Lucy Calkins admits she was wrong - stop using this outdated method to teach reading

[Anonymous]

It completely depends on the child. Mine did well with traditional methods and not phonics. Other kids do better with phonics. The key is figuring out what works for that particular child.

[Anonymous]

It's really lame how there are people disparaging the "disgusting" teacher who "love" Calkins. Do you not understand that teachers are responsible for covering whatever material and programs their administration decides? It has nothing to do with what they "love" or what they personally believe in. I teach phonics to my special ed elementary students every day, we work on handwriting, we work on spelling, we work on word and sentence structure, etc., but I have friends who teach in the same setting who are not allowed to teach phonics at all.
Your beef is with the higher ups at the district who made those curriculum decisions. Yelling at teachers is like screaming at the checkout person because you disagree with a national chain's return policy - a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she's really, actually walking it back and not just putting lipstick on a pig. After all, Fairfax says it teaches "blended literacy," which is really just the cueing of Calkins with a tiny bit of phonics smattered around the edges.

I too am still working to undo damage done by this way for a child. I feel stressed to teach a preschooler to learn to read so that she won't even try to use the stupid picture/first letter cues. It's not good.

OP here. Same. My preschooler is going learn how to read before K and I am going to have a meeting with the principal to confirm that he is placed with a teacher that is teaching using a phonics-based approach before he starts there (and going to say definitely NO to the K teacher my 2nd grader had).

Why would you trust evidence based techniques on one aspect of learning to read, phonics, but ignore the whole part about not pushing kids to read too soon/before they’re ready and not to stress about it? If you read to/with your kid, they’ll learn to read, despite whatever technique they are learning in school. Try not to stress over it.

From experience with my older children, "just read with your kids" is not actually a solution to everything, that's why. Trust me, my kids have all been well over the threshold of 1000 books before kindergarten and I have continued to read with the older ones as they get older. We have a book-centered culture in our house and half our family jokes, at least, come from read-alouds.

[Anonymous]

I know not everyone is into Montessori, but one thing we love about it is the way that reading and writing are taught. Phonemic awareness begins to be taught via fun games at age 3, long before letters are introduced, and many kids are reading at least CVC words by the end of PK4. It's a very phonics-centered approach and very methodical in building skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/10/16/influential-literacy-expert-lucy-calkins-is-changing-her-views


I’m not a teacher, I did not study literacy instruction, but I do know that this is huge - the way my kid was taught to read in Kindergarten did NOT work for her and now the woman who promoted that method is walking it back and admitting that phonics, deciding, and sounding out words is what works. I hope all those teachers out there that are using this outdated method (cueing, guessing, looking at pictures first) listen and go back to the basics. My child is in second grade and we will be working on undoing the damage done by her kindergarten teacher for years to come.

Wow! I was a Lucy devotee. I still knew that children need direct phonics I struction, though, so I used a “whole literacy” approach, but many teachers don’t and this is amazing. UVA is now totaling abandoning Word Study and other methods that have been sacrosanct the past 20 years in literacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/10/16/influential-literacy-expert-lucy-calkins-is-changing-her-views


I’m not a teacher, I did not study literacy instruction, but I do know that this is huge - the way my kid was taught to read in Kindergarten did NOT work for her and now the woman who promoted that method is walking it back and admitting that phonics, deciding, and sounding out words is what works. I hope all those teachers out there that are using this outdated method (cueing, guessing, looking at pictures first) listen and go back to the basics. My child is in second grade and we will be working on undoing the damage done by her kindergarten teacher for years to come.

Wow! I was a Lucy devotee. I still knew that children need direct phonics I struction, though, so I used a “whole literacy” approach, but many teachers don’t and this is amazing. UVA is now totaling abandoning Word Study and other methods that have been sacrosanct the past 20 years in literacy.

Praise be! My really bad speller was in the top "word study" group and still couldn't spell properly to save her life. Direct phonics encoding instruction helped so much more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she's really, actually walking it back and not just putting lipstick on a pig. After all, Fairfax says it teaches "blended literacy," which is really just the cueing of Calkins with a tiny bit of phonics smattered around the edges.

I too am still working to undo damage done by this way for a child. I feel stressed to teach a preschooler to learn to read so that she won't even try to use the stupid picture/first letter cues. It's not good.

OP here. Same. My preschooler is going learn how to read before K and I am going to have a meeting with the principal to confirm that he is placed with a teacher that is teaching using a phonics-based approach before he starts there (and going to say definitely NO to the K teacher my 2nd grader had).

