Purple Challenge- is your child learning to read?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or Lucy Calkins AND F&P. Argh.

I’ve already discovered (and started to undo!) so much damage for my first grader’s reading. It’s been amazing to see his progress since starting direct phonics and phonemic awareness with him at home. Why can’t schools figure this out?

Teachers know how to teach reading but the people making the decisions don't.

Some teachers know. Others, including new teachers, don't know.

I subbed for a few years and student taught and worked as an aide, where the schools didn’t use Lucy. All k-2nd had explicit Fundations daily. They taught grammar and spelling and such. Last year I taught in FCPS and my kid’s writing scared me! I opened my mouth about how much better kids were with writing where I was coming from and all I got was crap and afraid I would be fired for badmouthing the curriculum they chose to buy and have us teachers use. I didn’t have to teach reading last hear. This year I’m at a new school in a different state and they use Lucy. I teach every subject this year and I’ve seen kids totally just guess what words are which is a really stupid strategy brought to you by Lucy Calkins... I’ve again opened my mouth and made admin pissed but the curriculum fails the kids for sure yet that’s what they give me and what they want me to use. So many of my students have IEPs for ELA related things. I can see some of my fourth graders on go guardian doing Fundations with special ed teachers. They’re using the cards I saw kindergartners use every day where I often subbed. It makes me sad. There truly is no common core when so many
Schools are buying different curriculum and many are buying the Lucy sh*t. Everything I did in student teaching I seem to be told not to do this year and it was the same in FCPS. The kids could read and write very well she’d do student taught so I don’t think the more old fashion ways are harmful like people will try to convince me... but as a second year teacher I absolutely have to do as I’m told or it’s rocking the boat which is bad, even if I’m totally aware Lucy Calkins sucks. There’s a lot of info out there about how her curriculum fails kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't need to do the challenge because I live it here everyday with my 6y old. Consistent, systematic teaching of phonics and phonics awareness REALLY works! I have posted in these boards many times about this, but my child didn't even know how to sound out the alphabet in May and now she can easily read decodable books and tons of words in context and out of context by sounding them out.

In the beginning, when I hadn't even heard about Orton-Gillingham at some point I had a crying fit in my bedroom thinking she had an intellectual disability.

Right there with my 7 year old. How did you do this? I’ve seen OG books on amazon. Did you use air thing like this?

No, I did extensive research (poured hours into it) trying to decide which program was the best fit for us and had great reviews... I ended up choosing All About Reading and we are just now finishing book 1.

She is also doing the Reading Eggs app.

https://www.rainbowresource.com/pdfs/Phonics_CurriculumChart.pdf

[Anonymous]

As a parent of a dyslexic child I have repeatedly approached school admins to talk about the reading curriculum. I have gotten the “we are the expert educators” party line. I have no idea how to break through at the school level.

And bluntly I am too busy supporting my child to spent as much time on this as it needs.

[Anonymous]

Pendulum slowly swinging back:

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/10/16/influential-literacy-expert-lucy-calkins-is-changing-her-views?fbclid=IwAR1Q4dw-pc6y0-CAY5f26oTKbw09rehe1vRaXD-s9JgLYM5VKt6Um2IpYXg

The group headed by Lucy Calkins, a leading figure in the long-running fight over how best to teach children to read, is admitting that its materials need to be changed to align with scientific research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pendulum slowly swinging back:

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/10/16/influential-literacy-expert-lucy-calkins-is-changing-her-views?fbclid=IwAR1Q4dw-pc6y0-CAY5f26oTKbw09rehe1vRaXD-s9JgLYM5VKt6Um2IpYXg

The group headed by Lucy Calkins, a leading figure in the long-running fight over how best to teach children to read, is admitting that its materials need to be changed to align with scientific research.

I'm sure this is happening very reluctantly. They don't want to go bankrupt.

[Anonymous]

Seems like a reluctant admission that kids need to learn decoding first before adding in other curing systems.
And that sight words are best learned through decoding them frequently so it becomes automatic.

Honestly, I think people's reluctance to teach decoding seems to stem from the fact that it can be boring. But I teach phonics and decoding all day long, and kids find it fun. If you get them in the early years (K and early grade 1) they love it because it hasn't been done to death. I teach decoding in a very effective and efficient way, and it is very interactive and fast paced. It doesn't rely on circling the first letter of words on a worksheet for example, which can be soul killing.

[Anonymous]

For those of you supporting your students, look up Heggerty which is a phonemic awareness curriculum for K-2 or 3 and there's lots of free content.

Oh snap. They locked down over the summer: All of their smaple lesson PDFs used to be freely available and now you have to register. Even the samples were very long/good so might be worth trying. This is what ATS is using now since they were freed from Lucy Caulkin a couple of years ago.
https://heggerty.org/downloads/english-kindergarten-sample-lessons/

[Anonymous]

WOW! I basically did this. When my DD was in 1st, the Ras Kids books didn't work for her so I "leveled" all my books using Scholastic and just told the teacher which one she was reading instead. This teacher was old school and just let it happen but had to use LC and Raz she told me later.

