education industry follows whatever trend is fashionable, and the currently the trend is to not explicitly teach most of the basics. The idea is that is better for kids to pick things up naturally, through osmosis. From the school's perspective, this seems to work for many kids. Of course, behind the scenes, the kids for whom this is "working" are generally those whose parents are now either doing the explicit teaching at home or are driving them to one of the many tutoring centers that have opened up since the fad seized hold.

OP here. I could not agree more. Which is why this infuriates me. Part of having a literate population is for people to know how to read and write. There couldn't be anything more basic for a public education curriculum than that. And don't even get me started on the social and economic differences this creates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you’re looking for a supplement and don’t mind Mennonite content, Rod and Staff publishes VERY thorough grammar books for grades 2-10. They are cheap (around $10) and really well done, covering things like writing from notes, outlining, poetry as well as diagramming, parts of speech, verb tenses, etc.

You can view samples and purchase at milestonebooks.com.

My kid is similar to yours and having explicit grammar instruction really helped because then I could say, “you need an active verb instead of a participle” and she would get it and make the change, rather than relying on “that doesn’t sound right, does it?” which did not always work for my kid.

Alternatively if you plan for your child to take an inflected language (Latin, Russian, Ancient Greek) in middle and high school, they will learn more than anyone ever wanted to know about grammar because all the words in the sentence change based on their role in the sentence - so that may help too if you want to wait a bit.

OP here. I'm Eastern European and grammar was drilled into us the entire time we were in school. Thank you for the suggestions. I will definitely check it out. I have to bridge the gap somehow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I appreciate rules (and I love grammar), too; however, in my opinion, the fact that they aren't learning it the way we did hasn't adversely impacted their ability to write. My older kids had to take a grammar quiz prior to the start of middle school and I was worried they would fail since they had never taken a formal grammar class; however, they aced it and now, as high schoolers, continue to write well.

Since you have high schoolers you have no idea what's happening in elementary schools right now. It has changed dramatically even in that short time frame.

Exactly. I can tell you that it has already impacted my 5th grader very adversely. And since they are doing some assignments in a blog I can read his classmate's writing and it's also abysmal for the most part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Have them read more challenging books and over time it should self correct.

People always say that and it's absolutely not been my experience. Our FCPS school doesn't teach spelling or basic rules. My DCs read non-stop and can't spell to save their lives. They have different strengths and weaknesses in other academic areas, but the spelling difficulties are shared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Have them read more challenging books and over time it should self correct.

People always say that and it's absolutely not been my experience. Our FCPS school doesn't teach spelling or basic rules. My DCs read non-stop and can't spell to save their lives. They have different strengths and weaknesses in other academic areas, but the spelling difficulties are shared.

Same here. My son reads way above grade level, his vocabulary is amazing, yet he can't write. I'm sure reading helps much more than not reading, but the grammar needs to be taught explicitly.