Why would you trust evidence based techniques on one aspect of learning to read, phonics, but ignore the whole part about not pushing kids to read too soon/before they’re ready and not to stress about it? If you read to/with your kid, they’ll learn to read, despite whatever technique they are learning in school. Try not to stress over it.

From experience with my older children, "just read with your kids" is not actually a solution to everything, that's why. Trust me, my kids have all been well over the threshold of 1000 books before kindergarten and I have continued to read with the older ones as they get older. We have a book-centered culture in our house and half our family jokes, at least, come from read-alouds.

Seriously! I think it's actually having been read to so much and being able to predict based on that that masked the underlying issues.

The chart here shows that 60% of children need explicit phonics instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she's really, actually walking it back and not just putting lipstick on a pig. After all, Fairfax says it teaches "blended literacy," which is really just the cueing of Calkins with a tiny bit of phonics smattered around the edges.

I too am still working to undo damage done by this way for a child. I feel stressed to teach a preschooler to learn to read so that she won't even try to use the stupid picture/first letter cues. It's not good.

OP here. Same. My preschooler is going learn how to read before K and I am going to have a meeting with the principal to confirm that he is placed with a teacher that is teaching using a phonics-based approach before he starts there (and going to say definitely NO to the K teacher my 2nd grader had).

Why would you trust evidence based techniques on one aspect of learning to read, phonics, but ignore the whole part about not pushing kids to read too soon/before they’re ready and not to stress about it? If you read to/with your kid, they’ll learn to read, despite whatever technique they are learning in school. Try not to stress over it.

From experience with my older children, "just read with your kids" is not actually a solution to everything, that's why. Trust me, my kids have all been well over the threshold of 1000 books before kindergarten and I have continued to read with the older ones as they get older. We have a book-centered culture in our house and half our family jokes, at least, come from read-alouds.

Seriously! I think it's actually having been read to so much and being able to predict based on that that masked the underlying issues.

The chart here shows that 60% of children need explicit phonics instruction.

Poster above. Should have said I was a new poster of a child with dyslexia that has been harmed by Lucy Calkins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she's really, actually walking it back and not just putting lipstick on a pig. After all, Fairfax says it teaches "blended literacy," which is really just the cueing of Calkins with a tiny bit of phonics smattered around the edges.

I too am still working to undo damage done by this way for a child. I feel stressed to teach a preschooler to learn to read so that she won't even try to use the stupid picture/first letter cues. It's not good.

OP here. Same. My preschooler is going learn how to read before K and I am going to have a meeting with the principal to confirm that he is placed with a teacher that is teaching using a phonics-based approach before he starts there (and going to say definitely NO to the K teacher my 2nd grader had).

Why would you trust evidence based techniques on one aspect of learning to read, phonics, but ignore the whole part about not pushing kids to read too soon/before they’re ready and not to stress about it? If you read to/with your kid, they’ll learn to read, despite whatever technique they are learning in school. Try not to stress over it.

From experience with my older children, "just read with your kids" is not actually a solution to everything, that's why. Trust me, my kids have all been well over the threshold of 1000 books before kindergarten and I have continued to read with the older ones as they get older. We have a book-centered culture in our house and half our family jokes, at least, come from read-alouds.

Seriously! I think it's actually having been read to so much and being able to predict based on that that masked the underlying issues.

The chart here shows that 60% of children need explicit phonics instruction.

Poster above. Should have said I was a new poster of a child with dyslexia that has been harmed by Lucy Calkins.

Totally forgot the link:
https://www.breakingthecode.com/2019-naep-reading-scores-vs-the-ladder-of-reading-a-striking-correlation/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she's really, actually walking it back and not just putting lipstick on a pig. After all, Fairfax says it teaches "blended literacy," which is really just the cueing of Calkins with a tiny bit of phonics smattered around the edges.

I too am still working to undo damage done by this way for a child. I feel stressed to teach a preschooler to learn to read so that she won't even try to use the stupid picture/first letter cues. It's not good.

OP here. Same. My preschooler is going learn how to read before K and I am going to have a meeting with the principal to confirm that he is placed with a teacher that is teaching using a phonics-based approach before he starts there (and going to say definitely NO to the K teacher my 2nd grader had).

Same here. My daughter just turned 4 and is doing phonics and sight words in preschool right now. I think their sight word for this week is “me.” They also made a little book with words with the short “e” sound. Knowing how phonics has gone out of style in many schools, we specifically asked about it when we toured and were very relieved to hear that they use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know not everyone is into Montessori, but one thing we love about it is the way that reading and writing are taught. Phonemic awareness begins to be taught via fun games at age 3, long before letters are introduced, and many kids are reading at least CVC words by the end of PK4. It's a very phonics-centered approach and very methodical in building skills.