[Anonymous]

What works for one child, doesn't work for another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like a reluctant admission that kids need to learn decoding first before adding in other curing systems.
And that sight words are best learned through decoding them frequently so it becomes automatic.

Honestly, I think people's reluctance to teach decoding seems to stem from the fact that it can be boring. But I teach phonics and decoding all day long, and kids find it fun. If you get them in the early years (K and early grade 1) they love it because it hasn't been done to death. I teach decoding in a very effective and efficient way, and it is very interactive and fast paced. It doesn't rely on circling the first letter of words on a worksheet for example, which can be soul killing.

It really depends on the kid. Mine just learned to decode on their own with us reading and doing other academics before K. I did not teach. School teacher phonics and I think it was great for other things but I don't see my kids learning to read that way if it was either us or the teacher teaching it. You doing both is probably the most help to most kids. I think best is to start in prek/4 vs. waiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like a reluctant admission that kids need to learn decoding first before adding in other curing systems.
And that sight words are best learned through decoding them frequently so it becomes automatic.

Honestly, I think people's reluctance to teach decoding seems to stem from the fact that it can be boring. But I teach phonics and decoding all day long, and kids find it fun. If you get them in the early years (K and early grade 1) they love it because it hasn't been done to death. I teach decoding in a very effective and efficient way, and it is very interactive and fast paced. It doesn't rely on circling the first letter of words on a worksheet for example, which can be soul killing.

It really depends on the kid. Mine just learned to decode on their own with us reading and doing other academics before K. I did not teach. School teacher phonics and I think it was great for other things but I don't see my kids learning to read that way if it was either us or the teacher teaching it. You doing both is probably the most help to most kids. I think best is to start in prek/4 vs. waiting.

Sure, some kids do learn to decode without explicitly being taught. Usually it is a combination of parents indirectly teaching letter sounds while reading to them in the very early years, and kids having a natural talent for segmenting sounds and blending them early on. Just as some kids can kick a soccer ball well at an early age without needing a lot of drill or instruction.

But the key is your children did learn to decode first. They probably didn't need the decoding instruction that happens in kindergarten and first grade. That's a great reason for assessing decoding skills early, and only providing instruction to those who need it.

Once kids can decode well, reading with the other cuing systems is appropriate.

The problem comes when 75% of your 1st grade class is decoding well but 25% aren't ... and the teacher isn't teaching decoding except in small snippets. She reads merrily along and has students guess words based on different strategies, and most kids can figure it out, because actually they can decode a lot of the word! But the kids with no decoding skills are helpless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It really depends on the kid. Mine just learned to decode on their own with us reading and doing other academics before K. I did not teach. School teacher phonics and I think it was great for other things but I don't see my kids learning to read that way if it was either us or the teacher teaching it. You doing both is probably the most help to most kids. I think best is to start in prek/4 vs. waiting.

The other thing is, I reach decoding even to students in grades 3 and 4. At that point, they are decoding multysyllable words with Greek and Latin roots, like mythological and psychiatric. It's an awful lot of fun for my students to be reading big words. Of course we also discuss the meaning of the roots so they can figure out the meaning of the words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you supporting your students, look up Heggerty which is a phonemic awareness curriculum for K-2 or 3 and there's lots of free content.

Oh snap. They locked down over the summer: All of their smaple lesson PDFs used to be freely available and now you have to register. Even the samples were very long/good so might be worth trying. This is what ATS is using now since they were freed from Lucy Caulkin a couple of years ago.
https://heggerty.org/downloads/english-kindergarten-sample-lessons/

It’s free but you just have to write in your email - no registration. I’ve been doing them with my kids and they are incredible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like a reluctant admission that kids need to learn decoding first before adding in other curing systems.
And that sight words are best learned through decoding them frequently so it becomes automatic.

Honestly, I think people's reluctance to teach decoding seems to stem from the fact that it can be boring. But I teach phonics and decoding all day long, and kids find it fun. If you get them in the early years (K and early grade 1) they love it because it hasn't been done to death. I teach decoding in a very effective and efficient way, and it is very interactive and fast paced. It doesn't rely on circling the first letter of words on a worksheet for example, which can be soul killing.

Please tell us more about your lessons!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like a reluctant admission that kids need to learn decoding first before adding in other curing systems.
And that sight words are best learned through decoding them frequently so it becomes automatic.

Honestly, I think people's reluctance to teach decoding seems to stem from the fact that it can be boring. But I teach phonics and decoding all day long, and kids find it fun. If you get them in the early years (K and early grade 1) they love it because it hasn't been done to death. I teach decoding in a very effective and efficient way, and it is very interactive and fast paced. It doesn't rely on circling the first letter of words on a worksheet for example, which can be soul killing.

Please tell us more about your lessons!

I post about it here all the time. I have researched the most efficient and effective programs that can be used one one one to teach decoding and remediate QUICKLY with my students in school and the ones I tutor. I believe that www.abcdrp.com (Abecedarian) is hands down the best assuming the student doesn't have a severe phonemic processing disability but is just "behind" The materials are dirt cheap and don't require any special training beyond reading a few free webpages. The lessons are incredibly efficient.

Here's information on the first level: http://www.abcdrp.com/level-a-2020