I posted above. It isn’t just in Montessori; my kid goes to a Goddard School location in Maryland and they’re doing phonics/CVC words in her PK4 class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn't Arlington just buy this curriculum?

So Lucy Calkins did add a phonics component in 2017. I think for k-2nd. But I don’t know that every school uses it. I taught fourth this year and last. Both schools uses Lucy and I can tell my fourth graders never learned phonics. I’ve spoken up about it and admin just gets mad and I’m only a second year teacher so they def don’t listen... but I was a sub and aide for two years and what I saw the teachers in those districts use was Orton-Gillingham, a spelling curriculum, Worldy Wise, Words their Way, some dictation, explicit teaching of parts of speech and grammar... I saw first, second, and third graders writing better than most of the fourth graders I’ve taught when I was a sub and aide, and when I student taught in a third grade classroom. There’s stuff out there that works and I don’t know why they’d ever bother buying the new Lucy that had phonics because I’ve heard it’s not that great and isn’t there enough out there proving Lucy is an idiot and we shouldn’t be told we HAVE to use her?! It’s wild. I hate her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope she's really, actually walking it back and not just putting lipstick on a pig. After all, Fairfax says it teaches "blended literacy," which is really just the cueing of Calkins with a tiny bit of phonics smattered around the edges.

I too am still working to undo damage done by this way for a child. I feel stressed to teach a preschooler to learn to read so that she won't even try to use the stupid picture/first letter cues. It's not good.

m

As a fourth grade teacher who is told I HAVE to use Lucy, I try to undo some of the damage but there’s so many kids and so little time. I gave my students word ladder puzzles today and found myself saying things I’ve said to first graders as an aide and tutor in the past... like “‘h-ate. Oh now we substitute the h for an r. R-ate.” And some kids were spelling “care” and “came” with a k so I said “sometimes c makes a hard c sound like in cat. C-at. But sometimes it’s a soft c like in Cinderella.” It’s heart breaking they’re in fourth grade and I feel like I have to say this stuff to help them because they should’ve learned it in first and didn’t.

It also drives me crazy but again, I’m not blaming the kids. I just feel like my admin says I HAVE to teach Lucy 4th grade curriculum yet I find my kids need to learn so many things that many first, second, and third graders learn but at non-Lucy schools. Also, I’ve heard Colorado banned the use of her curriculum but I’m not sure how true it is as I taught in Fairfax last year and am in MA now. Both schools use that sh*t though!! Drives me insane. It really is harmful to the kids but if I tell admin that they aren’t happy to say the least... it’s use it or resign basically. But this year I’m slightly less micromanaged so I sneak stuff in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she's really, actually walking it back and not just putting lipstick on a pig. After all, Fairfax says it teaches "blended literacy," which is really just the cueing of Calkins with a tiny bit of phonics smattered around the edges.

I too am still working to undo damage done by this way for a child. I feel stressed to teach a preschooler to learn to read so that she won't even try to use the stupid picture/first letter cues. It's not good.

OP here. Same. My preschooler is going learn how to read before K and I am going to have a meeting with the principal to confirm that he is placed with a teacher that is teaching using a phonics-based approach before he starts there (and going to say definitely NO to the K teacher my 2nd grader had).

Same here. My daughter just turned 4 and is doing phonics and sight words in preschool right now. I think their sight word for this week is “me.” They also made a little book with words with the short “e” sound. Knowing how phonics has gone out of style in many schools, we specifically asked about it when we toured and were very relieved to hear that they use it.

Good! I have fourth graders spelling my “miy.” I also say some of the firth graders at this same school are. This is an upper middle class Massachusetts small down district. It’s cringe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she's really, actually walking it back and not just putting lipstick on a pig. After all, Fairfax says it teaches "blended literacy," which is really just the cueing of Calkins with a tiny bit of phonics smattered around the edges.

I too am still working to undo damage done by this way for a child. I feel stressed to teach a preschooler to learn to read so that she won't even try to use the stupid picture/first letter cues. It's not good.

OP here. Same. My preschooler is going learn how to read before K and I am going to have a meeting with the principal to confirm that he is placed with a teacher that is teaching using a phonics-based approach before he starts there (and going to say definitely NO to the K teacher my 2nd grader had).

Teachers don’t pick and choose what to use. They are told what to use.

OP here - I don't think this is true at our elementary school. Although FCPS uses the "blended" approach, some teachers definitely focused much more on phonics than others.